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Daily articles from fans, not pundits, weekly podcasts that contain a multi-verse 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 couch soup dot com. Welcome back to The Doctor Who, watching now podcasts from couch soup. The Doctor and Ruby Sunday and Mel are back to put a leash on Sootek in the series finale of Doctor Who, entitled Empire of Death. This could be a pretty big soul explosion here guys, I'm not going to lie, it's just 4-1 in here. We hope, at the watching now podcast, we'll do our finale better than this pile of crap. So let's just get into it and let me introduce that panel for today. We've got Ben. Hello, I'm Ben, I'm taking a 73-yard restraining order out against Russell D. Derby's, Hi. And Charlotte. That's all I got, just uhh. And me. This could be my worst ever midnight showing at cinema and I'm including Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal School. Ouch man, that's harsh. We watched it on TV at home, you had to go pay for this. Yeah, yep yep yep. And cinemanced people. Oh god, talented people, ugh. Alright, I think you've probably got the gist of where we're at on this episode. Let's go into our non-spoiler overview of the Empire of Death, the series finale of Fudigat was first season. Brief overview. So Sootek has been released and he's, he's spoiling everything, he's going to kill everything, he's going to kill everywhere, everything's going to be fetched up, the doctor and Ruby and Mel need to find a way to come back from this devastation and bring back everything to life again because Sootek's the god of death and that's why he brings. Ben, I believe you're about to explode if I don't go to you first. So let's go to you first. The first five minutes was good and then it just went, yeah. This episode was an absolute train wreck of monumental proportions for many, many different reasons. There was something for everybody to not like about this episode, even if you got past some of the really bad stuff, there would probably be a few things you wouldn't have liked is the most hard chorus of Doctor Who fans would probably only find joy in the return of some of the greatest hits of all Doctor Who, which this episode can't lay claim to because it is the exact same things from all Doctor Who, replayed yet again. But with new and interesting twists that really don't add to anything, in fact they lessen it a bit. Also this episode retroactively makes another episode that was already bad worse. So that's great. I am going to have to redo my 73 yards score at the end of this too. This episode will annoy and infuriate you. So if you're here watching us talk about it, you're probably in for a better time to be honest. You know, it's been 24 hours since I watched this and I'm still trying to figure out what exactly I watched because this was not a finale. In a finale, you tend to expect answers at least a few, you know, try to tie up all those loose ends before we have to wait another six or seven months for another season and forget everything and we already went through. I also want to buy Russell T. Davies a notepad so he has to write things down so that he can connect the dots later, needs a little checklist. I'm still really confused about Mrs. Flood. I feel you, I feel you. So as I've already said, I went to cinema at midnight to watch this and in the intermission because we had a 15 minute intermission between the penultimate episode, which I didn't like last week as I told you, and the finale at midnight, there was a little message from Millie Gibson and it was a lovely message from the younger actress said, "Thanks very much for coming out. We really appreciate your support over the season and you will see the end of the story of Ruby Sunday and you'll get all of your answers, your questions answered." And then she said, "Well, most of them, we'll still have some surprises." I just want to say, "Fuck you, fucking Millie Gibson, I apologise for directing this at you, but you're the person who said that message and you've given me nothing. I really didn't like this finale. It barely made sense. Some of the things that we've been hyping up all over the whole season had no payoff whatsoever and some of the things we've been worried about the whole season didn't get answered. So fuck this finale, I'm done." What were the reactions of other people in the cinema with you? Basically, everyone walked out with their head held low. Yeah, it wasn't a crowd, please. No one was chatting nicely afterwards. It might have been because it was 1 a.m. in the morning, but no one was like, "Oh, that was amazing. I can't wait for the next season." Everyone was just like, "It's like your football team had just lost a match and you were walking away from the stadium." That is upsetting. I was jealous that you were getting to go to the cinema because they didn't do the season finale here in the cinemas like they have previously. Fathom events usually puts them on here in the States. I've been to a couple of them and fantastic. I think the Husbands of River Song was probably one of the best finales I've ever seen and I loved getting to see that on a big screen. I would have been sorely disappointed, probably would have come home and chucked some of it in March. I've had a paid movie prices to go see this. I think we need to go into the spoiler recap now so that we can put detail behind all of our salt. Let's shake it. Let's shake the salt all around. The sodium content is real high. So let's go into it. The episode starts off like it ended, Twisty, who's now called Susan Triad, has become this death monster and the doctor's pretty scared. He's almost crying. He's very scared though. Susan Triad brings out the dust of death and blows it all around and it disintegrates some people in the theatre. The doctor and Mel run dust. We're going with dust and not sand because the sand looks more, it looks more like sand instead of dust, right? Dust. Anybody? No. Dust. Anybody? No. Dust. I still think they're saving all that CG money for Sputek. Mate. Yeah. He looks cool. It's dust because it was dust in the original story. So the doctor and Mel get on their scooter. The doc is the one with the helmet on because Mel's large and she is large, she's one of the best parts of this episode to be fair throughout. She takes the doctor and runs away from the gathering cloud of dust. This is a massive dust cloud at this moment in time and think about the mission impossible, the one in the Saudi Arabia, there's a lot of dust in there. I could think of nothing more than