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Weekly podcasts that contain a multiverse of opinions on All Things pop culture, exclusive videos and weekly live streams where we laugh, scream, and sometimes have technical difficulties, all created by folks like you, the gamers, the film nerds, the TV, bingers, comic book lovers, bookworms, and pop culture enthusiasts all in one giant bowl of beautiful disgusting soupy goodness at couchsoup.com. Welcome back to The Doctor Who, watching now podcasts from Couch Soup. The Doctor and Ruby Sunday, mostly Ruby Sunday, are back for the fourth episode of Doctor Who, 73 Yards, and boy oh boy, do we have a lot to go through today. Let me introduce our panel. We have 73 Yards Ben. Hello, I'm 73 Yards away from the podcast. Also 73 Yards Charlotte? I'm trying to think what the, what it would be in metric. They don't, they don't teach us other maths here, right? There you go. I'm just, and then every, you guys just need to disappear after I was screaming right away. Yep. Ian's going back to the start of the podcast. Why? It's a loop. Fuck you. It's me. It's Ian. I'm going to be solid today guys. So buckle up before we get to my soul. We should probably get to the non-spoiler overview from all of our guys and gals. Broad summary of this episode, Ruby and Dr. Landon Whales break some kind of weird cotton circle that we later found out is a fairy circle. And then the doctor disappears. He's left alone, sort of, there's just an old lady in the background of every shot doing some ASL or something. And then she's like bringing in like an air traffic, like she's like an air traffic door. Exactly. She's like bringing in a plane. Exactly. The whole concept of this is Ruby needs to find a way to get rid of her or just learn to live with it. We have another episode of Dr. Who, Sans Doctor. There's actually quite a few of them in history, which is really interesting. I always like when they kind of ditch the doctor focus on the companion for a change. Lovely little bit of Welsh folklore. Pretty scenery. Love the scenery. We're Whales, of course. I loved it. I thought it was just great. Just the atmospheric wise, fantastic, story wise, I have questions, a few, I have a few. We've all got questions, Charlotte, we've all got questions I think today. Just to sum it up really, it's a head scratcher. This episode, just kind of. Okay. So I am convinced we were not watching an episode of Dr. Who. We were watching an episode of either Torchwood or Black Mirror that ended up on the cutting room floor. One of those two, I think this episode should just be entitled Who, because there is very little doctor. I feel like it was filled with all sorts of stuff that just had to be filled in later. I think that later episodes will put some context on to this episode to say why it was needed to be here. But right now, it's just, it's sort of inconsistent and full of so many holes and plot holes. We just don't have the information to make any sense of it. It's just kind of not excusable to me. I didn't like it. I think that there was a hint of a story here, but it was this is something that you're just going to be like, huh, at the end of it, and think, well, why? This episode is 47 minutes long, and about 40, 45 minutes of it is incredibly awesome, like it's incredible. There's two minutes of it that almost like tank this whole episode. And it's the end. It just, it doesn't do, the ending is just not there. It needs to be more to tie things together. It just doesn't, it doesn't quite make sense. And to the point where I had to go back and actually watch the opening 10 minutes again, because I didn't even understand what was going, like I had to like refresh my memory of how this episode opened to refresh, like why, how the ending and the beginning, like it was very confusing and, and, and, and, and, but the rest of the episodes are awesome. The tension that it's scary, it's got some jokes in it that are just like downright awesome. Like the writing, I think is really on point here. Like the dialogue at least is really, really fun and witty and sharp. I actually even like the politics that get, that it's thrown in here. A lot of, I know a lot of people probably disagree with me there. I actually liked when it goes in the episode, and I like these kinds of episodes that kind of take time travel, and you kind of follow a single singular character that's meant to kind of do something spectacular with their livelihood. And in general, I liked this episode, and, and we could, we could learn this could end up being one of the best episodes of the Doctor Who, I think for a lot of people, if the rest of the season kind of clears up some of the, the head scratching is that we're all kind of like having here, but it's, I thought it was great overall. Fuck this episode. Fuck it right to the hell. You go to hell. You go to hell and you die. Oh, okay, wow. All right. Wow. I have to agree with most of what you said, Drew, but the ending tanks it's so hard that it makes the rest of the episode tarnished. It's just shit because of the ending. Those types of endings, fuck me right up the arse. It's just. Nice. And you're not into that. I'm not into that. Okay. Okay. It's just been like a scenario where today, today, yeah, it's a wins there. It's a Monday. Yeah. Yeah. And we only do those type of things. We use it and then why. Yeah. Kind of that. Yeah. I like this, like split here because I have the more I thought about this episode, the more like, because I actually like this, I was with you, Ben, like the end of the episode, I was really to throw the remote at the TV. The more I thought about it and the more I actually went on Twitter and I actually started reading other people's comments because I, I, I too was sort of like, and a lot of people were feeling what, but a lot of people kind of were pointing out some interesting things. And I thought that I think are actually pretty clever that if they can do something here near the last four episodes of this season to kind of like give reasons for why Ruby is able to do some of the things she's able to do, then I might be in, I might be in on this season. Whatever they do, then we'll go on to our spoiler talk, spoilers from this point forward. If I can't control myself, it might, I might spoil the ending straight away. So just beware, viewer. The doctor and Ruby step off of the TARDIS on a whale's cliff. It's dead pretty, there's ocean in the background and there's greenery and they start talking about stuff that the doctor shouldn't talk about yet, which is like spoilers for 2046. Shouldn't really be talking about stuff in the inner future yet, but we'll get to that later. First thing that they do is step on some cotton. It's not just any cotton though, it's some weird occult cotton. I think it's a plant because it happened to be right in front of where the TARDIS blended, like primed to be stepped on. It's in the middle of nowhere, there's not even a sign or anything, it's just there. That's a plant, like somebody has placed that there. The TARDIS always plants them in a situation, so I, it's sort of like, I don't, that didn't bother me, like the fact that the TARDIS lands right on top of a problem, it always lands right on top of a problem, you know what I'm saying, it's sort of, that's its place. I'm with you, Drew, on that one. It barely ever lands in a safe place, it's a troublemaker, it's a shitster. Totally, yeah. No, I agree the whole, like him talking about Mad, or the Mad Jack, I guess, and then that the papers happen to read Mad Jack, it feels like an odd coincidence. I don't have a problem with him talking about the future all the time, he's like, "Oh yeah, you guys are space-faring, you guys will leave Earth one