He Who Moans Review of Doctor Who: Oxygen 

"Zomg!!! Stubagful is a secret communist!!" - literally what someone in the comments on this thing has said. Dunno why I keep coming back to this one and reading back comments but the way people on the internet twist a point that you never actually made from a video containing some mild criticism of capitalism as a general concept is just fascinating to me. Just think here: I didn't say in this video that capitalism has no good points, I wasn't even that harsh in my description of the flaws in our system. All I said here was just that this episode of Doctor Who is a satirization of some of capitalism's really quite obvious flaws that even most conservatives would probably admit to, and apparently just expressing that equals communism....somehow. How the fuck have people extracted that from what I've said here? That's some intense projection. My advice: Turn the internet off. Go out into the real world. Talk to people. Read books. Smell the flowers. Stop taking life so seriously. Some twat on the internet rambling in his spare time about a metaphor in sci-fi programme is not going to have any impact on "Western values" whatever the fuck that means. Further reminder: for God's sake think before posting a comment. RU-vid content creators are going to see this stuff, we have this thing called a "comment feed" with all of them as they come through. If this video made you angry, calm down, think, did I say what you think I said? And then write your comment, read it back to yourself and ask: Is this in any way convincing? Does what I'm saying make sense? Is this going to make me look silly? Cause if not then no shit am I not gonna take you seriously. END

You made me like this episode even more than I already did.

Some of the comments on this one are a bit weird. I don't know where this argument I see all over the place that "because you live under capitalism, therefore you shouldn''t criticise it" came from but its never made any sense to me. I watch Doctor Who, and I criticise it, there's good points and bad points, I use products and criticise them, why should an aspect of the society we live in be immune from criticism?

DID YOU RUN THROUGH THAT FIELD OF WHEAT YOU NAUGHTY BOY

*makes an in depth discussion of political themes and the real life implications that they have *a good 50% of the comments are "Oh my god your hair is short, this is not what I am used to, so I am surprised"

As a space geek my main problem with this is that it falls into the old hole that running out of oxygen in space is a problem, which, for the most part, it isn't. You're not worried about the amount of oxygen you have, it's the amount of CO2 you can filter out that's going to kill you. Also, if we're going down the capitalistic route, oxygen is one of the most common elements in the universe, inherently, the competitive market would make it effectively free very quickly, but I could absolutely see companies capitalising on CO2 filtering. Sorry, I always get a little annoyed by how sci-fi represents oxygen.

and cue massive political bitchfight in the comments...nnow!!

RIP Long haired Stuart!

Love the use of hitchhiker's theme- Douglas will always be in my heart!

And you were charged to have parts of your body removed with sharp instruments, so there's that.

you have been really positive to this season it weird but great

You're going to love the finale I think, the first half at least. I personally loved the second half as well but let's see what you think considering it divided opinion (again). Oxygen really was fantastic. It's basically what Kill the Moon and Sleep No More should have been.

Loved the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy music you played. I imagine not many people caught onto it, and why.

The everybody lives in Knock Knock and everybody dies in Oxygen creates another really confusing tone shift.

"Wait, so I have to work for the rest of my life to pay for stuff that I don't want, just so that everyone else can suffer the same horrible fate as me?" "Exactly"

OMG WHERE IS YOUR HAIR!

Oxygen would have made a great return for the Sixth Doctor enemy Sil

Great review there! I pretty much agree with all of your points, and I feel that what you've said has added a deeper layer to the story that I hadn't seen before, so thank you for that. Also, I highly appreciate you're use of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy theme.

3:30 AMEN!!!!! I´VE BEEN 5 TIMES TO THE UK AND I ALWAYS FOUND THIS FUCKING LUDICROUS

FINALLY, DAMMIT! Wait.....THE F*** HAPPENED TO YOUR HAIR?!

I to like to listen to the hitchhikers theme/The Eagles when I just want to think.

These reviews from you should do wonders to bridge the gap to the Christmas special (which actually looks like it might be something different and interesting this year)

Unfortunately, the run-time of episodes mean they can't make their themes subtle. Writers have to scream them to the viewer before it's over.

Man, i love your content. I don't copy your opinions, but they really help me think. Also, when you deconstruct what is wrong with an episode, it tells me what a story needs, and i'm working on a doctor who fanfiction with the 7th doctor( I know it's fanfiction) and i take some of what you say into consideration. Your reviews have given me a lot to think about. Also your voice is perfect for comedy. And i genuinely think this has become my favorite youtube channel. Also you got me into Big Finish. "WHY?"- My wallet.