the terrible dark universe Mommy remake at this point. Absolutely. Yeah. All I could think of was, yep, it's exactly the same. The dust's going through the, was it London in that too? It could be actually. London has to like try and fit all of the sands of Egypt into the British Museum, I think. Yeah. Cultural appropriation. Yeah. I think so. Exactly. Harry Arbinger tries to bring out the dust of death as well. Oh. And you called it Ben, you absolutely called it. What does Mommy have? Ben? He has a fucking assault rifle in his secret unit gives a 13 year old for the gun. Why is Mr. T. David arming children in this show? But there's not the only thing that's bad about their scene is not. If you look behind Mr. Machine Gun toddler, you can see that Rose doesn't give a shit. She's on her right hand. She's on an iPad. Sue Tex here. He's killing everyone. Better tweet about this. Yeah. Great. It's Jen Alfa all the way, right? Oh my god. This would tie a scene, just like you could argue that she's like trying to control the lasers, but you think that auto fire on the huge thing. I mean, they're in the Avengers tower. Surely they have to have plenty of weapons at the disposal. And at the same time, we've got Kate trying to give this beautiful speech and unit doing the usual thing of firing all the ammunition at the enemy that will do nothing. All the bullets turned to sand and Harriet is like, yeah, you are getting the dust of death, actually, and she blows the dust of death everywhere. Everyone dies. Kate dies. Rose dies. Morris dies. Hooray. I think Rose got a dying face onto Instagram before she passed. Probably, yeah. Sadge. Sadge. Oops. Zion whoopsie doodles. Him's dead. Like the links is dead. Everybody's dead. Dave. Not Chad. Don Bennett. Yes. chain. Everybody's dead. Rimmer. He's dead. They're going to just roll the credits right there. Yeah. Everybody's dead. Dust of death is in unit Avengers tower. After that, there's only 10 floors away. That is the time window. Meanwhile, the rest of the dust from the TV station is following the dock and mail. Like a rate of knocks on their scooty puff jr. And now we get like a few flashes to Carla. Carla Sunday. Dusted. Thanos is about today. It's more indiscriminate. When we get Mrs. Flood and Cherry. Mrs. Flood's not quiet about going into this long good night. She's like, you insignificant human. I had such plans. Why the fact do I have to die right now? And she says this to Carla's mother in the open while it looks like she might be able to strangle her. No, I don't think so. I don't know. Maybe she's well, she gets real close to her. I don't know. I feel like she was comforting in it, I thought. I thought her outfit looked oddly like Clara's. Oh, yeah. That is something we will come back to, I would imagine. I like Mrs. Flood when she's being just the nosy neighbor. I don't like her when she's being soft spoken, at least just sinister. There is something about a person that can tell you if you're going to die in a nice quiet voice that makes it even more terrifying and somebody screaming in your face. Yeah. Yeah. She immediately upon realizing that I turned into a combination of for syndrome and the bond building, picked the first thing in general vicinity and said, I'm going to tell my plans to this person right now and nobody's going to stop me. Do you believe in the power of prayer? I most certainly do. Then tell your maker, I will come to storm down his gates of gold and seize his kingdom in my throne name. What you talking about? But she said, then she says, I had such plans. I was going to seize this kingdom in my own name. Like, what the fuck does that mean? She's Simba. It's Simba. It doesn't take all of Rose coming. Simba. Yeah. Remember. We're going to go back to that and remember as well. Remember who you are. Flood and Cherry's dead because they have such plans, but the dust gets them. And then we get to the time window bit. Ruby is in a full on blizzard in the time window. It's not turned on, but it's not in a full on blizzard. The time window is working again. She sees a drip mum with a cloak. She's so great that the fit is so good. Look at the cork that screams, I am evil, ha ha ha ha. Yeah. And then the dock and mail turn up, they're like, uh, we've got to get out of here. So now we've got to, we've got to sort this out. They're in mind the dust has just been released from two separate places. One was about 10 floors up. Yes. And the other was miles away. Yeah, somehow they've got up or down to the place where the time window is without the dust getting them, even though Harriet brought out the dust from really close by. And they've been, and it's been right on their tail from, from the TV station. Let's scoot over that. Why not they did? Well, then the TARDIS in the memory is almost solid. So he drives the door. Why not? I mean, last episode, they said, do not back with anything in the time window. Okay. So everything will explode and everyone will die, but let's mess with the time window now, because what else are you going to do to be fair? He opens it up and it's a tiny TARDIS. I can't remember TARDIS if they said, didn't they? It's full of Easter eggs. It's exactly like all of the Marvel Easter eggs that everyone's going, well, but yeah. You're welcome to reference TARDIS. It's reference to TARDIS is the Leonardo DiCaprio point in meme in a TARDIS form. Oh, yeah. One thing I did like about this was Mel for lip and hugging Colin Baker's court. Yeah, that was sweet. That was sweet. But before they all enter it, that just says to Ruby, it's sort of okay, but it's not solid enough. You need to remember and then, and then Ruby does a remembering face for a bit, like she's really concentrating. It's like, it's like, have you told a three year old to remember something or think about it? Think hard about what you've done. I have a problem with this. How did Ruby remember all the previous iterations of the TARDIS that jumbled up in there? I just think it was, it was working off of Doctor's memories, but she was the one in charge of the time window. So it was like a combination of both. That makes no sense. That makes no sense. It was Ruby who had to remember when the doctor picks up the screen, it's Colin Baker. Yeah, it is. Because they want to do a, they want to do a look at what happened last time on Doctor Who. Previously on Family Guy, certain of his own wit and intellect, Brian opened up a Twitter account. What's worth me, Twitter is the perfect place for that guy, because he's a twit. For some reason, the Colin Baker doctor to show what actually, what