day, oh yeah, humans, well," you know, he talks about that shit all the time. But I agree that coincidence there, the fact that he was verbally talking about that person and then the notes on the scrolls inside the cotton hex, or the cotton-fairyed circle, are about that same person, is oddly convenient. So I do kind of feel like where you're going there, Ben, where it's just somebody planted it, or there's some weird coincidence. And that's been the theme with Ruby the whole season, right, coincidence, like that's kind of her superpower as it were almost. I was thrown off at first when they started talking about fairy circles, because fairy circles here are not made out of string, they're made out of mushrooms. I also found it very strange that things were mentioned on the papers that they were talking about. And it's Dr. Hubert, it's always a bit odd, things always kind of line up, what was it that TARDIS once said to him, "I didn't take you where you want to go, but I took you where you needed to go." That thought was already in his head. To me, it just kind of makes sense. It's just Dr. Hubert, just what they do. The abruptness of his disappearance was... It's strange, maybe. It left a little bit too much of a question, and there's no explanation. Well, I feel like Ruby was just shunned, I don't know a different timeline where the doctor wasn't there. Do you? That's what I feel like. I mean... The TARDIS is? So there is a doctor, just not him. The TARDIS being there, I think, is throwing everyone into the universe after. There's a line later on where a character talks about it being a personal timeline or something, which I think explains that. I just felt like the doctor was moved on to a different plane of existence. It was the doctor that got moved, not Ruby, when we get to the unit stuff, and the mother and the nana and all of that jazz. It made more sense that it was the doctor being punished for him being the one that initially broke the fairy circle. But yeah, the abruptness of the doctor leaving the timeline was like, "Hey, what's he gone?" To me, what I felt it was, was that the paradox immediately got taken into account and the doctor was removed because the paradox technically already happens where Ruby already goes back and the doctor's back on the timeline she gets to later. I do have one last thing to talk about, the fairy circle out. Russell T. Davies vs. Sean Fairies before in an episode of Torchwood, and so they exist and they don't have anything to do with this sort of thing, sort of a Russell, "What are you doing? Didn't you already do this?" In that episode, Torchwood, the fairy's only vanished children into the fairy dimension or something. Yeah. So they've got previous for vanishing people. Yeah, I guess they do. So it does work out there. So once the doctor's gone, Ruby sees the old woman on the cliff doing the sign language under a creepy little tree, and then Ruby walks off thinking she's just a mad old lady on the cliff, so she walks away and she follows her at a distance and just keeps following her, following her and following her until Ruby meets a hiker. Who's the hiker, guys? Susan Twist. It's them again. It's Susan Twist. This time, however, Ruby sort of recognizes a sort of, "Don't I know you? Don't I know, cost up." I think she's got more lines than this episode than she had in the others. I don't know. But when I watch it, I was waiting for the, because she recognizes her, and then I'm waiting for the shoe to drop, right, because we've all been talking about it, and I think a lot of the internet's kind of picked up on it, right? It's not like something that it's almost like Davey's is trolling us, right? It's kind of because it's clever because Ruby says, "Oh, and can you mention ask if she knows where the doctor is?" She's asked the old lady to talk to the other old lady that's going silently, and she's like, "Doctor, I don't, Doctor Who?" She doesn't know. She's like, "Who lists about the doctor?" So kind of, and Phil sincere, either that's a good actor, maybe she's a good actor, but it feels really sincere. It doesn't feel like there's undertone there, and then she walks up to the thing and gets flummoxed, just like everyone, she talks to the old lady and then runs away screaming. So she's clearly not like a supernatural being of what, you know what I'm saying? She's not part of the, what do we call it? The pantheon. The pantheon. Yeah, the pantheon, yeah. She's not part of the pantheon. So, like right away, like he's sort of given this A, she doesn't know who the doctor is, B, she's not part of the pantheon, but she's still sort of showing up as a coincidence throughout each timeline, so it's super weird. Ben, you're, excuse me, your theory last week about Susan seems to really be everywhere. I have listened to several podcasts now where people are discussing being breadcrumbed by Davies, like he used to do with other characters or other things throughout, like the Batwulf appearing everywhere, and you don't really notice it until you go back and watch it, but it's been there the whole time. The weird thing now is he's given like three trails of breadcrumbs at the same time, so you've got to really work out which one you want to do, and they're all in this episode. The Susan Twist, Mrs. Flood and Ruby herself. The Hiker lady, she pegs it, and then Ruby also trundles off thinking that was pretty weird, and then gets to the town, I forget the name of the town, it was Welsh sounding, it had lots of Gs and Ws and Ls in it. She goes into a pub, asks for a room, they look at her like a local pub, it should do, it makes my heart grow funder. No, you don't belong here, get the fuck out of my pub, just for a room, and asks if you can play on a phone, and they troll a city girl in a local pub in Wales. This part of the episode is so, because the tension is really amped up to 100, you know? This lady's been following Ruby, she hides in this tavern, and you can see her out there. When other people can see her, when she points it out, it's kind of crazy, you're like, "Holy shit, this is creepy." It's like dark out, it's kind of stormy looking, and they're in the pub, and they're all talking about like, "Oh, you broke the fairy circle." "Oh, man, Jack," and they're leaning into it, and Ruby's like, "Oh, well, what's that mean?" and they're like, "Oh, well, he murdered whatever, you know what I'm saying?" And they're like, "Just giving her feeding her everything." And there's a moment where you're like, "As the audience, you're like, "Oh, shit, this is like your fucked Ruby." And then they all just start laughing, and I'm just like, "Oh my god, genius, genius." This is my favorite part of the episode. From this part of the episode, I've started thinking that Ruby should be written in Squidward, because everything hates Ruby. No matter where she goes, she gets shot, she gets gunk, she gets tied up, she gets everything that happens in this episode, everything hates Ruby, even her own mom hates her in this episode. Then we get the second instance of someone, again, shit scared of the woman, when good old Joshy goes to speak to her, he runs off and refuses to come back to the pub until Ruby's gone, ominous. So Ruby gets kicked out as well. The woman has not left Ruby's 73 yards away since the circle's broken. I thought she was being haunted by something. I figured there might be somewhere that could have been fixed or something, but it never really does. So I don't really know. At this point in the episode, I was kind of spooked. I think by this point, while we were still in the pub, I was waiting for some words of wisdom from, I believe, the way she pronounces her name is Charne Phillips, the older lady that's in the pub. She was in Dune, if you don't