2 who

Matt Smith's specific episodes are discussed. One episode explores mental health and the struggles faced by artists. The importance of art and creativity is emphasized. Another episode introduces the Silence, a terrifying monster that people forget about. The concept of forgetting monsters is explored. The Doctor's Wife episode features the TARDIS spirit embodied in a woman. It showcases Matt Smith's portrayal of the Doctor and his unique characteristics. Alright, going more off on Matt Smith, maybe we'll talk about his specific episodes. So the first one we did, I believe, was an incident with a doctor. And why did you choose this one? Um, this is how I get people into foo. I don't know if it's ever actually worked. I don't know what they've gone on to do with their lives past then, but this episode is everything. It really shows the struggles of mental health, and especially when they're prevalent in artists, it's definitely in other creatives, and we wouldn't even have Doctor Who if it wasn't for artists and creatives, you know? You wouldn't have any of your entertainment, life would be dull, and dare I say meaningless, without art. I'm going to go on a little tangent here, and I will reel myself back in, so you don't have to worry. It's why Station Eleven is so important. It shows them creating art in the end times. They survived the apocalypse, they survived whatever thing is happening, and, cause what is the point of living if you're not thriving? If you're not creating and sharing art with the world? So, um, I'm pretty sure that Cass actually is in Sembango, so like, Bengo, was so, kudos to them for like, raising him from the dead, I don't know how they did all of that, um, but no, I loved it, and I loved that the big bad of this episode was more so like a misunderstood creature, very much like Mensa himself, um, very relatable, and like, when he vanquished the beast, he felt bad. It wasn't a celebration, it was like, oh no, what have I done? I loved the little flirtation between Vincent and Amy, um, I don't know if I would have left if I was Amy, I know she had to, but, um, I feel like this episode won't leave us that much to say about it, maybe, but it's because it's such an experiential episode, like you just like, live and breathe through it, you see how he sees the stars, you see how he's like, the night isn't black, it's dark, dark blue, and it's just, it's gorgeous, and it also shows that like, people in town pretty much hated him, like, they didn't think his art was good, and it's like, just a reminder that like, you're not creating for others, you're creating for yourself, and the process of creating. Now, I'll, I'll turn it over to you. No, I have to say, uh, just, Tony Curran does an amazing job of playing Vincent Van Gogh, um, this is written by Richard Curtis, uh, I think the direction by Johnny Campbell is amazing too, especially the end, uh, with the tracking shot, and the rotational platform, uh, with the paintings, and then Bill Nighy being, uh, explaining, um, Vincent Van Gogh's, uh, uh, impacts, uh, I think it's really important that they explored mental, um, especially at a time, I think this was written like, 2011, 2012, where like, it's much more prevalent now, but people don't really talk, like, I feel like even 10 years ago, we weren't as openly discussing, like, um, a lot of the, the, the open discussion and dialogue we're having about a lot of emotional and mental disorders. Yes, generally they want to show, um, shout out to Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Sexy French Depression, people will deal with your depression and your anxiety, but when you get past that, they really give up quickly, they don't have time for you. I also think it's, uh, again, this is like what I talked about at the beginning, about how Doctor Who creates, like, a literal blank canvas for the writer to paint on. And the fact, um, I don't know if this is where you're going to go with it or not, but the fact that it's, what? That he's a man dealing with these troubles, it's always seen as a very, like, womanly thing to be sad, to be depressed, to be anxious, men are manly men, and they fight war, and they don't, they don't have emotions, they don't have feelings, and so much so, it's like the Doctor is a man with feelings, and that's why he maybe works so well, and why people are willing to follow him to the ends of the earth. But this is what I was discussing before, when I was saying how Doctor Who creates, like, literal, a blank canvas where any writer could write any story that they want to at any time, and, you know, given this one is a specific historical figure, but I think the writer really wanted to convey, like, the extent to which, like, depression and anxiety, even after being told you are going to be the greatest artist of all time, you know, it still will take its toll. Yeah, he still ends up dying by suicide. Right, so, which is just