The 2nd Doctor and the Ice Warriors. Dom Bettinelli and Jimmy Akin discuss this story of an invasion via the Moon and themes of hubris and overreliance on technology; redemption for prior cowardice and treason; and dynamic between Jamie and Zoe.
Jimmy Akin Podcast
The Seeds of Death - The Secrets of Doctor Who
The Secrets of Doctor Who is brought to you by the Star Quest Production Network and is made possible by our many generous patrons. If you'd like to support the podcast, please visit sqpn.com/give. You're listening to The Secrets of Doctor Who, where we discuss everything about the hit BBC series, Doctor Who, and today we're discussing the second Doctor story, The Seeds of Death. I'm Dom Betanelli and joining me today is Jimmy Aiken. Hey Jimmy, how did Dom? Folks, remember to like The Secrets of Doctor Who on Facebook, where we're at Facebook.com/SecretsOfDoctorWho. You can retweet us on X, where we're at S-Q-P-N, leave us comments wherever you're fighting us on social media. And I want to tell you about another show on the Star Quest Network I'm sure you'll enjoy, which is The Secrets of Movies and TV shows, which you can find wherever fine podcasts are found, or at S-Q-P-N.com/Secrets. So like I said today, we're discussing The Seeds of Death. Jimmy, can you give us a recap of what happens in this one? This week, the second Doctor Jamie and Zoe arrive on late 21st century Earth. Despite it being the space age, rocketry is an almost forgotten technology because now everyone uses TransMat to travel. And the TransMat beams are routed through a base on our sister planet, the Moon. But the ice warriors invade and take over the base. They kill some of the humans there, but one named Fuchsum, who is terrified for his life, helps them. Eventually, the Doctor Jamie and Zoe go up to the Moon in an old rocket to help, but they're unable to dislodge the ice warriors and beam back down to Earth. Meanwhile, the ice warriors have been beam in seed pods down to various Earth cities, and the seed pods explode, release in fungus that looks exactly like soap suds. And it begins removing oxygen from the Earth's atmosphere to make it more like Mars. Meanwhile, the ice warriors have Fuchsum hook up a directional beam for them, so that they can guide in an invasion fleet to the Moon, after which the ice warriors will TransMat down to Earth for the invasion. But the fleet is low on fuel, so it only has one chance to land on the Moon, and Fuchsum surreptitiously turns on a video link to let Earth know what's happening. After which the ice warriors kill him, but he's redeemed himself for helping them. The Doctor discovers that, like in the movie signs, ordinary water will kill the fungus soap suds. This explains why the ice warrior sent one of their group to a weather control bureau, where he set the controls to keep everything dry, with no rain, so the fungus soap suds could grow. The Doctor Jamie and Zoe go there, and the Doctor uses solar rays to kill the ice warrior at the weather bureau, after which the Doctor sets the weather control to make it rain. They also launch a satellite with a false directional beam to mislead the Martian fleet, so that it will fail to land on the Moon and go into a permanent orbit around the Sun due to lack of fuel. To make sure that none of the fleet follow the correct navigational beam, the Doctor transmats up to the Moon, where he's captured by the ice warriors, but he surreptitiously turns down the power on their directional signal, and the fleet is diverted. The ice warriors then plan to kill the Doctor, but Joey transmats Jamie up to the Moon, and he and the Doctor manage to defeat the last of the ice warriors there. The end. Right. I also saw the connection to signs, which we can as we go through. I love the scene in Stargate SG-1, where they're talking about signs without naming it, and like, why would you land on a planet that's 70% water if water kills you? Yes, that's a great one. So you're overall impression of this one. I enjoyed it. It's six parts, but it doesn't drag quite as much as some other six-parters. One of the reasons I think for that is they fill the middle act, which is essentially, you know, the middle two episodes, with more interesting stuff. It's not just running through corridors. They're actually accomplishing stuff, like repairing equipment and turning on and off heating systems to harm the ice warriors, and there's a logic to what they do. So it is a little long, and the middle act is always, you know, a little slower than the beginning and the final act. But I thought it was, I thought it was good, as a story. I have some more criticisms of it from a technical aspect, like navigational beams play a ridiculous role in this story. They need, when the Dr. Jamie and Zoe go up to the moon in an old rocket, they need a navigational beam to help them land, and then they need a navigational beam to help the ice