happened with Soutek last time worked in the time window room on the screen, then Soutek turns up with Harriet, who's still around, she's no longer a harbinger, she's just a minion now. She's not announcing things that come in, she's just there. And Soutek and the Doctor have a conversation for a second, Soutek lays a bit of his evil plans out and how he survived. He's basically been doing Cape Fear on the TARDIS for 48 years. Oh, this is such a problematic thing that's happened. The TARDIS explored in the Denmark Smith era. It died and they've read their universe with its great big bang. Soutek had nothing to cling on to. It was gone. Completely gone. It felt like ages. Where were you clinging on to there, Soutek, when the universe got flippin' restarted? Particle number 999145. There's been parts where the TARDIS has been taken over, there's been parts where the TARDIS has been deep-fried. There was a part where the TARDIS was almost destroyed and David Tennant's hand grew out of Don and Noble and they had to teleport away. The TARDIS got separated into two. Did Soutek have to choose which one he was going to go along with? What if he'd stuck on 14s TARDIS? He'd just be sat up in tea with flippin' Donner's family. It's like there's so much stuff that's happened to the TARDIS over the years that it becomes the biggest plot hole to say that he's been there the whole time. There's nowhere. The TARDIS has been destroyed, stolen, galvanized in the sound of drums, gone through multiple timelines. There's the part where it went to another dimension, where Soutek would have lost all of his powers anyway because he would have lost access to his flippin' power source. Ow! Yeah. It doesn't work, it cannot work. David's can't explain away any of that. I mean, I know the one word explodes, is that around the Pandora-ka? That's the Pandora-ka story. Yeah. I mean, and I when it just goes boom, you can't explain that away, so I don't. There's just so many plot holes, and they're not just little plot holes, they're huge. Yeah. And you can, there's a lot of, it's like Swiss cheese that you can drive a truck through. Uh-huh. Yeah. It's an absolute carnival of them in this episode, I swear. The doctor asks why he's still alive, which is a good question, and why has Soutek killed him? He's, he's been there for 48 years, why hasn't he been killed up until now? And then now, when he's right in front of him, he's not killing him. It's a good question, why hasn't he been killed? He takes that opportunity, while Soutek's a little bit confused, to run off into the tent artists with Booby and Mel, and they take off into space. Uh, there's a part there that Soutek mentions where he's been dropping Susan triads all over the place is where the doctors landed, which is hilarious, because it just means that Soutek's been taking his doggy doodos everywhere he's went, and he has a fail to pick them up. Sorry, Doctor, you needed to get out your doggy bag. And that is true, Soutek explains that a copy of Susan, which he had sort of in his memory banks as Susan from, from the doctor's past, he's been dropping off at every place that the doctor has landed, and every time he lands, they sort of get stronger, like images of Susan. So by the time, because he lands on Earth as shitload compared to any other planet, over time, Susan has become Susan triad, who is like a mega-mogal technology beast in other things that she's just an ambulance, just like an AI. So just copies of Susan, which, don't know if it makes sense. But they said that it happens because the TARDIS, it is perception filter is what Soutek uses to project them, which, oh boy, has a range of 73 yards. All right, let's get into 73 yards, like we said, we said on the 73 yards episode that we would revisit it when it started to make sense. They have attempted to make it make sense in here with in two different places. The first one is this one, which is around the perception filter. And the only thing that Ruby has taken from the 73 yards episode is that she knows how to convert meters into yards, that number of meters into yards. She's like, oh, I know how many meters are in yards. How do you know that? Wow. I'm just. I just know. The rest of the 73 yards didn't actually mean anything to it, and she just knows how to convert 66 meters into 73 yards, basically. Ben, has it, because you would know, has it ever been discussed previously before the season? How far the perception filter? Not at all. In fact, it's been broken. The only time that I've ever used a perception filter that I can remember is during the family blood episode where the doctor says he's put one on a fob watch so that everyone will think it's just an honorary fob watch, nobody will try and organize it. That's right. I used it for. That's kind of what I. Yeah, that's what I was thinking, because I'm like, well, if the projection or the perception filter was working, it wouldn't look like a phone box. All it does, because in the sound of drums episode, they use it as well, is it makes people who aren't looking for you not pay attention to you. That was a davy story. He knows how it works, but 73 yards changed people's perceptions mentally and visually, which is nothing it's ever done before. We all agree that that 73 yards nod was stupid. It was a throwaway line to try and make people think it made sense because it was vaguely related to a perception filter. Yeah. No, it doesn't. It makes it worse. So if three yards now makes even less sense than it did when it aired, that does not make sense. Oh, dear. So thanks Russell. Yeah. Well done, Russell. You've made it. You've made it worse. I already give this episode as 73 yards or two, and now it's gone down. So brilliant. So the Dr. Mel and Ruby, they've taken off in the tiny TARDIS, they need to make it stable for a second because fire breaks out because it's a remember TARDIS. It shouldn't really fly. It shouldn't really be able to get out of the time window because it's a remember TARDIS, but they made it. So they hope because Ruby's memories are so strong, they made it a real thing. I'm a real boy now, says the TARDIS, but fire breaks out. They stabilize it using intelligent rope and intelligent gloves and a fire extinguisher. And some know-how. I mean, see, here, that makes sense that Ruby would remember those things being in the TARDIS because there were hers. I don't know where she's remembering Colin Baker's cut from unless somehow Mel counts there. Once they're in this high in the sky, they're in orbit, they open the door and look down on Earth and there's dust everywhere