emblematic that, like, even... It doesn't matter what's going on in your life, sorry. No, no, it doesn't involve just what... You've looked mad. Sorry, but it doesn't... Mental health doesn't need a good reason. Everything can be fine, but you're not okay. True. Sorry, I don't want to switch our thoughts. Okay, we'll move on to the next one. The next one you wanted to cover was the Silence 2 Carter. Yeah. So, why did you pick those two episodes? Why did you pick those two episodes? Because there were two I really remembered. They really stuck out to me. Stuck? Stuck out? Stood out? I guess I'm making a new word here. But, um, the Silence are terrifying. So, what are the Silence? They're these big, wiggly, dick-handed guys that... They wear anything? Suits. Yeah, they wear suits. With a creepy face that, like, they stretch their butthole mouth open. And they can also zap you, which they don't seem to zap very often. They seem to more like be like, Haha, you don't remember me. But they have, like, taken over. They're everywhere. And people are forgetting about them, so they don't know to do anything. Like, how can you fight a monster you don't remember? And a lot of the things that they do is not related necessarily. Like you said, they don't really zap people very often. What they do is influence people. Do you think they zap them because they really wanted Amy to deliver the message to the doctor, even though they kind of know that she can't really deliver the message? Are you talking about specifically in the bathroom? Yes. I think they did that to just show the power that they have. Like, what if there's this monster that you forget every single time that you look away from them, and it also can kill you? But I think the main thing, the thing that they do more than anything is exact their influence by suggestibility. Because you get ideas, or you get these thoughts, you get these feelings from something you don't even remember. And I think it's some sort of induced hypnosis that they create in you. And so, for example, they talked about in the episode how they needed a spacesuit so they convinced people to go to the moon, so that they can have a spacesuit. That's just an example of that. I also like that this episode features Mark Shepard, who's also king of the nerds, like every single nerdy thing. Hilariously, his father portrays him in the future. He's one of the ones invited. This episode also is a little complicated, because it has a lot of implications for the rest of the season, which we won't get into. Just watch Doctor Who, just in general, if we haven't convinced you. Um, also features excellent direction from Toby Haynes, Stephen Moffat episode. Um, anything else you wanted to point out? It's another one of those episodes where you just gotta watch it. It's like, I saw The Silence and I forgot. But, like, when you're there watching it, it's so much. What about the markings? Oh, yeah. So, they had to figure out a way to know that they'd seen them. And visually, it's such a cool, like... What's a cool thing? The tally mark, to count up how many interactions they've had with them. And then, eventually, the doctor just, like, stabs a thing into the... a video recorder into the hand of your nerd guy. Oh, yeah. Well, they do that for every single person. Yeah, but I... So, they're able to audio record what they see, so they can play it back when they forget. Yeah. It's also very Men in Black-y, like, the way... Yeah, like, the way it's drawn. Yeah. Um, no, it's... I mean, it's a great episode. It's the whole, like... Which is explored later on with Capaldi. You know, are we ever truly alone? Do we see things and forget we've seen them? Another Steven Moffat, like... Now you gotta be afraid of... What if you forgot you saw monsters? You know what, I'm fine if I forgot that I saw a monster. As long as I'm not putting any tally marks on my arm, I'm fine with it. As long as it doesn't impact me, I'm good. Yeah. What about you? What about me? No, I want to know if I saw a monster. Ignorance is not bliss. I disagree with that completely. I guess as somebody who has really bad night terrors, all I want to do is forget them. So I'm fine if I forget them. I guess it's very fitting that the doctor is the doctor who forgets. Wow, we wrapped that up nicely. A little bow on it. Is it a bowtie? Mm-hmm. That's fair. Interestingly enough, um... Give me my fez. Give me a fez. The... Which doctor wore the fez? Or... No, didn't another one wear it? No, that's not the only one who wore it. Yeah. Um... That was an interesting thing that Steve Moffat did. We'll talk a little bit more about that in a moment when we talk about Matt Smith as a whole, which we can actually do it probably now when we talk about our next episode, which is the one I picked, which is The Doctor's Wife. This is the one where the... The spirit of the TARDIS is imbued in this woman in this planet that's in like a pocket universe. Not