10:04 Oh my god, Stu, what happened to your long hair? You've destroyed it! How could you?!

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy theme FTW!

I went to King's Cross last week and saw that 30p charge for the toilets! ☺ Great review, as always. Keep 'em coming!☺

I'm excited for your reveiw of the two part finale.

This is now number 2 in my favourites from NewWho. Creepy, gripping, exciting and a truly sensational piece of work. Love it

Great review!

Yes this was one of my 2 favorites from the series (now i cant wait for your finale review; its gonna be epic) I wish i was more excited to see the video but they just confirmed Clara is coming back for Christmas...

Here's something to tackle. Try to make a cohesive story-line for The Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and War Doctor using their original episodes and their most important audio dramas. Basically following the Nu-Who three Series per Doctor structure create a cohesive Series arc for the Doctors with missing seasons to make it feel even a little connected.

Hey Stu, review the new episodes of Rick and Morty when they come out. Also please review Derek Jacobi's Master Big Finish story's when they are out to.

Glad i am not the only one who started 2 like Nardole after this.

I have a feeling you will like Eaters of Light. I'm eager to find out if I'm right.

Wonderful episode.

Also, and this doesn't actually have anything to do with anything, but part of me wishes this had been the opportunity Mathieson used to bring back Gus. I could so easily imagine a scenario where the company behind the suits is the same one that set up the Mummy incident; maybe they're a huge conglomerate with arms in multiple business/scientific ventures, and let Gus be the voice of the smart suits in place of Velma. I just really like the idea of Gus and whoever he represents being recurring bad guys.

That closing bit. That was magic.

Whats the song at the end when your in the field?

Is this a record for how soon into talking you mentioned big finish lol.

I liked this episode, but it didn't do THAT much for me having now seen it twice. My reaction to the issue of capitalism was more of an "oh...neat" than outright fascination. Maybe it's just cause I don't honestly think the ethics of capitalism are something that my brain needs to be "prodded" into thinking about. While I like my entertainment and art to be generally optimistic, I'm not a person who's devoid of cynicism, and I'm so disenfranchised with my own government already that the idea of monetizing Oxygen honestly DOESN'T strike me as a step too far to take seriously. I'm sure it can and will happen within my lifetime, even, so I don't feel inclined to give the episode that many kudos for addressing the idea. An idea I *did* gravitate toward that didn't really get talked about but is intriguing as an implication) is whether or not the Smart suits, like the robots in Smile, can be considered close to becoming their own life forms, capable of decision making that goes beyond programming. One fascinating little moment was where the suit with the one guy's dead girlfriend/fiance in it goes to give him her oxygen, and he says "thank you". I see that as something you could take a number of ways; is he thanking the suit, and if so does he think the suit registers that thanks? Is he thanking it for the oxygen alone, or for choosing to give it to him through his lover rather than any of the other bodies? Is he thanking his lover's "ghost" or memory? That's a moment that really stuck with me for all the possibilities.

Did you study media or television or film or something? because your reviews are very academic and you always have very strong cases for any opinion you present. Even if I disagree with you, I respect your opinions since you've presented such detailed and conclusive information to accompany them! very well done!

The food and water argument can be justified I believe. Paying for food is essentially paying for the farmers and packagers to do their work which is work. Water is paying for the purification. At least that's how it can be justified in my opinion.

I think what differs fundamentally about the monetisation of food and water, and that of the air we breathe is that individuals have to collect, farm or produce food - and when you buy that food you haven't collected, farmed or produced it. Oxygen, on the other hand, requires barely any work to find. In short, paying for food and water is fundamentally paying for the work done to make it (though I do understand further costs and the drive for profit). That concept cannot also be applied to oxygen.

The reason the toilet is charged is that human psychology is such that free things are valued as being worth nothing. So when people can use the loo for free, they tend to abuse it more. There is also the fact that someone has to pay for it, and 'free' just means the cost is transferred to someone else. You must work or die; that's the equation life has always presented, and outside fiction, it's unlikely to change. Maybe you don't have to work so much - how long did it take to earn the cost for the railway toilet? But you have to do some work. In fact, if anything, except for the party elite, under the alternative to capitalism, everyone does more work, not less. As for realism; no. Cleanliness keeps you alive in space; it is more important than on a planet. And automated cleaning has been under development for decades. Heck, now everyone seems to have cheap robot vacuums. The lighting might be lowered, because the scarcity of the universe is not oxygen (that's stupid ) but energy. Given energy, you can recycle almost all oxygen and rip out more as you need from water. And there is a lot of water in this universe. So the premise of the BBC show is ERR capitalism bad! But please keep buying our merch! The BBC. Compulsory payments for communist propaganda. You know what; Trek did this so much better. It understood that a relative post scarcity society is not an absolute one; in the same way we are all richer than medieval kings in most ways. Hell, you know what only a very, very rich elite used to enjoy? Iced drinks. Now they are one of the cheapest things imaginable, and over consumption has become the health risk starvation used to be.