and it's all converging and Earth's about to be swallowed by it. All I could think of, looking at that, was flipping Anakin Skywalker going, "No!" Yeah, he does scream like that and he cries again, you know, he cries a lot this episode. He cries a lot. He's cried a lot this whole season. This particular scene seemed a little bit more genuine than to me. The emotion, the way his face twisted. It actually felt more real than some of the other ones that he's trying, scenes we've had. If he cries at everything, why should we be invested in anything he cries about, honestly? That was my point. Russell T. Davis has come out in an interview and said he's purposely made the doctor more emotional because that's his character. That's who he is. He is a more emotional in touch with his feelings, Doctor. Now, I have no problem with that, it's just that it dilutes the effect of him screaming and crying when he does it in every episode. Oh, he's just crying again. It's done that for the last five episodes. It might not even be that serious, he might have just stopped his toe or something or stood on something like that, which, you know, is worth crying about, but it's, you know, maybe not end of the world proportions, yeah? When we keep that whole, he's supposed to more emotional thing, tabbed for later. I have something to bring back for that too. It goes to Sootek. Sootek talks to Susan Twist, Harbinger Mode. So Sootek wants to find a doctor in Ruby and Mel, because they're the last people that you can't find, which is also bullshit because we see another person in a second, but it's the last people that you can't find. Susan Twist, although being controlled by Sootek, assumes that it's the doctor. Sootek says, "No, the child has a secret that I need to know." At this point, fine. We all think she's got a secret that everybody wants to know. We've been wanting to know about it for the whole season. Yeah, Sootek is the audience right now. And then it cuts to the doctor going into a random tent on a random planet. It's a dead planet with a tent and then it starts talking to a random woman in the tent. The only person around, she has a bit of water and a stall, it looks like. She's been selling stuff in the past, but not anymore. And there's a little baby carrier in the corner. There's a little conversation here, which is talking about how the woman is starting to forget things, because everything's dying, even her memory is dying. And the emotional bit of this is when she says that, "I think I forgot that my baby died." That's pretty powerful, right? Yeah, it was pretty powerful. There was a lot of stuff in this conversation that was actually Doctor Who. It was building up just how people are really across the universe being affected by the stuff. Everyone mentions how it goes down bloodlines as well, which I found was pretty terrifying. If one member of your family gets caught, it goes down the whole branch and possibly up the branch, too, which is quite an amazing power to have, really, for a deathguard. I really liked the scene. I wish we had had more of this scene and maybe less of some of the other side-quest-y kind of story lines that we had going on in these two episodes, because this was a poignant conversation and actually added some meat to the entire story, which we would have had more of it. It's not just that. It's just like right in the middle of it, the proper 12th Doctor reference, the spoon. Peter Capaldi's Doctor wielded a spoon, and he's saying, "I can save the universe with this spoon." That's from the episode where he goes back to Gallifrey, right? I believe it might be the Robin Hood episode. Oh, yeah, you read it as Robin Hood episode. He gets a spoon. No, I don't get this here, because there's lots of stuff in this episode, which I don't get. But the woman says, "Oh, metal's pretty precious, there's not a lot of it around anymore." Does the dust of death, does that get rid of metal as well? I don't quite understand. It's not alive. I think it just turns everything to sand. Does it though? Right. I think part of it might be, as you forget things, nobody is there to be able to work on metal. I think you have to know how to make things out of metal. True, but if there's a spoon, there's going to be a fork where you found that spoon usually, right? You look at unit HQ, right, where Sootek is now taking base, because it's a vintage tower. Why wouldn't you take base in a vintage tower? But none of the computer screens have gone, nothing like that has gone. So the metal's still around. So why is this one spoon so it's precious? Because they don't have any other spoons on the whole planet. Nobody used spoons, it was all chopsticks. Yeah, it doesn't. Maybe I'm fixated. It's just because it's a spoon. Right. Or maybe the conversation was actually longer, and they cut part of it, and it's just an editing thing where maybe there was part of that conversation that addressed the need for metal and why it's not available. Random lady gets busted because it got through the bloodline and the doctor walks away with the spoon, and he jams it in the time window screen, which he still got, and it makes it work better because it's a spoon, and that's... Yeah! What was that? No, I like that. Yeah, it did sound like that. It makes the time window screen work better and you can start seeing some stuff on there. It goes a little bit fuzzy when he's holding it, but Ruby, on the other hand, every time she talks about it, pictures come up on it. So the first time it comes up with the Ruby Road and the mother, and then she passes it over to the doctor, and there's nothing there, and then passes it back. And now there's a politician on screen. It's Roger at William. Yes, that's right. We're back to 73 yards. No! No! Why do we have to keep going back to this episode? This episode was terrible. And it makes no sense for him to be there because it's not 2046. Why? Why? Why is any of this happening? I don't know. I would love an explanation. I would love a personal apology from Russell really well. This episode gave me a headache. Roger at William, I guess, is important somehow. And we need to be reminded he exists because of the plot land that Russell likes. Russell T. Davies did come out and say he really thinks that 73 yards is one of the best things he's ever wrote. No! No! No! Absolutely not. No! There are a plethora of other things that he's written that are so much fun. Why he thinks that, but yeah, so Roger at William, yeah, I think the exact sentence is something like they mandatorily got the DNA of everyone in the United