So Stu mentioned 73 Yards, Heaven Sent, Blink, and Turn Left as top tier episodes. Sounds like the formula for great Doctor Who is to either have the Doctor barely be in it at all, or have nothing BUT the Doctor.
The Doctor can do (almost) anything, so taking him out (or limiting his power like in Midnight or Heaven Sent), makes the writer step up their game and come up with a satisfying story without the Deus ex Machina trump card that the Doctor so often is. It doesn't always work (Love and Monsters), but Doctor-lite episodes are usually very good.
73 yards is wonderful. It's like an episode of Twilight Zone. For people super into continuity its only real value is its status as a character study on Ruby. An episode of Doctor Who entirely dedicated to exploring Ruby's fear of abandonment is a genuine stroke of mad genius. I mean, thay is what it is. The episode is not an intense science fantasy plot about Mad Jack and fairy circles and heralds. That stuff is all fiction and nonsense. It's a Ruby's nightmare daydream come to life, where for poorly explained reasons she is abandoned by the person she trusts and is haubted by the fear that it will happen again. And it does. Strangers can't help her overcome it, her family can't help her with it, even professionals can't help her. In this fictional nightmare of Ruby's own creation she lives her life haunted by her fear, never allowing herself to get close to others again because of it. So what is Roger ap Gwilliam? In Ruby's fiction Roger is basically the purpose for her suffering. It's the idea that her trauma and fear has meaning. That the Doctor's last convo with her was a great big warning and that the nonsense on the fairy circle was real and she needs to stop it. That once she did this, it would be a great big victory where she conquers the fear she has had since childhood and have her life back again. But that's not reality, not even in the fiction of the daydream. The fear of abandonment doesn't have a purpose. She won't conquer it in one big victorious gesture. It will haunt her forever and go unanswered until the day she dies. It's only when Ruby acknowledges the manifestation with the Doctor there that the daydream breaks. The Doctor is not going to vanish on her inexplicably. The Doctor won't abandon her for no reason and the fear, despite how it feels, is not real. She wasn't abandoned by the Doctor in Wales on her latest visit. Her third visit to Wales is now.
I would also be a terrible Doctor Who showrunner. Combing Farscape insanity and Invincible violence would never be allowed for any IP watched by children. The BBC will turn down the pitch of making their most popular sci-fi family show just like a sci-fi show they censored a lot when broadcasted.
Hay Stu, I missed the stream, but I really wanted to ask you i just wanted to ask if you might bring back your abnormal stories podcast, I loved the verity of horror you explored, if not, cool, your tv retrospectives are great by themselves,
Book recommendations: "When I Was Five I Killed Myself" by Howard Buten "The Orange Girl" by Jostein Gaarder (no need to be into Gaarder otherwise, as far as I can tell) "Maus 1" and "Maus 2" by Art Spiegelman (Comic) "Ghost World" by Daniel Clowes (Comic)
Take the last five words on page 74 of the da Vinci code, take the numbers of the letters of the alphabet that the words are, arrange the numbers in alphabetical order, wait for the next solar eclipse and then count to whatever number you have