What's the song playing in the background at the end of the video where you're sitting in the grass because I'VE HEARD IT BEFORE BUT IDK WHERE AND IT'S KILLING ME

Personally I thought this episode was terrible. Ignoring any political themes, this episode makes no sense from the very beginning. Any kind of thought immediately destroys this premise since it relies entirely on it the characters not making a profit. However, replacing everyone will always be pricier than either keeping them or swapping them out with new people, as fuel to get new people there won't pay for itself, disposing of the bodies will need to come from somewhere, you'd need to pay the families for the 'accidents', this system would force you to pay them more for hazard pay and there's no doubt starting bonuses and cover ups you need to pay for. Better yet, the company's making no money while it's waiting for the new crew to get there and be get used to the new setup. It all leads to the episode having no real reason to exist since the plot itself makes no sense at all. Now to bring in criticism for its political themes, they took the downsides of capitalism to use in this episode, and that was it. They included no upsides and were hammering home "Capitalism is evil!" with a sledgehammer because somebody on the set was completely convinced that the whole system was evil.

Probably the best of season 10.

Yay! Oxygen. Now I've just got to patiently wait for your opinions on World Enough and Time because of your love of Spare Parts. Not to say I didn't love the others in between though. They've all be great this year in my opinion!

Another good review!

Yay I wasn't the only person who drew parallels between the old gritty stunning sets in RTs ere (one of the best bits about the RTs and something witch mod it needed to do more) and this episode

"I want to sell out and settle down. For one day only it's a blue light special on aisle three. My wormhole technology, and three set of steak knifes, all the tea in China."

Music at the end?

Some people like the next one and some people dont. I want to see your opinion on extremis tho

I love this episode!

What's the music at the end in the field?

Love the HHG2TG radio theme in the end

Totally agree with everything you said! "Oxygen" is a fine example of a modern classic. The plot and the soundtrack all harked back to the "base-under-siege" stories of the Troughton era and the visuals were stunning, especially the space walking scene in the opening. I liked the fluid link reference at the beginning and I'm also starting to like Nardole and his banter with the Doctor and Bill. It was also nice to see a new spacesuit being used as opposed to the orange costume that has been overused the past few years. The villains were seriously creepy and the airlock scene where Bill starts to drift out of consciousness was extremely tense. Overall, the episode conveyed the unforgiving reality of space very well. It deserves a solid 9/10.

You really need to watch some Star Trek, Stuart. That really made the sci-fi allegory popular. You'd think there would be some minimum oxygen requirement if those workers were there specifically to do the job the company wanted them to do. Like you can buy extra if you were on your lunch break or something but they'd obviously need oxygen to do the work so making them pay for that too seems to defeat the purpose of paying someone for a job. Then again a lot of the stuff the company's reasoning is kind of questionable anyway. If they have animatronics in the suits that can do some of the work why bother to have so many people at all. And you'd think just informing the people to be more efficient would be more effective than killing them and enduring more expense to replace them. Some of AV Club commentators have determined this to be part of the faulty thinking of the capitalistic mindset but even then it could use some elaboration. Anyway I liked this one overall and thought it was pretty solid. Best Mathieson episode since Mummy on the Orient Express. There were some contrivances and some other stuff but it was fairly well executed. Oh crap. Stuart stole MrTARDISReviews Hitchhiker theme song. He really is taking over!!! The hair looks fab by the way.

A true fact. I once worked with Oxygen actress Katie Brayben (who played Ellie in the episode) for a year in London's West End. She's a great actress and person.

Stu! Your hair! :P Anyway i'm very surprised that you have pretty much liked every episode this season.

Ben Elton actually wrote the same concept of privatised air thirty years ago with his play Gasping.

Love the hitchhiker's theme here

Totally off topic perhaps, but the HHGG music was a brilliant touch to this video review.

shout out to hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy.

Omfg when you get to the Doctor falls

Do a guide to the 6th doctor audios that would be awesome!!

¡Hasta siempre, Comandante Stuart!