Kingdom, which means that Ruby's mom can't hide, which makes me immediately feel like, uh oh, this person who is apparently Ruby's mom can be DNA tested if this shows to be believed potentially, which, um, means that was relevant. Yeah. Apparently. So 73 yards basically is a whole episode to establish one. The perception filter is 73 yards. And two, Roger at William is a dickhead. That's, that's what it is. That, that is just something to say, oh, we need, we need a really bad prime minister, but we haven't established that there's a, there's a bad prime minister in 2046. So let's make what make a whole episode about it. And then, then sort of white, black, clean, but we'll still remember that there was a bad prime minister in 2046, isn't that great? Yeah, but this just means that, that happened in the main timeline too. And Ruby wasn't there to stop him in this timeline. Yeah. What happened in this timeline? Did he get the nuclear course? Did he blow shit up? I want to know that. Tell me that story, please. He did. He did get the nuclear codes. He loves nukes. We've already established that. He loves nukes. Like, I need to know what was different and why is this important again? Was he stopped? But the doctor mentioned him and he knows he existed, said he was the worst one in history. What happened there? Well, he did mention in this episode that he was part of the task force to get him out of the prime minister's chair. That's more of an interesting story than fucking three yards. Anyway, I digress, 2046 is established that everyone in Britain was, was DNA testing. So, Ruby's mom can't hide at that time unless she was already dead at 2046. If she was already dead in 2046, they'd be fucked. And so, yeah, they go to 2046. At this time, Mel is feeling a little bit tired and forgetful and she's feeling something in the back of her brain, which sounds a bit like Sootek. She's on the way out because they know who she is. They know exactly who she is. They know the bloodline into Mel as well so they can get to her. They go into what seems to be some sort of, is it supposed to be 10 down in street or some sort of government department? The Ministry of Health. Okay. It goes into the Ministry of Health, goes into a random office, attaches the time window screen and starts doing, and they start doing a little search based on Ruby's blood. The doctor sends Mel out to be look out. Yeah, just in case something's coming, guys. The search happens, it's snowing again, it's always snowing around Ruby. It's always snowing in Ruby Delphia. Yeah. It makes it worse for Mel because she's already cold, so it's snowing and, you know, and it finds a match, we think. We find a match, but before we know who it is, Ruby turns around and Mel's been a little bit different. Oh, she's a little bit different. She's on the face left. She had a little bit of a Sootek facelift or Mel, liked Mel, she didn't deserve this. Mel's like the best person in this episode. Instead of dusting them there and then, Sootek wants to speak to him. So he transports all three back to the unit headquarters unit tower. Yeah, because Sootek will not get off the TARDIS. Yeah. I think he generally does not want to leave, he's like, this is my altar, I stay here. This is where I piss. But he's also a stickler for uniform because when he transports them, he gives Mel a cloak as well, just exactly when the transport, Mel gets a fancy new cloak. That's nice of him. He's got a uniform for his harbingers of death. The tiny TARDIS stays in 2046, because the transporter's on the way. That's just been left there. Yep. At this point, the Doctor starts to butt-try and bargain with Sootek, saying, "Come on, man, let's just have a little chat." "Little chai chat, let me have my world back, you can't have everyone else." "I will worship you, yeah." "Yeah, I'll worship you forever, just leave them be." And Sootek goes, "Now boy, get down." And then he gets green all over him. Yep. Pyramids of Mars, greatest hits. I thought it might have been because we haven't seen a lot of green, but he did have green eyes in the old pyramids about Mars stuff. There's a bit in this episode where he talks about death being good, that's greatest hits. There's the green glow, that's greatest hits, the way they defeat him. That's greatest hits. In fact, Sootek doesn't do anything that he generally didn't do in the old episode. It's all the same guy, same things, nothing new, doesn't even bother to say a new line, I think. So, we've established that Russell T. Davies can be consistent, he can stick to something that's already been written. Yeah, it's pretty much the same character, which is great. So why can't he do that with the TARDIS, that perception of the third? Oh, I don't know. I mean, I don't understand, he's being really accurate and really faithful to what was already established for Sootek. Yeah. But he's not. Well, that's because Russell T. Davies loves that episode. He said it's his third favourite episode of the whole time. Ruby panics because the doctor's down on the floor injured. So Ruby steps forward with the time window screen and says, "I'll tell you, I'll tell you who my mom is, because Sootek's dead interested, the only thing that he's interested about, he wants to know who Ruby's mom is. Yeah, he's pretty obsessed with this. He's pretty obsessed. Something that he doesn't know, and he should know everything, because he's a god. He steps forward with the time window screen, says, "I'll tell you, I'll tell you whoopsie, I dropped it." Smashes everywhere, and in the confusion, she takes the intelligent rope and hooks it onto his dog collar. Yeah, this is where the circus music starts. And the doctor has a dog whistle and a fancy glove. Yep, intelligent gloves with the intelligent rope means that it's dead easy to pull. Except for a walk. Except for a walk. So it's not like he hasn't used a whistle to call the TARDIS before. I've seen that before, right? Yeah, he's done many things different to call the TARDIS. Yeah. So he's called for the TARDIS to please, please, mate. There was a very nice scene from River Song in the Matt Smith era, where she basically goes into, "I've seen him call the TARDIS with the click of his fingers." So essentially, ever since then, it's just been established. The doctor can control the TARDIS with kinetic and psychic abilities. The doctor starts calling the TARDIS, the TARDIS starts fighting back. Blasts harry at our binder. Oh yeah, they pull out the entire flipping panel that Rose Tyler got blasted with in the firing of the waves. It's the same deal, like the