know, the original. I just really wanted some good Welsh folk lore explanation of backstory or something to give me an idea of what's happening because I'm lost at this point. Any cue cards? I need a script. Somebody help. I really like this setup of this episode that it's felt ominous like this character. She can't get to it. And everybody she sends to it runs away. Like incredible. Like what a great, like, that's a great premise, right? So it's sort of like, how can you stop something from coming at you or not coming up, but just the sense of being there is scary, and then not being able to get rid of it, or even the people that you think can help you, can't get rid of it either. Like this is the point where in the episode, I'm like, "Oh my God, I'm leaning in heavy." And after the trolling at the bar, I'm like, "This is great. I'm all in here." To the point where I've almost forgotten, and almost don't care that the doctor's not in this at this moment, it changed from the episode I thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to be one of those like, "Okay, she's in a town at a bar, and she's going to try to save everybody." Like she's going to send one person out at a time and try to figure out, like, you know, everyone is going to come back with a different clue or something. You know what I'm saying? It's like the monster that we've kind of arrived, and she's going to solve it somehow. The doctor's going to show up randomly. And then the episode goes completely off that train of track. So it's again, it felt like expertly structured to sort of subvert your expectations for a doctorate episode at every 10 minutes that felt like it turns, so very clever. To me, I felt it was almost going to be a Weep and Angel episode, and like, there were those sort of breadcrumbs to make you feel like that throughout the episode until the ending as well, that it was going to be a Weep and Angel episode, because like, the atmosphere is scary enough to be like something like that episode. As we go on, it feels ripped right out of the Twilight Zone, just like a one-shot Twilight Zone. I was enjoying it at this point. It has to go really far downhill to make me not enjoy it at this point. And it did. We've been leaves the Welsh town, I'll fluff-fluff-fluff-fluff-fluff, I will call it. Sorry, Welsh people, she goes back to London, back to a mum and Nana, tells her everything that's happened on our doctors gone. It was good while it lasts, that sort of thing. And then starts telling a mum about the old lady who's quite far away, but not far enough. So a mum comes up with a great idea, what if I get on the phone with you and then I approach it and then you can hear what it's saying. At this point, Mrs. Flood, who we saw back in the Toymaker episode, the Giggle, who we all know Ben hates that old lady from Coronation Street. Eastenders. Oh, sorry, I don't know things that there is a difference. She comes out and goes, "What are you doing? I'm dipping." Yeah, I ain't, I don't want any part of this. Let me go back down to my cellar. She skipped the episode. She did. She saw what was going to happen and she was like, "Nah, I'm not for this guys. I'm going to go back in my house in the relative safety." What the fuck is going on with Mrs. Flood? She has a very brief appearance in this one, but like she knows shit going down. Maybe she's like Russell T. Davies' Avatar in the series. Maybe Russell speaks through like as an Avatar. I think she's a red herring. I don't think she's anybody. I think she's just the creepy old neighbor and oddly enough she speaks directly to the camera in that first episode and it's forgotten. I don't think she's nobody. She's just the creepy old neighbor that sees things and knows things and probably seen the TARDIS before. She's old. The Doctor's been around a long time. She's probably seen a TARDIS land in London at some point. I think a lot of people have thousands of theories. My theory is she's just the she's neighbor. She's Mrs. Flood. She's the neighbor. I just found it very strange that the noziest woman on the block decided that whatever was very interesting happening outside her door was none of her business because she was like it has nothing to do with me and walks into her house. She knows a lot about her neighbors and what they do and don't do and what they like and don't like. People strange she's not out there nozing. Maybe she is nobody but breaking the fourth wall stuff and from that episode there's something going on. Yeah. And I don't know what it is but you know today the Doctor wasn't about so we didn't get any musical numbers. It could be a good point. Yeah. We'll go on and win. This episode didn't have as a musical number. You're right. No singing was about. We figured it out. It's just the Doctor. The Doctor loves singing. We go back to this masterful plan that Ruby and her mum have. Ruby's mum starts walking down the street, gets closer and closer and Ruby's like what she's saying mum. Ruby asks what does she look like? Mum said looks like what she looks like and then mum says she looks like what she is. Nobody knows what that is at the moment but it's walking creepy. That's a creepy way of putting anything. They actually answer that in like 10 minutes later, like not even. It's great. That leads to like actually my favourite part of this episode that actually was just so good was Ruby's mum leaving in a taxi and just staring it down like she killed her cat. I know. Like the look on the actress's face looking at Millie Gibson was absolutely amazing. It was just so terrifying. It gives them a little bit of me like that. I think it's over. They hit me forever. Yeah. Man. It was terrible but also just like heartbreaking because you're like you kind of suspected it could happen but the fact that the episode went there you were like oh shit. You know? Like wow. And I want to note that three people that have run away so far so the twist and the old lady on the hiker ran away and you don't really know why but she kind of just runs away from the whole situation and it kind of feels like she's running away from both Ruby and the old lady kind of feels like a boat because why not run back to Ruby and say like something? Right? It feels like she's just leaving the situation like both of them. And then the same thing when the bar guy, I forgot his name, one of the bar Josh, thank you, when he leaves and goes and he actually there is a dialogue line that says like he's not coming back because he, because of her right, like and she thinks it's her like the barkeep, the owner of the bar thinks it's Ruby but Ruby thinks he means her. And you don't really quite understand but the way I'm putting it all together they're sort of like tied together like they're both, they're both scared of each other like you don't want to be around Ruby or, or that thing right it's sort of like they're tied like in a like a quantum flux or some shit right quantum state. So I don't, I'm just bringing that up because I think it's important later when something else happens that doesn't quite make sense and I want to talk about it. I really want to know what the, the creature says to Ruby's mother because when you see her drive by or ride by in the cab, she looks disgusted. What could have been said to arouse that kind of an emotion and reaction in an adopted mother. Russell, I think there was an interview and I, it was a, I saw it on Twitter and I don't, I don't know the source other than someone quoted him saying he'll never tell you what, what she said. Like it's up to, because it makes it scarier for us to feel like to kind of put what could possibly be there than rather than him tell you right so it's sort of like that. That was from Dr. Who Unlimited. It is pretty scary. What could like evoke such hatred in such a loving mother to change the locks, never speak to a child again. Yeah. And tell her on the phone. I'm not even your real mom. Your real mom didn't want you either. Like wow. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't just inspire like running away but absolute hatred which to be fair, the universe has shown that to Ruby like the entire series but that would just be so visceral. It's like, I don't know, space babies really liked Ruby. They were kind of close. Yeah. Yeah, but she got, she got slimed. Yeah. The doctor didn't get slimed, don't he Ruby? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was rough. A year goes by and it takes a year for unit to respond to Ruby apparently. They left the bridge to it, the head of unit that we saw Lasso in the giggle. Yeah. She comes to Ruby and with a plan. They have been tracking the old lady. No camera can pick it up. It's like a vampire almost, except more buzzy rather than clear images. Whilst they're talking the cafe, other unit troops converge on the old lady. Go, go, go, get the old lady. The bear is down, repeat the bear, he's down, forgot the bear. I think that's a wookie, that's a wookie, and it's not, it's a bear. Just the image of this old woman that nobody else can see and suddenly all these armed troops with sniper rifles start taking aim at a random part of the street where nobody else can see it. The people must be panicking like crazy hollows. People can see it, they just don't notice it, that's the thing, isn't it? So they know that there's an old lady there, they can see the old lady, but they just don't know that there's anything weird about her even though she's just like fuzzy in the peripheries. The government are really getting impressed about the pension edge. Yeah, said she had her own perception filter basically. Right, like the target, yeah. I hope this moment was awesome, because here's a moment where like she's about to get help finally, she's like, "Oh my god, thank you," like she's like literally like, "You know all this information, like you're feeding me information that I've took that's taken me years to figure out, like, "Oh my god, where have you been?" And this is a great point in the episode two, because there's a lot of info dump here. They're like, "Oh yeah, she's 73 yards, now you understand the meaning of the episode title." She looks like she's always 73 yards away no matter how close or what camera we use or high definition. So there's like, there's some reasoning why the mother can only see what's saying. She looks like what she looks like. You know what I'm saying? Like there's some now reasoning behind that. And so you're starting to get logic applied to something scary that's scary. So again, for me, this is like, "Oh yeah, great, this is good stuff." Like this is good horror dump, like info dump, like mystery shit. And the moment, like, yeah, like she's like, "Okay, we're going to help you, we're going to," and she's like, "You could see her, like, start to feel like she has hope." And then it all gets just ripped fucking away because whatever she whispers, like those in the left bridge is calm and she just ups and fucking, she's like, abort or whatever, I forget, she's like, and everybody just can't fucking leave and engage. Seems to leave Ruby, not only the, seems to be like, "I'm out of your life, Ruby," as well. Like, it's not just they're scared of the thing, they're scared of Ruby, like they want no part of Ruby. She's like, "I just don't want anything to do with you, Ruby, you're out of whatever, we're not helping you." And that seems to apply with everybody that's kind of met, like, it's not like her mom stopped caring about living or something and just went off and did something, it's just, she didn't care about Ruby anymore. So, and again, I'm pointing this out because something happens later in the episode that just makes no sense to me. I have one thing about this conversation that might have slipped people. Firstly, we get to have a look at Kate Stewart's fingernails and they're the same as the one that picks up the master. And when Ruby asks her, "How did you survive out the doctor for this time?" She says, "By the skin of our teeth," which is what the master was stuck in, which I think might be a clever hint to saying that she's Amanda wallering the master around to help with units investigations. It's a really good theory. It's dumb if she's doing that though. Yeah. You don't get away with the master doing that. That's interesting because she also says like, "Oh, we work with the doctor and sometimes against them." It's sort of like she's definitely put herself even to Ruby in the gray area. I'm always happy to see unit come into an episode because there's always something fun going on or something crazy or something just absolutely ridiculous. This case, it was a little ridiculous. I love Kate's reaction to hearing the whisper because you don't really get to see a close-up reaction to anybody else while it's happening. I like to just kind of see the shift in her face when she's just like, "All right, I'm fucking out." She goes from being very genial to just instantly. The interesting thing is that they could have turned their snipers on Ruby right then if they were truly scared and thought she was a threat. Kate doesn't think she's a threat. She just wants her gone from her life. That's all it is. If they were truly scared, they could have taken her out right then now, but they didn't. That's a good point. Which is a really strange way to hit someone enough to get them away from you. Especially as a unit, I guess, who are specialising in supernatural forces and keeping them under control or getting rid of them altogether if they thought that Ruby was a threat in that instance, unless some part of the whispers was just controlling the people that it whispered to to say, "Leave her alone, but fuck off." They're not really afraid of a lot because they're not above going and just snatching up the tardis with a helicopter and flying it across London. Ruby's alone, 100% alone and she's got no one around her. She's been abandoned by her mom. She's been abandoned by the doctor. So she said things. She's been abandoned by a unit. Time to learn to live with the VP old lady 73 yards away from her. She does that for one year and she goes to another five years. She's 30 now and then she's 40. She's 40. And you know she's 40 because she starts wearing glasses and wears a different haircut. Yeah, the old age makeup you kind of got cut from the budget, I feel like, wasn't really there. Wearing glasses. It's all you get. Just a wig in glasses. Wearing glasses. Yeah. Maybe we ain't going to sit you in a chair and do makeup. The sketchy on set or somewhere is in class. Millie Gibson does put on an amazing I am done with lifeface that all 40 are old to wear. Oh god. That's bad. It's bad. Why? Why do we keep attacking Shala in this? Oh no, I didn't get Shala in. It was at this moment he knew. He fucked up. Yeah, I'm over 42, babe. Do I have to look at my face? It's a really funny thing. Oh no, what am I doing? We all have it occasionally. It's fine. On the 40th year of Ruby's birth, someone that we had heard about before from the doctor, Roger App Guillium, not William, Guillium. And he is wanting to run for Prime Minister as a Welshman for the Albion party. I don't know if that is important at all, but I assume it's a BBC Let's Not Be Partial to either side in this debate, which I guess they still have to do in top do. Well, they didn't say what party Harold Saxon was representing either. It is clear to see that he fucking loves nukes. Yeah, he's got a new come. He definitely wants some fallout. Watch the Fallout Watching