I know for a fact that you will fucking despise it or if it not, dislike 'The Doctor Falls'. For me, It's like an amalgamation of The End of Time and Hell Bent with a portion of Death in Heaven. In other words, it displays everything there is to hate about Moffat in one episode.

Late to the party, but Heinlein did the whole "you have to pay to breathe" thing in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress way back in 1966, and i doubt he was being wholly original even then, that's just the earliest example I can recall running into. This episode might have been well-executed but it certainly isn't a new idea at all.

The 2 in O2 is down, so it's not confused with "squared".

You needed to take 420 things with you on your bike rides.

3:48 I was in central London yesterday and I call those turnstiles IBS tax. Everyone needs the loo and it isn't pleasant needing it in public. Most businesses are fairly sympathetic to be fair but you can tell staff have been told not to let anyone use their toilet without buying something first. Has the person who okayed the paying 50p for a whiz never been caught short in his life?

I realized that I love killer spacesuits

My beef with DW is all the retcons of thing you thought were, well, canon? Case in point, The Diary. Based on Silence in the Library and the next ep, River has it with her on the Library planet. How does Nardole have it, if he parted ways with River on Darillium?

I spy a Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy theme!!!

Oxygen and World, Enough and Time are probably my favourites from series 10.

Air is just space explorers DLC. Oh what you paid a shitload for a trip to mars and can't go back? 6.99$ for every breath of air you take or we'll use you as fertilizer to grow vegan tomatoes that taste like copper.

This episode reminded me of when the water supply was privatized in Bolivia in the late 90's

WHAT DID YOU DO TO YOUR HAIR

Definitely interested in your thoughts on the Monks trilogy. Personally, I think it started strong with Extremis and got progressively worse by the end. It wasn't bad but could have been so, so much better.

'Oxygen' was watched by 5.85 million people. 'The Tsuranga Conundrum' thumped it with a rating of 7.76 million. Funny old world.

You've probably seen all the episodes now, but I'd say season 2 had two classic episodes: Oxygen and World Enough and Time. And in my opinion Oxygen was the best. Pleased you like it.

love journey of the sorcerer. now going to listen to hitch hikers guide to the galaxy .... again

I saw it as the plot of The Lorax movie, but in space. But yeah, this episode is a really good concept, and it's well executed

Great review, although all I cared about was the Hitchhikers theme at the end 😁😁

Journey of a Sorcerer! I love Douglas Adams.

I've been pretty much agreeing with you for most of this series. The only disagreement was Thin Ice, which I liked, but to each his own.

Without spoiling it, the blindness will come into play in the future. It's a major plot point in "Pyramid at The End of The World"

WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR HAIR

The blindness ends in the second best episode of the series

I thought the doctor was just trying to make Bill feel like they changed something. It seems a society where people were being killed by their employers at will probably had a bunch of problems, and the station they were on was probably just a grain of sand among them. The revolution could have been coincidental or the news of what happened on the station might have been the straw that broke the camels back, or again just a grain among a pile of sand that smothered the old regime. However I think the Doctor wanted to give Bill(And the writer wanted to give the viewer)the feeling that such an awful system could change that people who believed human life was worth more than the bottom dollar could change things. I mean for all we know he lied about the revolution altogether.

There are vague ideas that are good but the writing of them was quite bad in my opinion. "Sophisticated script" - Yeah, no, I have to very much disagree with that one. There was basically no plot, the "reveal" of the company as the villain was given away very soon into the episode, and a number of other holes I could and have picked with the script.

Stuart! What happened to you?! Where's your hair gone?! Did Moffat take it ransom until you wrote a positive review of the finale?

Oh shit! A hair cut!

I gotta admit, I totally dismissed the episodes message as an unsubtle critique of capitalism initially. Your observations about what commodities were off limits to capitalism and the moral quandary behind that was brilliant though. Keep it up, man. Great channel

I have to watch this twice, I was too distracted to listen after learning the you have to pay to have a wee at King's Cross. Are they clean, though? If you can find a bathroom in a train/bus station in the US, it's probably not a real bathroom, rather, a portal to Satan's butt hole. Imagine a public toilet that hasn't been flushed in years. In the US, ROACH KILLER is surprisingly expensive. I think this should be an exception to economic theory. I don't think you should have to pay $20 for "roach motels" that aren't even effective. ...wait, what were we talking about?

In terms of the Ending... how do we know the Doctor didn't just lie to spare Bill's feelings?

Your face surprises me. In a good way

Meh, I voted Tory and watched the episode. People need to stop bitching about political commentary in shows, you shouldn't be bothered by media confronting ideas especially if it helps you become more introspective about your own views.