entire time vortex that's when the TARDIS just blasts him. Sootex struggling to hold on to the TARDIS at this point. The TARDIS is trying to get free. TARDIS gets free. And now the doctor and Ruby have the TARDIS. And let's take him for a walk, shall we? In the time, vortex. Yeah. Yeah. Did the doctor not think that it could be incredibly dangerous to just drop the god of death into like all of time? But death equals life. So that's not how that works. Death was death equals more death. Yes. It's not an uno reverse card. If grandma's dead, and our shooter, grandma's still dead. Yeah. We're not, we're not doing algebra here. Two negatives don't make a positive. It's just more negative. You can't kill the concept of death equals life. I bring death to death. Which is life. I'm the life man. That's, that's what he said. And everyone starts undusting again, because that's how it works. Everyone starts on undusting. I assume that only works on people that SueTech dusted with his own dust of death, or else it's just everybody ever that's just comes alive again. If, if they'd planned to Galafrey alive again, I would have cried laughing. I'd have cried laughing because it means that Russell T. Davies has yet again undone a previous writer who wanted Galafrey dead and be like, no, no, it's back again. So he waits until enough people are back alive, let's say everybody, he's not got any way of confirming that everybody's back alive, but he sees the planets come back. Dr. Strange bottles in the sky, Dr. Strange in the sky. It's exactly the same as Spider-Man no way home. Big purple, stretch, just a guy, they've been taking their graphics from the Marvel section. Ooh. Yeah. So everyone's back. Everything's back, Kate's back, Rose's back, Cherie's back, Carls back, everybody's back, Mrs. Foot's back, sorry, Ben is again, everybody's back. Yeah, um, problem, the next, uh, she just announced her big evil plans to grandma. She doesn't care. No. I don't remember. She doesn't care. She remembers. She's not. She's just too senile, I guess. Sure. Turn memory. Loss. I mean, look, yeah, right. Let's be fair. Cherie is going to remember the next day is that she still hasn't gotten a cup of tea. It's only things she cares about. It's not hugging. Like they know they just died, though, so everybody on the planet now needs therapy. The doctor becomes death by, by closing the doors and snapping the tether, the detergent rope. Um, so Suetek is eaten up by the time vortex. The idea was in the first story that the doctor sent him forward to his own death. So he would have basically gone so far in the future of his own self that he died. I think that original premise is still here. I think that him clinging to the TARDIS was the reason why that didn't come into effect immediately and he was able to regain its strength. I think once he was cut free of the TARDIS, that original premise continued and he basically evaporated from living until dead. Like, I don't think he's functionally as immortal as he thought he was, but yeah, the idea was that the original premise of Pyramid of Mars went through and he just died. He could come back, though, because there might be a second Suetek sitting on top of another TARDIS. He might have been split into as well at the same time as, uh, one of the funniest memes I saw about this was the 60th anniversary when all of the 13 TARDIS's were all at the same place and there's just a lot of Suetek's all pointing each other on each other on each episode side. Like the Spider-Man memes. That's great, I love that. So Suetek's the deal dealt with, it's time for a pizza party, um, pizza party back at unit. Kate's getting a bit fond of Ibrahim at this point as well. Oh, bomb chicka, wow, wow. Baum chicka, wow, wow. All of the bisexual fans screamed out in pain. No, no, seriously, they're really upset that she's not, she's not upset. The name of a woman, uh, Twitter was- Sorry, okay, this is new for me. I am bi, I would love to hear this theory, what's- Um, so basically Twitter was using Kate Stewart as sort of like a, uh, lesbian icon for the longest time, because she wore a pantsuit and she looked real handsome. She could still be britain britain, but, um, I mean, she could be, but the fact that the Shonron screen of a man has made them cry out in anguish. I saw a few, I saw a few. I've been married twice to men. Uh, so there's, it's been a bit of a thing. I just now, I don't know this controversy. Oh, yeah, the controversy is real. I don't know. I don't care. They can. She's a side character. She has to be with a woman. They want it so bad. Why does she have to be with anybody? This is still a kid's show, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's Kate's life. Let her live it, man. Come on. There she is. She's in her bed. She's at work right now. Leave her alone. We were over talking about hand holding. Right. We only, we only ever see this woman in her workplace. Why are we, why are we carrying? She's dating. She's at work. Yeah. I don't know. It's a big deal apparently. Wow. Okay. Thanks for the information. I'll have to go. Twitter and see what I can find. All right. Oh, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're. Oh, no. The DNA test is back. We, we somehow the information as, as survived the, the crash in. And we see who Ruby's mom is. And it's Louise Miller. Who's Louise Miller? You, you, you maybe think, he just a normal. Boring human. Boring human. Just a normal. That's the whole point. Insignificant human. And that's the whole point, guys, because the whole reason that Ruby's parentage was such a mystery is to prove that anybody can be special if we put specialty on, if we put importance onto that mystery, then you know, that's, that's the whole point. Bollocks. Bollocks. Bollocks. To that, mate. Like, what the fuck was he thinking? You've already set up two supernatural, like, traits of Ruby throughout this series. You can't just go ahead and be like, but her parents were normal and there's nothing special about her. Sue tech came out of hiding, looked at her at her mom and went, huh? She was in an evil clock. It was so evil. It was so cool. You're telling me this 15 year old girl in the middle of 2005, ain't wearing a ratted ass and, like, hoop earrings and instead opted for, like, flippin' evil, 16th century chan, bragorian chanting monk outfit. Yeah. What the absolute hell are you playing out, Russell? Yeah. What are you doing? And I know what he's doing because he's told us. On the description of the episode, like, the commentary, he wants her to be normal because Ray Skywalker wasn't