really in the universe that we know, but in this pocket universe, which kind of... They lure Time Lords to their planet so they could... The host, who is voiced by the wonderful Michael Sheen, that... At one point, it was actually rumored to play the Doctor multiple times. Anyway, they feed off of like the time energy, and there's a TARDIS-like junkyard, and they rebuild the TARDIS and everything. I think that this episode is really emblematic of everything that the Twelfth Doctor... Everything that Matt Smith brings to the role, which is like... I don't think, as much as he needs people around, he doesn't know how to be around people. Yeah, he's definitely lacking that emotional intelligence. David Tennant had it in spades, but... It's almost like he's taken... Childish. He's taken all of the worst lessons that David Tennant had, and... Unlearned. Well, I was gonna say, the worst lessons, and just taken all of like... Like, if you have a kid, and you're like, Man, I hope they only have the good aspects of my personality and my traits. That's never the case. And they only have the worst traits, and you're like, Aw. I feel like when Tennant sees Smith, he's like, Man, I can't believe I did that, but I can see part of me in him. But it's only that part. I have some meta-commentary to do right now that will branch into maybe a deeper meaning. But Amy Pond is very much a mother to him, even though she's the one that... And so Rory's like a dad. And then... No, you definitely hit it on. Spoilers, honey. Spoilers. But no, you definitely hit it right on the... I love that reveal, and I feel like that spoiler is a little too deep. Like, everyone knows Rose gets left on the beach, so I'm gonna leave it live for now. But we will talk about that in another time. Perhaps. Perhaps. Another Pumpkin Universe movie. But just going back to this episode, so what I think is brilliant is the connection that the Doctor has to the TARDIS. And, you know, sometimes if you wish really hard... You wish really hard. One of my favorite lines ever. The way she said it was like admonishing him, like, you wish really hard. And again, that kind of goes along with the whole, like, Amy Pond acting as like a surrogate mother to the Doctor. Even though he's clever and everything, he's very much like Matt Smith's Doctor, like, has, like, a very young Sheldon energy to him. You know, where, like, he's brilliant, he's so well-meaning and everything. But when it comes to anything common sense related, he doesn't have that ability that, like, David Tennant had, you know, as a Doctor. And again, like, I think this is a lot about him wanting to forget the kind of person he was, because he doesn't want to remember all of these... He just wants to travel, have a good time with his friends. And whenever... Whenever he is having to remember, like, all of his responsibilities, he wants to unlearn Do you want to share what happened, or? I know what happened, but... I was just messaging somebody, and the... I don't know why, but my fingers, or any part of me just, like, needs the world to video call, and I don't want to video call! So I was video calling during a podcast. So now I've got the fear of God struck in me, because that sound is so foreboding. I'm just like, ah! So one thing I wanted to add before we finish our management discussion, and probably have, like, a very small Capaldi and Jodi Whittaker discussion, so that we could have enough in the tank to, you know, keep going. So Eccleston grew up not with the Doc. Like, I don't... I think he's probably watched some Doctor Who, didn't watch some Doctor Who. David Tennant is, like, one of the biggest fanboys of Doctor Who. And I think it really shows in the performances. Right. Matt Smith is not. It shows in his... Capaldi is. But, interestingly enough, he was instructed by Moffat to watch some of the early Doctors, and his favorite Doctor is the second Doctor, which is where he got the bowtie from, because the second Doctor wears a bowtie. And he loves the way he's... The second Doctor is very, like, buffoonish, but it's very much, like, an up-to-minded professor. And buffoon is a great word to describe Matt Smith's Doctor. Right. We're gonna... This is a good branch off to talk to Capaldi. Capaldi was such a fanboy of Doctor Who that, at one point, he wrote so many letters that they sent him scripts from Doctor Who because they wanted to, quote-unquote, satisfy this annoying P. Capaldi fella who keeps writing them from university, who had, like, a... He was, like, president and creator of the Doctor Who fan club in his university. So, like, you can tell all the influences of all the other Doctors within him and his performance. Very interesting, and when we get to Jodi, we'll talk about this, but Whitaker was told by Chibnall not to watch a single episode of Doctor Who. So she had never seen Doctor Who until after she... Wow, so that really shows how much she and