Now podcast on couch soup whenever you get a chance. Ruby goes all the dead zone on us and starts getting close to William, signs up to volunteer for election. She carries coats around whilst they're having a nice interview on TV, which he totally wrecks and asks the TV person to cut out everything where he said he wanted to explode the world with nuclear weapons. Cut that path, cut me to the corner on the nose. Do not air that, please. He wins the election, and they're about to have a nice press conference on the field at Cardis City Stadium, where he's about to tell the world that he's bought loads of nukes off of Pakistan and they're going to leave NATO, and Ruby's like, "Oh, no, he's definitely going to use those nukes in me." If it wasn't clear before, also, he's actually a salt, it's a woman. Yeah, there's a side plot there where it's implied that he kind of like abuses, sexually abuses, so if you didn't think he was bad before, he's definitely bad now. Yeah, it's definitely implied, Marty, I think, and Amos says, "He's a monster." Yeah, he is a monster, he is a fucking... Well, I think what's interesting is there's a moment when she's going through her historical sort of history of like, you see the years go by, right, like she's doing the cheers from her window to the lady. And there's a moment where she actually, like, the comfort of her is there, and she... We also, 'cause we also see her going on dates and stuff like that with like other people trying to find relationships, but she can't, because she's already in a relationship with this old lady, right, like, which is pretty interesting, like, pretty like a nice, like, here's the deal, this, it's not just a trope, right, like, it's not just, "Hey, there's this scary thing," now we're introduced to, like, a character moment where we understand like how this would affect, truly affect someone, which is really cool, like, and again, I just go back to the writing of it. It's really, really, like, this is a really well-written episode, like from a character study, right, like, Davis really understands, like, are you guys, have any of you watched Baby Ranger? I'm going to go off on a little side to engineer. So, Baby Ranger deals with something like this where someone was, sort of, like, can't get out of their own way, can't find a relationship because he's in a relationship with a stalker. Like, he likes having a stalker, and for reasons we get into that, I don't need to get into it, but, like, him having a stalker, most people would go to the police and just get rid of it, be like, "Hey, you're restraining order," but he didn't want to because he wanted the attention, right, and not that Ruby can go and get rid of this person, but the fact that there's someone always with her is now it becomes not scary to her anymore, but comfort it, right? Like, it's something that she looks forward to. And I thought that was a really cool or smart way to address this problem because I think any other writer or a lot of other writers would have just kept the tension going and been like, "Oh, no, it's terrifying. She's always scared. She's crying in a corner always." No, no. Like, you go through long enough. This becomes just part of every day. You actually, you start to, like, expect it and want it and need it, and I think that's really, I thought this was really smart. I thought, again, I keep praising this episode. Again, I think this episode is like 99% just incredible, and then the last, like, to your pointy in the ending is just, like, so frustrating. But here's another moment where I really, really thought they nailed this progression of time and what it would be like for someone to go through this, I thought this was really smart. It's like, when I got told that I had tintus and now it's just there, it's just there. I know it's there. I can't do anything about it. I just live with it. It's Ruby's tinnitus. Tinnitus? Tinnitus? I guess? Is it tinnitus or tinnitus? No. It's a ring in my ears. Yeah. Tinnitus. Yeah. Tinnitus. It's tinnitus in our country, actually. It's awesome. Is it? Oh, sure. It's crazy. And I learned something every day. Don't start anybody on what this is. Yeah. I don't know. Is it a can? I can't avoid that. Yeah. What it's made of? Aluminum. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Tell the rest of the world how the Brits say a little bit. Right now I am going to put a gift of a fishing rod and I'm not going to fucking buy it. Damn it. Nice try, Charlotte. I know. I gave it every time I hear it. I can't help it. It's aluminium. It's aluminium. It's aluminium. Nice. I love it. So we're on the football field. And Ruby knows this is her last chance to assassinate the William, Mad Jack, William. Assassinate is a strong term, but basically what she does. She starts walking on the grass and starts. She overestimates the amount of walking she has to do at first and then she starts measuring the distance so that she can position the woman. We know which direction. What would she have done if it would have been behind her? I don't know. Turn around. Yeah. All to the side. Yeah. You know, it's positioned in the perfect spot to get William on stage. So she positions it so that the old lady is right next to him so that William can hear what the old lady says, oh no, I hate Ruby, so I'm off and can't think of it. Yeah. I am now going to abandon government because of the way to resign. This doesn't make sense to me. Does that mean that Kate Stewart also resigned from unit because she could no longer do a job? Right. You see where I was going to do why I set this up? It doesn't make any sense. Like he literally quits parliament. He's the prime minister of Britain and he's like, peace out, I don't want to do this anymore because it's all lady talk to me. He has nothing to do with Ruby. This is where the episode starts to fall apart, right? It starts to like, the plot holes start to like shine grew and it's frustrating because you're like, oh my God, this episode was Prash, and I can almost forgive it, I can almost forgive it because what if the old lady tells the person what they need to hear for them to kind of be gone from the situation? I don't know. I could probably reason my way out of it, but it's not a clear one, right? It's not a, if I have to like come up with excuses on why it happened, it's bad storytelling. So here we are in a bad storytelling where all the other characters, all the other moments where the character just cared about, we're getting away from Ruby and now we have a person that not only wants to probably get rid of a Ruby, but quits part on it. The logical way to do it would have been for it to start yelling about I need the chords. I'm going to nuke right here right now, give me the chords and he gets rugby tackles and just sent to jail. Like that would have been the better way to do it, but I don't know why he had to go back and be like, I'm writing my resignation right now. Yeah. Ask her about it. Ask her. Makes me want to know what was said to her mother even more. Something like, okay, pissed her off, made this one bugger off, scared that one, scared that one, never heard from any of these people again. But again, to Drew's point, they didn't just quit. This guy buggered off completely from everything. Yeah. He decided to piece out from all of his obligations immediately. Yeah. Yeah. He quit everything. I want to know what was said, not just your, I want to know what it was said to all of them because I'm just like, what the hell can you say? Yeah. It's like, it's like there was a scene cut out that had somebody where like, she had a boss or something or something where that boss then resigned because she was part of that. Like, you could draw the line to say like, she was a