allowed to be normal. He's a last Jedi stand and he hates that Ray Skywalker got it and he tells us, in the commentary, that's the reason why she has a normal parentage. Ben. It's because of Star Wars. It was just such a letdown, finding out this parentage issue because, you know, we, for the whole season, we're like, okay, we even had the maestro was like, that girl is wrong. Yeah. There's something here. Didn't know anything about her being an orphan. Just looked at her and said, this is wrong. In my head, we get this answer about her parentage and all I hear is, you know, won't it? Why does it snow? I think about Star Wars, right? Exactly. She's got to have something special about her. She's got to be something other than just human for this kind of shit to happen because I don't like summer. I don't like to be hot. I'm not making it snow in Indiana and June. I wish I could. It doesn't. Absolutely zero sense. It doesn't make sense in a literal special snowflake and then said, nah, nothing. It's like he pooped out. He just gave up on all the connections, working his like, fuck it. We'll just give her a normal normal mom. He wanted to vent his Star Wars frustrations. You can do that without setting her up as a supernatural being because you can't explain the snow. You can't explain the maestro thinking that they've got a secret song in there and it's not right. You can't explain that with a normal, fecking parentage. You cannot do it and you can't explain it with a druid 15 year old mother who does finger points of doom that sounds because she wants to name a child, even though the CCTV, she wouldn't have known where the CCTV was. She would have known that the snow was too thick to even see it on a camera and she waited for the doctor to come back from the goblins so she could point at the fucking sign thinking that the doctor would know so the doctor would tell someone what her name should be. It doesn't fucking make sense. None of it makes any sense, it's just a four story point because he wanted the ending he wanted. Russell T. Davies, the newest hack writer on the scene. Brilliant. If the church was on do-do road she would have been do-do so on the day. Road hazard. Right. So then, coffee shop scene, right, so Ruby goes to see her mom. They have a nice-ish reunion, Louise wants to talk to her, which is lovely. I thought it was a little bit harsh on the barista because Ruby never picked up the coffee. Now he's the one who waits. Yeah, he is the one who waits for Ruby to pick up a coffee. We go back to Carla's place in London, it's a whole family arrangement now. They talk for a bit and they're having a nice time. Ruby goes to see the doctor and the doctor's like, "It's over in it for a bit, I think." And Ruby's like, "I'll be fine, don't worry about it." Oh, actually, they found my dad because, you know, his mom and dad still live in the same place. It's called William, he was 15 at the time, never told him. Why did none of that DNA test find him? They couldn't find the mother, but they could have found him. Eventually. What's going on with that? Why is he called William? Didn't we just have a Guilliam who was evil? Ruby says, "Oh, I think I do need to stay actually for a bit and just see where this goes. I'm going to dip for a bit, but I love you, man. Fucking love you." Oh, no, no, no, no, no. She doesn't say it like that. She says it like a fricking partner confessing. Okay. She goes, "I love you," and then he looks at her like, "The fuck?" He doesn't say it back. He doesn't say it back. In fact, he looks at her like she's mental. Emotional doctor, everyone. So emotional. I'm so happy that you've just said you love me, that I'm going to give you the Devster. It made me just couldn't because it would have choked him up so much because he's, you know, emotional. No, that was the face of a man who just went really brave. That's the end to last. We've seen the doctor in this episode, and we zoom out, and we go upstairs onto the roof. It's our favorite. It's Mrs. Flood, dressed as Romana this time. You've said she was dressed as Clara before. She's dressed as Romana this time. I did my research, Ben. Thank you very much. Yes. Good job. Yes, a lot of things, but she ends with the doctor's story ends in absolute terror night night. Good sign-offs, Mrs. Flood. This bitch. I'm personally just happy that they decided to sign off one of the worst season for Alice ever with just a weird ass ball break where they're just like, "The doctor's gonna die. Bye." Bye. Have a great day. Yeah. I don't know how to take her. I really don't. I really want to like her as a character, but the constant fourth wall breaking kind of gets on my nerves. It's one thing if it's like an inside joke kind of deal like a fleabag. Yeah. It's a known thing. You know that that's just what they do, but it's not a thing that's a doctor who thing, and I don't like it. It's weird. Also, Mrs. Flood is 100% just gonna be the local tea lady from the elementary school. Don't worry, guys. The only thing that's special about you is how other people perceive you. And we all perceive Mrs. Flood as this kind old lady who's just a neighbor. So that's what she is. No, I don't think so. The only, the only, the only perceiver that way if you're standing with inside. I don't, yeah. It falls forward. You can't, you can't do this again. Don't make this mystery shit, you're Davis. If, if Flippin' Ruby's mom is nothing, then everyone who means anything is also nothing. Thank you. We're at the end of the episode. I don't think this is gonna come as a surprise, but let's go on to our episode ratings and overall thoughts. I'm gonna give it a two just because I like the people that were in the show. I like, I love having Mel in any episode. Anytime that any of the old companions show up, I'm happy. It just, it just makes me happy. But the amount of plot holes and the size of the plot holes and the freaking fourth wall breaks, and I know Russell needs to go back and try again. And if he's gonna say that this or 73 yards is his favorite episode, he's ever written, I have a list of his episodes. He can pick any of them. Better than these two. At least there was no singing or dancing in this one. No surprise musicals. Garbage tear. On leash. The salt, Ben. On leash. Garbage tear stumps the fire of a waste of my time. Not really the caliber of anything I've seen from David's ever before. Holy shit, this was bad. Holy shit, the reveal. Just so he could flippin' fire back at people who liked the rise of Skywalker. Nobody should like rise of Skywalker. Terrible, absolute worst episode of the season. Probably one of the worst episodes ever made of this show, to be honest. Not as bad as the timeless child, but very damn near close. I give this a one out of ten. I hated it. I wanted it to go away. What was the point? All of that build up just for a deflated fart. What the fuck? You got a hell. You got a hell and you die. Wow. Ben could do so much better than me. Right, so I need to revise my 73 yards one. 