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On October 15, 2006 1:37 AM, Chris Burgess said:

That was enjoyable... a little more tangential than Army of Ghosts, but still not bad. I do still get surprised when you guys mention you cried (or nearly so) at the end... when I first saw Doomsday, the biggest emotion I had about the ending was feeling cheated. I was rooting for her to die (of course not knowing of the potential spin-off at the time)... anything other than a grizzly death to me seemed cheap given what's said about her fate in The Satan Pit and Fear Her, plus her monologue at the beginning of Army of Ghosts.

A couple points to address... first, as to why Pete Tyler doesn't get sucked into the void saving Rose, well, I personally chalk that up to Russell Davies' hack writing (I make no bones about not liking his stuff... he does brilliant characters and above-average dialogue, but he can't plot worth a darn -- hence deus ex machina after deus ex machina -- then again, the old series had more than its fair share of out-of-the-blue endings so perhaps his lack of originality can be held at fault as much as anything).

The other is about the bride... Steven made the comment about her being a throwaway companion, which while possible I have doubts about, given her nature (as the spider queen or whatever it is that she turns out to be). At best I'm prognosticating she'll be in one of those grey areas along with Katarina and Sara Kingdom, where debate will rage about what makes a companion a companion. More likely is that she'll not be considered a companion at all. If that's the case, then we'll have only our second story where there's no companion (no prizes for knowing Deadly Assassin is the other).

And lastly, while it's true the Daleks and Cybermen never face each other before Doomsday (unless of course it happened in a New Adventure or Big Finish audio play, both of which are non-canonical as far as I know), this two-parter is the third time (that I can remember anyhow) where the two have appeared in the same story. The earlier is of course Dalek as mentioned, with the earliest being The Five Doctors.

I look forward to Torchwood, especially now that we've got a few glimpses at it (the two 30-second teasers, the 60-second teaser, as well as the minute-and-a-bit scene from episode 1 that went out to (I assume) potential buyers). Let's hope the incestuous Russell Davies casting (for which he's also famous) pays off!

On October 15, 2006 1:50 AM, Chris Burgess said:

As well, before I forget, I just wanted to toss in my two cents on the remark about companions not wanting to leave the Doctor but do anyway... aside from Rose and Sarah Jane (as mentioned in the commentary), Susan immediately leapt to mind when that point was brought up, as did Jamie and Zoe. Peri would be another one, and one could make a case for Ace (not factoring in her leaving in the New Adventures anyway) as well. Nobody else immediately comes to mind, and those are a vast minority, but there are certainly a good number of them. I, of course, am not counting the companions or pseudo-companions who died (Katarina, Sara Kingdom and everyone's favourite, Adric).

If you guys do an interim podcast before the Torchwood premiere on the 22nd, perhaps an idea to explore would be favourite/least favourite companion arrivals/departures.

Without giving it a great deal of thought, my least favourite arrival would be a toss-up between Dodo and Mel, and my least favourite departure would be... um... probably Peri. Both Dodo and Mel came in under such suspect circumstances, and Peri's departure was such an afterthought.

Favourite arrival would be a toss-up between Ian/Barbara (it's hard to beat the original) and Leela (the interaction between her and the Doctor in Face of Evil is so fantastic)... although I kinda dug Romana's entry (both of them, actually) too. Favourite departure would probably be Tegan (partly because I was glad to see her gone, and partly because I loved just how fed up she got with The Doctor by the end... she was never overly enamoured with him, and I loved seeing it come to a boiling point in Resurrection of the Daleks).

On October 15, 2006 4:47 PM, I am Steven said:

I'm surprised Tegan stayed as long as she did. She spent about three years on board the TARDIS not wanting to be there. Dodo had to have been the worst exit by a companion ever - it wasn't even on screen!

We all should really have these Doctor Who chats on the Radio Free Skaro website - it will look like the podcast is popular!

On October 16, 2006 9:27 AM, Warren Frey said:

We should....but I'd rather drive traffic to my site, for purely selfish reasons. :)

Looks like we'll have ourselves a big ol' pile of talking to do for the next one....double header of Torchwood!

As for the companions, yeah, I thought of that after I'd said it, but we had to keep chattering about the doin's a transpirin' on screen. And yeah, Peri's death or whatever was sort of out of nowhere...though I liked Mindwarp best of the three (or 4, or whatever) Trial of a TimeLord stories. Mostly because Brian Blessed rocks. :)

On October 16, 2006 2:13 PM, Chris Burgess said:

Mysterious Planet was always my favourite of the four. I'll never forget the raucous laugh the Canadian Goose book scene got at the 10-0 meeting when it was first shown.

And yep, two episodes of Torchwood on premiere night. I so hope we're not disappointed.

On October 17, 2006 9:35 AM, I am Steven. said:

Adric wanted to die. Or at least WE wanted him to.