part on his political team. Therefore, he resigned not to be close to root. Like, so that's where the logic goes, right? Like, right away, you're like, okay, Ruby's, Ruby's on, in, on his team. Therefore, she, he has to resign in order to get away from her. Right? So that's like the through line quickly, but like they needed a moment, another moment where that happened where she knew that would happen to him because otherwise it doesn't make sense like why like she would know that that's the, the, the witch lady would, would do that to him. Like, so it's sort of like, it's missing, it's missing a pen and that's frustrating for a great episode. He wasn't listening for it, he didn't know that the lady was there because of that perception filter. How many other drive-bys is this woman had over the, over the time? She could never go into a Costco because like, she would be inside the Costco. Right. That's true, Costco's are big enough. Yeah, you're right. Exactly. Yeah. No ball of paper towels for you. Sorry. Yeah. Anyone walking like Christmas Eve, best Christmas present in the, in the world, that, that old lady on the street, on the pavement, anyone walking past booked, just wasn't talking to her. It was just that. It was just stood by it. But no, he did. No, he, he, he, like, he, he walked up to her and said, but you're right, he probably should have would have ignored her. Yeah. Because everyone else had a prompt to go and like, okay, you see her go talk to her. He didn't have that prompt either. Right. So again, another, another flaw in the logic, but, but the tension of this moment where she's walking them the field, the 73 yards is executed well. Like I thought this was great. Again, yeah, it's like, oh my gosh, like, it's like this, it's, it's, it's so irritating because the episode's so good. The tension was unneeded in this part of the episode. To me, from everyone's perspective, she's moving away from the VIP. And they're getting progressively more panicked, like, oh, she's moving away from the guy I was supposed to protect. She would have, like, what? She's actively moving away from the guy you're protecting you, Nuts. Yeah. I took that as like, the moment someone is just moving and not listening and when you're telling them to not move, it doesn't matter which direction they're going, they're not listening to you. So it's like, it's like me trying to punish my child, right? I don't care what he's doing. He's not doing the thing I want him to do. Therefore, I'm going to get angry. You will listen to me and not speak a word. I am your father and you boy are not yourself. You are too quick to temper, you are rash, insubordinate and out of control. This will not stand. It just doesn't make any sense to me, like, they're literally saying, oh, she's moving, but she's moving away from the guy was supposed to protect things, so maybe they watch too many American cop shows or it doesn't matter if you're doing what you're told or not. Right. That's my point. Yeah. That's a very American response to your situation. I don't think that's how British people would respond to that. It'd be confused more than anything. Somebody would probably be running at them with handcuffs instead of, you know, resorting to guns. It did the job though. Accomplished her mission, she's all good with the old lady now because she became useful. And then another 40 years go by and now she's 80 years old, she goes up and sees the TARDIS and it's become some sort of memorial for the Welshies. The TARDIS hasn't moved. It's just there. It's got moss growing all over it and all that stuff. We find out that she's never taught to a mum again and never found out who her actual mum was, which is, which is never, it's never snowed again, never snowed again. It's never snowed again. She used to have the power to make it snow and she didn't know how to use it. Which it did earlier in the episode. Which, yeah, I think that's a big indicator that this timeline just isn't working as part of reality. I think it's like a bubble timeline. Maybe. Like, centered around Ruby. We'll go a little bit forward. Ruby's on her deathbed. I think so at this point. It's the most unbelievable part of the episode. The NHS is still working in so many years. Why? Lights out. She chides the young note nurse for telling her that she shared technology with a voice activated light. And then the lights go out and the old lady appears and it's closer than 73 yards and it's a little bit closer again. And then the light thickened horror style. And then she becomes the old lady. Does she? It looks like she becomes the old lady. Actually, that's what happened. You don't think it's like what happened. I think she just died. In the loop's broken. I think the old lady is the old lady. I don't think it's Ruby. The very circle said. Mad Jack and rest in peace. So maybe those two needed to be fulfilled. It's hard. And this is where the episode gets a little wonky. Yeah, I can see how you would how both ways though. Because it does feel like she's turning and she's reaching to become one with the entity or something. Like they're going to combine or the old lady. But my thought is like she just like that's her last thing she sees before she dies. Like it needs kind of this creepy thing and it's sort of important because you never see her face. So we never really know what. Well, the reason why I think that is because the camera went into first person like he were her eyes, like Ruby became her eyes, the old lady's eyes. The words that that she starts saying, I think so anyway, is don't step, don't step and which is rejecting on to. Once we go back in time to the beginning, because she's not saying that at the death bed moment, right? It jumps into the old lady at the beginning of the loop, it seemed. What do you mean she jumped into her? I don't know. I'm not sure. Well, it's like our memories did flow into Ruby because she's like, Oh, I think I've been here three times. I think this is the third and I'm like, well, how, why, like she clearly has knowledge of the previous timeline, but she's not saying anything about it. She just senses that she'd been here before, but she couldn't. She couldn't actually pinpoint why or how. We sort of transported into seeing from the old lady's eyes. You see the beginning of the episode from the old lady's perspective where Dr. and Ruby walk out of the tardis on the well's cliff. You start to hear whispers of don't step. It catches the doctor, well, it catches Ruby actually, and the Ruby stops the doctor from stepping on to the very circle and breaking the circle and all as well with the world because they've not broken the fairy circle at this point. And he stops her from reading the scroll. Yes. Yeah. I think in this is like a literally this moment I'm like, throwing, I'm about to like what? Like enough this, the ending here is just so underwhelming, like it just, it feels like all of that work didn't really mean anything like this episode doesn't mean anything. And I hope that's not the case. It like is all this was was a character study for Ruby, like a character development moment. Like we understand her character better as we go through the rest of the season. And she's only got four episodes left until she's replaced anyway. So why? I don't know. But it feels like a throw away, right? You're like, Oh my God, what a great episode. Oh, we just throw that. And that's unfortunate. The episode only makes sense. If you take into account that Ruby has supernatural powers that she can only unconsciously use and the fairy circle was not actually what caused this, but Ruby reacting to the doctor talking about Robert at William. Yes. Yeah. 100%. Like I feel like if there has to be a larger play here to make this episode