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 gonna get a two from me. This episode has made that objectively worse because I actually, in my two out of ten, I only marked those two minutes that meant something. They tried to make some of the rest of the episode mean something which actually made the whole episode of three minutes worse. So let's go down to a one on that one. And I'll give this one a one and a half, marginally better than 73 yards, but so, so, so many plot holes here, which I cannot fathom. I cannot fathom what was going through their heads. I just don't, like, none of it made sense and I'm going slightly backwards to last week. My clock thing, not acknowledged that it, the timeline didn't fit into the episode. So we're already starting on a really bad footing. And then when you start bringing in the Sutek being unexploded in TARDISes and then being reformed, and then you bring in to things like, you know, going for a walk with Sutek, you bring in the very pièce de resistance is Ruby's mum not being supernatural. And it doesn't make sense that she's normal. I get what he's trying to say, I get that he wants to make sense, say, everybody gets a participation trophy here, everybody's special because we think that they're special. But you can't do that if you give Ruby supernatural powers. And you can't even say that we're projecting those supernatural powers because he keeps showing throughout the season that she has supernatural powers. When Ruby acknowledges it in 73 yards, that she used to be able to make it snow. And after the doctor left, she couldn't make it snow anymore. It doesn't make sense. 'Cause it's dumb, this whole show is dumb. What? It's confusing, it's overwritten. And I'm still really angry with it, and I'm angry that I had to watch this twice because I watched it in the cinema and I couldn't make notes in the cinema. I didn't get better on the second run. It was just bad. I like Millie Gibson. I don't have a problem with her coming back for a companion episode. Now that we know she's a normie, we can just accept that she's a normie. She's like almost every other companion. I like shooting at her. I don't like his doctor. Too emotional means that there's nothing, no weight is to the crying, no weight is to the screams, does it in every episode? I'm pissed off with that. I like shooting, but if this is his doctor, and this is how he's going to be written for the next couple of seasons whilst he's there, regeneration can't come soon enough. Just can't. I'm done, I'm done, I'm done with Moran. I want it to be better. I want it to be better. I need more episodes like Thought and Bubble, more like Boom, even Rogue. I can deal with Rogue. I don't want any shit that we've had to endure in the last couple of episodes and in 73 yards. That's base babies, fuck them kids. Anyway, that I'm done. I hate it, I hate zizzet. If you haven't already watched it and you're going to watch it, take anything that's breakable or throwable and move it away from where you're sitting, TVs are expensive. And then if you really want to see good Russell T. Davies writing, go back and do like The End of Time or The Sound of the Drums or Midnight, Topea, what was it? Smith and Jones, that's a good one. The one with Kylie and Aum. Oh, the Titanic one, yeah. Yeah, the Titanic one is like, thanks for each other down. For each other down. Yeah, I think it's called that. They have a character in that called Balacafalata. I take 10 of him over this. Maurice wasn't the worst thing in the episode. No, no. They were Maurice. They give him a machine gun and then he just doesn't get to use it very much anyway. He needs to talk to whoever is in the tech department that the girl with the wheelchair worked with. I think I'm sure he's okay. Yeah. The tournament would decked out like, I mean, why not? He is of diminutive stature. It would behoove him to arm himself. He's a literal child. 13 years old with a machine gun. I'm an American. It doesn't frighten me. It's fine. I hate closing up on a sour point, but unfortunately, this finale is it. Yeah, but it's a bad point for this episode this season. Russell's got really good episodes that, you know, if people haven't watched them, they should go and look up all of the episodes that he wrote for the other doctors. Watch those. See how good he can write or how well he can write. Then you'll understand why we're disappointed. Well, there we are then. That's the finale of the watching now.do podcast. Thank you very much for everyone for joining us here on couch soup every week. And if you like this, and please like and subscribe and do all that fun stuff, become a member of couch soup if you can possibly afford it and support independent creators like us. Watching now still continues. We have decoding dragons. It started the House of the Dragon companion series is keep going with Liz and Michelle for now. It's a bit adieu from us, from me, Charlotte, Ben and Drew in his absence today. Because everyone for tuning in over the last seven weeks, we'll probably see you the next time the doctor turns up somewhere. Hopefully, it'll be better than the next episode. Thank you very much, everybody. Goodbye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. I have something that'll blow your minds. Russell T. Davies has once again ended the season with a bad wolf. Okay. So you're text of dog wolf. Oh, God, my. Hey, Charlotte. At least we know what's in the outtake. 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. (bell chimes)
Let's break down the season finale episode of the Doctor Who series, Empire of Death. Sutekh, the God of Death, has been released and is causing havoc across the cosmos. It’s up to the Doctor, Ruby and Mel to try to stop the all-powerful being and answer the one question on all of our lips: who is Ruby’s mum? Will the Doctor be able to put that big dog down for good? Will we find out who Ruby’s mom actually is? We discuss everything from the latest episode, including the second old-lady mystery of Mrs. Flood, whether 73 Yards is improved by this episode, and our feelings on Ncuti’s first series. Get ready for an explosion of salt!
