Live from Master Closet Studios, you’re listening to the only podcast on the internet that are actually superheroes. It’s the Noobs and the Whovian!
This is the podcast that introduces a whole new generation to Doctor Who by watching an episode each week and discussing it from the perspective of a dad who’s seen it before, and two sons who haven’t.
Welcome to Episode 144, covering the 2016 Christmas Special, The Return of Doctor Mysterio.
Super-short Recap
This is the one where the Doctor feeds a kid some vitamins and he turns into super-spider-batman. Also Nardole got his head reattached.
Production notes
- Premiered December 25, 2016 to 7.83 million viewers
- Written by: Steven Moffatt
- Directed by: Ed Bazalgette
Misc Trivia
- Doctor Misterio is the name of the show in Mexico!
- Moffat and Capaldi loved it so much while touring there that Moffat decided to use it in a title. That’s unfortunate…
- Did yall notice how long the cold open was? It was in fact, the longest in Who history at 9 minutes!
- Firsts
- First back-to-back Christmas stories
- First episode only featuring new Capaldi-era companions instead of leftovers from Smith
- First story to feature only a male companion traveling in the TARDIS
- The Doctor had a throw-away line referring to the ship about to fall on NYC as the Sword of Damocles. This is a reference to a Greek story, but more importantly I can’t hear this referenced without thinking of one of my favorite podcasts, Starship Excelsior. It’s a fan-production based in the Star Trek universe and is amazing. You should check it out.
Cast
- Mr. Brock – Tomiwa Edun
- Sir Elyan in Merlin
Checklist
- Name of the episode spoken in dialogue?
- No, however… I think there’s a double meaning here.
- I assumed that the “return” was him showing up years later in Grant’s life, and that’s true.
- However, it’s also true that this was the return of the Doctor in a broader sense because he’d just spent the last 24 years on Darillium with River.
- For us, it was three weeks between Christmas Specials.
- For fans at the time, it was 12 months
- In universe, these stories were 24 years apart!
- No, however… I think there’s a double meaning here.
- Creature of the week
- Shoal of the Winter Harmony AKA Harmony Shoal
- Jiggery Pokery
- TARDIS
- Sonic
- Ooooo! Shiny new Sonic!
- Psychic paper
- Random
- Jibberty Jabberty
- Mutli-nucleate organism functioning as an infinitely adaptable, independently functioning peripatetic nervous system
- Adventures in closed captioning!
- Special Agent Dan Dangerous… oops
Other stuff we noticed
- His parents told him to let in a old man
- Hey is this America? Oh, thank goodness they put an American flag right in the middle of the opening shot after showing a NYC taxi!
- The temporal disruption thingy was trying to repair things from the Angels in Manhattan episode
- A triple deadlock seal only lasts 10 minutes!?
- Comic book effect
Who’s Who?
- Who is Grant?
- Super snap powers
- He held up a spaceship with his non-dominant hand
- Who is Nardole?
- He sampled the baby formula
- He stopped off in 12th Century Constantinople to rule for a while on the way to rescue the Doctor
- He was reassembled by the Doctor
- He mentioned that the Doctor spent some time with River, then she died.
- I’d never really thought about the fact that he had to deal with her death twice. Once as Ten, having just met her. Then as Twelve, with all their history together.
- Who is the Doctor?
- He didn’t know about Superman and Clark Kent
- Apparently, he doesn’t know about ANY superheroes
- The Doctor, the main one, the original. All the others are based on me.
- Doctor Mysterio! OH I like it.
- I brought snacks, it’s the mark of a pro.
- Special Agent Dan Dangerous
- Mercy. It’s not a request, it’s an offer.
- He saves planets to change the subject
- The humans have the same plan they always have… me!
- Sad Doctor…
- He lost Clara, then he had a fun Christmas episode with River. But then he lost her too!
- He’s very brave, and he’s very silly. And I think for a while, he’ll be sad. But in the end, he’ll be alright.
- Doctor who? Doctor… Mysterio!
- He pulled out some Tennant teeth!
Classic Who Connections
- There was a reference to the Time Lord non-interference policy which was first referenced in the serial The War Games (Underworld)
- Lucy disguised herself as cleaning staff to get into Harmony Shoal. The Third Doctor disguised himself as a janitor to get into Global Chemicals in The Green Death
- The Doctor guessed that Peter Parker would get radiation poisoning after a bite from a radioactive spider. Planet of the Spiders
Overall impressions
- Overall rating out of 10
- Jared – 10 Where can I get one of those Hazandra crystals
- Austin – 7 brain goo guns
- Corbin – 6 giant gs
- Tripp – 6.5 crappy superhero names
- Creep Level – out of 500
- Jared – 100 creep levels for the modern invasion of the body snatchers
- Austin – 250
- Corbin – 25
- Tripp – 75
The Game Plan
- Next week, we finally head into Series 10 with The Pilot!
- Would yall like to speculate on what might be ahead, based on the trailer we saw?
- Also, we need some suggestions for upcoming timey wimeys. We only have a few ideas left, like possibly one.
- So, here’s the requirements:
- Family-friendly – that’s why we’re not covering the Terminator franchise… yet.
- If written, it need to be short – no novels, only short stories
- Accessible – we don’t want to have to buy a $50 Collector’s Edition Blu-ray or subscribe to some random service we’ve never heard of
- So, here’s the requirements:
Listener Input
SPOILERS AHEAD FOR QUANTUM LEAP!
- Over on our Facebook page, Christina said she’d be up for a reboot of Quantum Leap. Here was my response:
- Ya know, I might be down for that actually! I haven’t been down for reboots as much at continuations (Bill and Ted 3, Terminator Dark Days, etc). So what if they just restarted the show with Al finding Sam after the connection was lost 30 years ago. Sam was just leaping around setting right what once went wrong but with all his memories intact.
- The show could either follow around this now-mature time hero, OR he could be passing the torch onto to Al’s daughter that he had with his first wife that Sam helped Al stay within the finale.
- Ok, Christina! After you’re done with your season of The Boy Doctor, ya gotta get on this!
- She replied: Sure…and Jared can pull some strings to get Harrison Ford to make a cameo once he’s done filming The Skull!
Closing
Noobs and the Whovian is a production of Master Closet Studios, where it’s always smaller on the inside. Your Senior Producer is Austin Reason. Our Audio Engineer is Thing One: Tripp Reason. Our Production Editor is the Other One: Corbin Reason. Special thanks to tardis.fandom.com for the trivia, and to Jared for the Classic Who Connection. Shout outs to Victor and Jared for their Patreon support.
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Until next time, be safe if you can. But always. Be. Amazing.