important, otherwise this episode just doesn't, it's like why, why did we have this episode? It's like a filler episode that doesn't really matter to anything in a season where we really don't have time for filler. Right. Right. And it's a great episode for filler. I mean, it's a great in a moment, like, but it has to be a bigger has to mean something more. And if the doctor doesn't know what happened, he can't put it all together. Like he has no, he seems to have no idea, which is crazy, right? He is for someone who's a being of time and space. He seems to have no consciousness of what just happened. So which is even more frustrating, right? Like you think the doctor would have kind of like had a wink at the camera and be like, okay, I know what happened here kind of or something. Yeah, I'm with you. The episode was not tied up well, at all. There's too many questions left sitting out there, you know, who's the old lady? Why is the old lady? Why did this happen? Where did the doctor go? Where we in an alternate timeline was a doctor in an alternate timeline like I need, I need more information. I think you probably could have used another half an hour and kind of cut everything up. I have this crazy theory that Ruby is actually housing the trickster character who caused the turn left fiasco for Donna Noble, because this whole scenario here was almost exactly like how turn left worked. You know, you go through a lot of Donna goes through a lot of stress and a bad life and everything goes to heck. And to the point where she forcibly changes the timeline at the end and everything goes to where it should be. It's very similar to what's happened here with Ruby Sunday, forcing the change in the timeline at the end of this episode. So if we take that into account, it would relate to that character because it was a trick. It was one of the tricks to forget did it there. And as I've seen in a video, the trickster's theme was used in the second episode with when Ruby related to what when the Maestro was talking about Ruby's hidden song. And it's actually a variation of the trickster's theme from the Sarah Jane adventures. So I feel like that character might be brought up again in the future. Oh, this is a wild theory. But as for now, this ending fucking sucked, it right now, as I'm feeling right now, nothing happened. Two minutes of this episode actually happened, nothing that they did mattered. So what was the point? So you don't even have the recollection as far as we know of seeing the Susan Twist character and knowing that, oh, I recognize you, Mrs. Floodstuff, we don't see anything. Nothing happened in this episode because they made it not nothing happen in this episode. You've wasted my time. We did get to see Ruby get like, royally punished by the universe yet again, so yeah. I feel like there's what's the episode with the 13th, the old man, Doctor, haven't since. Oh, yeah. Where he's locked in the prison. Yeah. When he has to punch his way out of the thing, it's the same, but here's the thing. I like that episode. I thought it was a powerful episode and I still like this episode. It's still think it's a powerful and it's like just an incredibly well written and well made episode. It's almost like the journey is worth it, even though the ending kind of ruined it a little bit. It's almost like, even though this is, if this does end up being like a singular bubble kind of like episode where it's nothing really mattered, I guess I'm still okay with it because I still think it's a well made episode and I can live and rewatch it for that because I think it's so smart. I don't know. I thought the journey was good enough for me to kind of forgive it, forgive the ending, but the ending is still really frustrating. Did the doctor break the circle and he was punished and got sent away? Or did Ruby call Matt, like by reading the scrolls, was it break? Because he, doctor then stops, even though the doctor didn't read, didn't break the circle, he stops. Also stops her from reading or is it the combination of the book? So like the doctor breaks it so he gets sent banished from the universe is like his punishment and her punishment for reading the scrolls is the 73 yards old lady kind of a, you think that's kind of how it worked. That's exactly how I think it worked here. This is summarized kind of completely, you do. I think that the doctor simply just got taken out of equation as a result of a paradox. I think the paradox was already in place so the doctor was removed because he's already got to come back as the other version who's not stepping on the thing. But what's, I think what's even more frustrating at the end of the episode is the doctor still mentions Matt Jack, like he still mentions that character, so it's not like he was blinked out of existence or like he could still be due the thing he ends up doing because we're in the past now and Ruby doesn't have old witch lady to stop him or is the heck circle like stopping him from becoming the prime minister. I don't understand. See, this is my problem. Like the heck circle, I don't understand what the heck circle does to Matt Jack or the Parliament guy. I think it can't be sealing him because the doctor mentions him before the various circles even mentions. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. It doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't understand, it doesn't, it doesn't, it's like why, why why did an episode that doesn't make sense at the very end? Like it just that's so frustrating. It's so frustrating. Oh. Does it not? It doesn't, it does not. It's not a bit mad anyway. It's like just watching this is just a game. It's just one call Davis right now. Get him on the goddamn phone and then this question, I don't know why it's so hard. Like, listen, sir, you left us with more questions than answers and we can't. I don't have energy for this right now. I need, I need director's commentary. I need like, I need to, they needed to release the director's commentary version of this episode after it, like a day later or something. I think what's, what upset me about it and I wasn't like upset, upset, but what, what kind of irritated me about the episode was that it was a good episode. It was well written and it was interesting and it was a thriller, which I like a thriller where you don't actually ever see the monster, you know? That makes it a little extra scary, but I need a payoff at the end of it. I, I, I need the story to be buttoned up. I need the answers, the answers to my questions and, and I just didn't have that, but the rest of the episode was great. I just want the rest of the information. But let's go into our final scores and summary of what you thought of the episode. What a train wreck, man, I just, I, I, everything in this episode was set up to mean so much and it meant nothing and there's so confusing and things about explanation again. No, I can't man, I give this, I give space babies a five, right? Five point one. Oh, wow, it had been out space babies. Okay. Nice. I would rather be confused to heck than be annoyed at babies. It's, this is episode so hard to read for me, again, I think up until like the last five minutes, it's like one of the best doctor who episodes I think I've seen, even without the doctor. And, and, and listen, I kind of want to get, I gave Millie, Millie Gibson a lot of shit when I saw her in the first episode with the, the, the church on Ruby Road. I, I wasn't really feeling a vibe, like I felt like the doctor overshadowed her, like he's just got so much charisma, but seeing her like Harry an episode and I thought she did an incredible job. I thought she really showed her acting jobs and, and I also want to point out that I think the costume department does a really