Tennant kind of take the same... Like, because she's got very Tennant-ish qualities, sort of. Well, it wouldn't... I don't know if that's the case because, again, like I said, she was told not to watch any Doctor Who. She watched no... And told her run was over. She hasn't watched a second of Doctor Who. So she was... They wanted her performance to be unique and different from all the other Doctors. Now, Capaldi, I feel like, is very much reminiscent of a lot of the classic Doctor Who... Is this an age thing? No, I don't think it's... I mean, other than the fact that he's seen other ones. I know what you mean. The other ones before are much younger, and then we have this old Scottish guy. So this is... Moffat is taken over during Matt Smith's run. So now this is our second showrunner. I forgot to mention that, but our first one being R.T.D., who had two different Doctors, Russell T. Davies. Now we have Moffat. So R.T.D. is a Welshman. He's from Wales. And he based most of his stuff. We're still in Wales. I think still in Cardiff. Still filming and everything. Until I think they moved productions to London. BBC London. But Moffat is a Scot. He's from Scotland. So that's where we get Amy as a companion. I wish we could see Amy and Capaldi. That would be fascinating. I feel like they would have fed off of each other in a very Clara way. But even more so. And then we have Capaldi, who is obviously from Scotland. And so you see a lot of that influence on him. We also see a difference in the way that there's definitely an entitlement to both Matt Smith's Doctor. There's no apologies. They're very much like, shoot first, ask questions later. He's very immature. He's not grown. He's not Smith, right? Yes. Yeah. And then in response, I feel like in a way, a lot of regenerations are written as responses to the previous regeneration. So like from Tennant to Smith, he wants to forget. He doesn't want to have all those regrets for everything he's done. So he becomes younger and mature. Then Matt Smith, on his regeneration, he spends forever on Transylore in the town of Christmas. And he gets old. He's thousands and thousands of years old. And then he imbues someone who's aged, someone who has gone through all that life experience and becomes very bitter. Very, especially in this first season. This first season was very nuanced until he found what he was going to do. I would disagree. I feel like his more seasons are, he's a lot warmer. I feel like his first season, he's very dark. Very brooding. But he was new, like he's not, he's more like reined in about it. Like he feels all those things, but it's not like, it's not the exuberant outburst of a child. It's the plotting and the planning of someone. What are we talking about specifically? What? Which, which doctor? Which, uh, uh, Clawdey. Clawdey? Yeah. I don't think he's childish. No. I said, and so it was a reaction. Oh, a reaction. So he becomes the opposite of what Smith was. I said it's not a childish outburst. No, I 100% agree. And I feel like it was like a complete, a swing completely in the other direction. As a matter of fact, I really do not like Clawdey's first season. I had to rewatch. Yeah. We watched, I think that's the first one we watched together. So many times. And the first, the first episode specifically. Yeah. That first episode, Deep Breath. Yeah. It will be a really good like episodes that we hate of Doctor Who to rewatch. Um, I hate it more even though with Clara than with Clawdey because Clara's stuck on the fact that he's changed. But yet her whole plot device is that she's seen every single doctor ever. Remember, that's the whole Betasal Girls storyline where she's seen the first doctor. I so wish we would have done that. That episode. Well, we always can. But, but I mean like there's the Dalek one really isn't the one that where they really go in through it. It's, it's the one that's the ones that leading up to the 50th. Uh, and then that's also an interesting thing too is Clara is one of the only companions besides Rose that bridges between doctors. And so for her to have such a problem of the type. Right. Yeah. It's a very brand new thing. Well, I think it's the difference of dealing with something hypothetically and then dealing with it in real life. You have this way that you're like, this is how I'm going to act. And then, but it's hard because you're like, okay, that's my doctor, but it's not my doctor. Why does she have much more difficult of a time doing it than everyone else? I think because of her closeness. Like they're close, like they're partners. Right. But I love the way. Like imagine if Donna would have lost. And it's not in the way that she did. But imagine regeneration and Donna is now into Matt Smith. I feel like she would have taken care of him. But she would have, she would have been distraught. I feel like she would have taken care of him. I agree. I agree. But she would have been devastated because