warrior fleet land. And it's like dudes, Apollo landed on the moon safely without a navigational beam using 1960s technology that was less complex than an iPhone. You just don't need navigational beams in this way. But I did like, and it's especially ridiculous when they show us the basically the radar screen of the Martian fleet divert and follow the satellite instead of the ginormous moon that's right in front of them. But I did like that they actually took fuel into account in this. If you read hard sci-fi or relatively hard sci-fi, one of the things that it comes up all the time, because this is realistic, is you've got to think about your fuel consumption, and how much fuel you can carry with you, and what your options are given the amount of fuel you have, and your orbital launch windows, and whether you can gravitationally slingshot around things. And the issue of fuel consumption is huge in real life and in hard sci-fi, and they brought that in here, and I like that. Yeah, one of the things I noted about this is I looked it up in, this was just months before the moon landing, Apollo 11 moon landing. So going to the moon, Apollo 10, I think it already been to the moon landing, yeah. So moon stuff was very much on people's minds, that this would have been very topical, or ripped from the headlines, sort of. It's also prescient, because after we went to the moon, people did lose interest in space travel and space exploration. We're getting back into it now, but there was decades of very little space exploration, except by robotic probes. And even that was pretty minimal. So without intended to, this is before the moon landing, they actually have people lose an interest in space travel, because something else comes along. Right, right. We team at apparently subsumes every kind of transport, like we don't build rockets, we don't have cars, we don't do any of that. All of these things come up, whereas where the team, they become so dependent on this one technology is that when it goes awry, their society stops. We're in the danger of civilizational collapse. I know there's two, there's sort of two problems there. One of them is they're running Earth's food supply in a just in time delivery manner to where if stuff is five minutes late, it causes an enormous problem. And it's like, okay, guys, you're running your schedule too close to the bone. You don't want to do that. And then secondly, they don't have backup technology for if something does happen, they don't have rockets ready to go to the moon. You know, if the moon station goes down, and that's just ridiculous. I have read that we are as a society, like three days to a week away from total collapse. If we couldn't say all internal combustion engines stop working, or if there is a Carrington event or something. Yeah. And no, we couldn't, like, cities in general have about three days to a week's worth of food in them. And then, like, non-perishable food, apart from like cans and boxes of things. But then we would quickly run out of that stuff after that. So unless you're a prepper, which many people are, but we're not five minutes away from the edge. No, no, yeah. It's one of the other things about this one, the kind of, it's an overall thing is the all the hissing and breathing, heavy breathing from the ice warriors was, I don't know, I have misophonia, which is sort of like certain sounds great on my nerves. Every breathing was kind of grating. So certain early Cybermen voices also kind of do it. Do the same thing. I don't know what it is. It's a me thing, I know. So is this the beginning of TMAT or transmats as a thing? Yeah, they don't even have the name fully worked out here. They call it travel mat, but then they abbreviated TMAT. And later it's going to be its matter transmission. And so it's not travel mat anymore. That's just apparently the brand name for transmat, what they later call transmat. Right. Right. And yes, I mean, it's especially the Star Trek transporters, which, yeah, would have been before this. It's sort of the idea of copying that only without the Star Trek effect. One of the first times they use it, they show you the booth and it does need a booth normally, although they say they can adjust that. But they show you the booth and they hear the transmat sound effect begin and then they cut away so you don't see the people suddenly pop into existence in the transmat because they don't have that sparkly effect from Star Trek. Later they do have the Dr. Jamie and Zoe just appear. The doctor even settles a question for the universe that they haven't or didn't for a long time settle in Star Trek, which is what does it feel like. And the doctor says, I'm a little disappointed. There's no sensation at all. Right. Right. Yeah. The way that they film it is they zoom in so that they can just simply cut, move the thing out and restart the camera so that you know, you know, so the