bad job. Like the stuff she wears, like in the first few episodes, it's not great. But when, when they age her up and she's wearing like actually adult outfits, she actually like, I'm like, wow, they actually, these are actually outfits that flatter her, like as like a female, like I'm like, oh, she looks much better now. Like she doesn't look like some weird, like homeless punk rock kid or something. Like I don't know what the outfit she wears for the first few episodes. I'm like, I don't understand what you're wearing. And I, like I feel like this episode did a lot for me to really like the care, character Ruby Sunday. And I thought Millie Gibson did an incredible job and to hold an episode without Shudy who is just in my mind, the one of the most charismatic doctors we've had ever. So I don't know, just props all around for that. So I'm going to give this, I'm going to give this pretty high rank. I'm going to give this like a, like a nine. And then in hopes, in hopes that the later episodes kind of resolve some of the things that we're talking about. And even if they don't, I'm still going to give it a nine. I would give it a 10 if it landed the ending. I think I'm probably going to go about a seven and a half just because of the ending because it just derailed my brain so hard. I'm like, I was on board once I kind of figured out where we were going. And then we didn't actually get there. I have to say about seven and a half. I agree, Millie is really kind of overshadowed by Shudy and it's not intentional. He is just that charismatic and has just that much screen presence. But I always enjoy an episode where we kind of ditch the doctor for a minute and just follow the companions to see what kind of shenanigans they get up to without him. I really need that resolution on that story. I just, it, it's kind of driving me nuts. Her what that steering wheel be are it's driving me nuts. Hopefully they're going to wrap it up in the next couple episodes or we'll get some sort of information as to what happened or didn't happen. But yeah, go seven and a half. How do you rate two minutes of television? I don't, I don't quite understand up until the ending. I was right there. It's true. I was there thinking this is like a weeping angels type horror villain that can come back again and again if we get a resolution here, maybe a little bit before the end end because so you can't, you can't age the whole cast all that time. But like when we were going to the, at the end of where the whale section or the end of the, the mother changing the locks, really scary, really lots of tension. Really enjoyed not knowing in the mystery, turned into, to the dead zone and then the ending derailed the whole thing. I hate with a passion. Any ending which is and it was all a dream or and this didn't happen because we went back in time to fix it all. I hate it, it's a waste of time is a waste of effort and it's fecking lazy. Make it mean something. If Ruby retained all of the memories from that timeline, it meant something. She did, she had an ink cleaner that something had happened, but she didn't retain anything. This means nothing like character growth while she's on her, on her own gives us an idea of the character, but she's not going to be on her own. So it's not going to progress the same way. The whole episode of television meant almost nothing and I'm really angry about it. I mean, I have to judge it on the two minutes of television that actually mattered in this, which was them walking off the TARDIS and walking down the street and that was boring. So it's going to get a two for me. Yes. I never thought I would hear some, right? I never thought I would hear somebody make a correlation between Dr. Who and Dallas. Sorry. They Bobby Ewing to this, they Bobby Ewing to this, amazing, amazing, you're not you're not wrong, though, like if the doctor or movie had remembered it or something, there was a repercussion moving forward of, and we don't know yet, I guess the next four episodes will tell us if this episode mattered. And I think that's a problem, inherently, that's a problem for the episode as a whole. The episode should stand a lot. It's like the middle movie of a trilogy always is always shitty because it needs the other two bookends to kind of make it what it is. Does that make sense? If you didn't have the first movie, this movie doesn't make sense. If you don't have the last movie, the ending of that movie doesn't make sense. So it doesn't matter. So I feel you and this is an episode four, so we're halfway through. So it does feel like a bookend. It does feel like an episode that needs the beginning of the series and maybe the end of the series to kind of make it as powerful as it needs to be. So I feel you, I totally feel you, but I'm like, I'm hoping there's more here than we stand. Transformer. Wait, what? We've had a range of scores there from two to nine. This is the least agreeable that we've been so far to a 5.1, a 7.5 and a 9. I didn't know we could give point ones. That was amazing. I am just trying to play the system to keep the babies down. You know what I know? I think that's what makes a great episode of tell. It's hard for an episode or hard for nowadays for everyone to make everyone happy or everyone angry. Well, I guess it's easy to make everyone angry, easier to make everyone angry, but the fact that it's as polarizing as it is, I think speaks to how good of an episode, I think. I think we'll look back and think that this is probably a pretty good episode of Doctor Who. I think most people will probably come down on that on that. No offense again. There's just been an old woman at me and Ian's place whispering stuff in our ears and we've decided not to like duck to who anymore. That's what we thought of the episode. Thank you everybody for joining us here on the Doctor Who, watching our podcast on Cote Soup. If you like this, then please like and subscribe and I'll do all that nifty stuff that you could do for us. Become a member of Cote Soup if you could possibly afford it and help support independent creators like us. Keep watching because we've got some really good stuff coming on. We've got decoding dragons guys, I can't stress it enough, decoding dragons is back. The House of the Dragon companion series will be back with Michelle and Liz very, very soon. We will see you all next week. Thank you very much for watching and listening. See you later, bye. My bye was longer than this episode, bye. The House of the Dragon companion series will be back with Michelle and Liz very, very soon. They'll probably not talk to me after my new article comes out where I say that Game of Thrones finale is really good. So this is probably the last time I'll plug them. Are you ready to go down the rabbit hole? The All Things Alice podcast will explore the cultural phenomena of Alice in Wonderland. Frank Bador, the author of the Looking Glass Wars trilogy, is your host through a wonder verse of interviews from all types of creators as they chronicle the dark yet empowering reality of Lewis Carroll's fantasies and answer the question, what is it about Alice that captivates us still today? The All Things Alice podcast, available wherever you listen to podcasts. 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The latest episode of Doctor Who is out and titled '73 Yards.' This week Ruby finds herself in a world without the Doctor and with a mysterious old lady stalking her. Join Couch Soup contributors Iain McParland, Ben Hazell, Charlotte Merritt, and Drew Lewis as they discuss the episodes’ ups and downs. Can Millie Gibson carry an episode sans Ncuti Gatwa? More on the latest Susan Twist developments, what’s going on with UNIT, and give our rankings on this very polarizing episode.
