170 Spyfall Parts 1 & 2

This is the one where the doctor and her companions get attacked by a car, get lazer boots, fight an insane spyMASTER, and defeat interdimensional glowing fedora men.

Live from Master Closet Studios, you’re listening to the only podcast on the internet spread across multiple Earths in multiple times: It’s the Noobs and the Whovian! 

My name is Austin and I’m the Whovian, and these are my sons Corbin and Tripp and we’re the noobs! 

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 170 covering series 12 episodes 1 and 2: Spyfall Part 1 and 2 

Super-short Recap

This is the one where the doctor and her companions get attacked by a car, get lazer boots, fight an insane spyMASTER, and defeat interdimensional glowing fedora men. 

Production notes

  • Story #288
  • Originally aired January 1 & 5, 2020 to 6.89 & 6.07 million
  • Written by: Chris Chibnall
  • Directed by: Jamie Magnus Stone & Lee Haven Jones

Misc Trivia

  • Closest two episodes at only 4 days apart
  • First episode with a “Previously…” voiceover. It had only ever been text before.
  • This episode and The Return of Doctor Mysterio both aired exactly one year after its preceding episode.

Cast 

  • C – Stephen Fry
    • In A Bit of Fry & Laurie, he often played the head of a spy agency who was named Control. This was a nod to that.
    • Stephen Fry has done SO much stuff, I don’t know where to begin.
    • QI
    • Mythos
    • Narrator for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
    • Master of Lake-town in the Hobbit movies

Checklist 

  • Name of the episode spoken in dialogue?
    • Nope
    • First title to just be Parts 1 & 2 since 2009-2010’s The End of Time
      • These two also both aired, in part, on New Year’s Day, AND on the first day of their decade
  • Creature of the week
    • Kasaavins
      • Glowing people wearing fedoras
      • What happened to them at the end of the episode 
  • TARDIS 
    • She’s got it up on a lift, she’s just draining the water slides and the boat lakes and the rainforest floor.
    • Somewhere in the lower substrata, there’s a wardrobe. I think it’s just past the karaoke buses
    • O would really like to take a ride onto the TARDIS. 
      • His reaction: Ridiculous. Was he mocking her?
    • It’s blue when she’s blue
    • The time vortex shifted red when they broke into Gallifrey’s bubble
  • Name Dropping
    • Remember our trip to the Great Kalisperon Bike-Off?
  • The Doctor Loves Stuff
    • I love a laminator
  • Adventures in closed captioning!
    • Why did it say “Regular-speed footage”?!

Other stuff we noticed

  • In five seconds, die!
  • In the absence of UNIT, MI6 had to team up with every intelligence agency in the world
    • AND Torchwood
  • Tongue-immobilizing gum
  • VOR – can we just say Google? It’s Google, right?
    • It’s funny that we’ve heard about Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. in this universe, but when it’s time to smear one as a global conspiracy, we have to make up VOR.
  • His DNA is only 93% human, what’s the other 7%? 
    • Corbin: Lunch?

Who’s Who? 

  • Who is O?
    • That was an aggressive button push!
    • He’s the Master!
    • When I kill them, it’s like knowing I’m in the right place doing what I was meant to do.
    • Have we seen them do telepathic communication before?
    • Tiny teutonic psychic perception filter
    • He lived through from 1943 to 2020?!
      • Why didn’t he meet up with himself and confer?
  • Who is Ryan Sinclair?
    • I decided my cover name is Logan and now I’m worried that I look nothing like Hugh Jackman!
    • Somehow logan existed
  • Who is Graham O’Brien?
    • Don’t panic, especially you Graham. And I did say don’t talk back to the screens. AY?!
    • Tap dancing laser shoes!
  • Who is Yasmin “Yaz” Khan?
    • Alexa hates her dad’s voice
    • Taking after the Doctor
    • Apparently Yaz thinks a forest is nothingness… 
    • What would the Doctor ask right now? What do we have at our disposal.
      • She’s really learning from the Doctor!
    • Yaz’s dad was right again! Conspiracy!
  • Who is the Doctor?
    • I’ve read the files, the Doctor is a man. I’ve had an upgrade!
    • I can read pixels
    • She lived in the Outback for 123 years
    • She met O when she was a man. When she was a WHAT?!
    • I have a whole section on her over there. Lot of inconsistencies… 
      • *stares into camera*
    • The name’s Doctor. THE Doctor.
    • Playing Snap instead of Black Jack!
    • She’s really hard to get rid of
    • The Apparating Man, Lady! The Apparating Lady! Every time.
    • Strongly disapprove of Ada using the gun. Grenades? That’s cool.
    • The Doctor of Hope
      • Where there’s risk, there’s hope
      • These are the dark times, but they don’t sustain. Darkness never sustains, though sometimes it can feel like it.
    • Do the fascists win? Never! Now, I’m going to wipe that fact from your mind. Feel better!
      • Wait… why did she have to wipe Noor and Ada’s memories? She didn’t wipe King James, or Queen Elizabeth, or like… anyone else!
    • They still don’t know where she’s from or anything
      • Until the end of this episode
    • She’s a big fan of being alive

Can we talk about CRISPR?

Overall impressions

  • Overall rating out of 10
    • Jared – 7 double entendre titles
    • Austin – 9 flying houses
    • Corbin – 8 impossible things
    • Tripp – 8.5 glowing fedoras 
  • Creep Level – out of 500
    • Jared – 100
    • Austin – 200
    • Corbin – 50
    • Tripp – 45

Theories

  • Who is the Timeless Child?
    • Tripp – something from the Doctor and the Master’s past that they don’t remember
    • Corbin – it’s not related to them at all
  • What does it all mean?

The Game Plan 

  • Next week, we’re covering series 12 episode 3, Orphan 55

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.

You can find us at Facebook or Twitter or email us. Consider supporting us. Please subscribe and leave a rating wherever you found us, and share us with a friend not because we’re a great show but because we watch one.

Until next time, be safe if you can. But always. Be. Amazing. 

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