she would logically know that her doctor is still there somewhere. It's not her doctor. But the fact that Claire has such like a visceral reaction. Anyway, this is not an episode we saw or anything like that. I want to get more into it. But I think that's one of the things I had a hard time with was the fact that like she, I hate in shows and when characters act completely differently than they should. Like this is information that we know about them and now they're acting completely differently. No, I think it brings true to how you would really react. And I think maybe you can keep that in mind on a rewatch. Regular person. But Clara is so specific and the fact that she knows every single doctor's reiteration. No, but she could still need her doctor. And it might be something like leftover from childhood. It might be something else. But you would want yours. That's like if somebody went to the store and got you a brand new teddy bear. And you've had this teddy bear through childhood. And you know it's the same, but it's not the same. I completely disagree. It's like if I had 12 other teddy bears before. But I got a brand new teddy bear and I got upset about it. Well, you don't want that teddy bear. You want your teddy bear. But I've already had 12 other teddy bears. But how much does she really have? Just because she's seen the face doesn't mean she's really experienced them fully. But she's still been in their life. She knows who they are. I don't agree. Well, okay. We'll agree to disagree. That's my problem. I don't agree to be wrong. That's my problem with that episode. The one that you had to watch over and over and over again. Because you just couldn't get through it. Um, I also think that first season of Throb except for the episode that you picked. I think really stands out. And I think that's almost like that element of Capaldi. Not all of them. But like the speech that he gives to little Danny Pink at the beginning about fear being a superpower. I think that is the embodiment of what he becomes. Like that. Because then it goes back to your episode that you picked. Right. Because he says that then. He does. It is a callback. But it's not only just a callback. It's also just like I think. Kind of just how he is. I think he. I think he. I think Capaldi has. Um. He does have a hard time connecting with people. But the bonds he forms with people are so strong. So like if he deems you worthy. He will like burn up the universe for you. Okay. So I'm probably going to do a lot of hate for this. I think Capaldi is very autistic coded. I think the Doctor as a character is very autistic coded. But I think. That's a whole. That's a whole conversation we could have. That could be another two hours long. Like. I'm autistic. I'm taking it as saying that. But I think that like. Because. And it's how he so easily could turn into a villain. Because the people you love. We know logically it's worth saving 10,000 people. A million people. A billion people. But we would save our own. No questions asked. I think that's why I've always drawn sort of to a villain character. Because they show their passion and their love in that way. Whereas like. Someone like Mark Grayson. I think ultimately as much as he loves everybody. Would save the greater good. Right. Right. From invincible. I should like. Like. Even if he knew maybe. Like the needs of one versus the needs of billions. But like. Even if he knew that going off planet. Would mean that Amber. Is that her name? Amber? My. Yeah. Amber and Eve and William would die. He would still do it. He would have to. Because he's a true hero. The good. He would be torn up about it. And maybe it would crack him to maybe lean villain later. But he would do that. Well I think that Capaldi. That's maybe one of the best things it exemplifies. Is like. I feel like. Tenants. I mean. Gosh. No tenant would do the same thing. Well I feel like the doctor character. One of the reasons why. They're so fascinated. Fascinating. Is that they do have moral codes. But it's not always moral center. Yeah. That's why the master is such a great. Villain and such a great counteract. Especially like. Capaldi's master. With Missy. How. She is such a great. Like. He cares so deeply for her. Even though she always makes the worst choice. Because. He sees so much of himself in her. And he knows that like. You know. Given the circumstances. He might make those choices. But there's just something in him. That he chooses to find the good. Instead of the evil and things. Because it's that level of empathy. Right. That he can understand. Which makes things really difficult sometimes. And you have to like find. This is not like Doctor Who. Necessarily. But just in life. You've got to find those lines. Or you'll explain away everything for anyone. Oh yeah. And it makes it hard to do boundaries. And I think Capaldi. Is a lot more of a subtle doctor. Exactly how I said he's very nuanced. Yeah.