thing is that whatever is in there isn't there anymore. One of the and there were a number of interesting things visually. Normally, I don't pay much attention to direction in these. But when the ice warriors are zapping people with whatever kind of guns they use, they have this interesting distorted mirror effect where it's like they're warp in a mirror back and forth. And so the image of the person being shot warps. And it's like, I think they had a cable or something on one side of a flexible mirror and they would pull the center of the mirror back and forth. And it looks interesting. Also, I really like something they do just in the opening credits after the doctor who theme. So this story is said either on Earth or the moon. And what they'll do is they'll show us a picture. Let's say if the story is set on Earth, they'll show us the Earth and then they'll have the moon pass in front of the Earth. So the screen goes totally black for a second and then they'll put up the episode number and then the moon will continue on. And it's in so the in that eclipse moment, we see the episode number and they reverse it. If the story is principally set on the moon, they'll show us the moon and the Earth will pass in front of the moon and they'll reveal the episode number and then the Earth will move on. I just thought that was really creative direction. I didn't notice that. That's interesting. There is a lot of like the first episode we go a long time before we actually see the doctor and Jamie and Zoey. There's a lot of maybe half of the first episode or at least the first 10, well, it's only a 26 minute episode. So I think like the first 10 minutes, no doctor at all yet. So they're really setting it up. And in the fourth episode, there's no doctor at all. We see his body, we see his unconscious body. But apparently, Patrick Troughton had something to do with that week or something. Yeah, it was it was a built in and they did this regularly in the first and second doctor's time. They in order to give the cast a break, they would put a cast member out of commission so they could take vacation that week. And that's what they did here. They had in that one episode, they had Patrick Troughton injured. And so a stunt double plays his physical form. But Patrick Troughton got to take a week off. And apparently, I think this was the last time that happened that a regular cast member got a week off because begin in the next season, which is John Pertwee's first season, they cut the number of episodes basically in half. So that you got half of a year off, instead of basically being continuous filming. Right. Because yeah, they were just every week. They were basically a, you know, an episode. So we mentioned that the way the team at works is that it's routed to the moon. And we hear about several, a handful of national capitals, but apparently it goes to a bunch of places. It goes all over the world. But yeah, you couldn't get rid of cars if it didn't. And we're told at one point that that one of the one of the transmat officials, a woman whose name is Kelly, had to get an old car out of a museum, an old petrol car out of a museum and take it somewhere. Yeah, right. And it all, but it all has to route through the moon because you need a line of sight out because it can't curve around the earth. And they just decided not to put a satellite up. Which, yeah, well, and that's what the moon is. It's our natural satellite. Right. And they don't talk about, well, okay, so if everything routes through the moon and you need line of sight, then the transmat doesn't work on the other side of the earth. Yeah. Yeah. The other thing that the interesting direction directional decision they make is they obscure the identity of the villain for a good while by using only point of view shots like so you see from the ice warriors eyes. So we don't know who the villain is in this one. It's it's a slow reveal. First, we hear their voices hiss and then we get to see one of their shoulders. Then we get like a point of view shot and finally we get to see it. Oh, it's the ice warriors by the end of episode one. And this is the second ice warrior appearance. They were apparently popular in the first time they showed up with the second second doctor. Yep. The ice warriors episode. And so they brought them back for this. And it's a little surprising that Zoe didn't know about him because she's from about this time period in history. And I mean, Jamie and the doctor had encountered them before with Victoria. But Zoe, they have to explain to Zoe who the ice warriors are. And you would think at this point, now she's I guess from a little bit further into the 21st century than they are because she's on a space station and they have rockets and stuff like that. So that would presumably set her, you know, a little bit later in the 21st century. And they ought to know about the previous ice warrior attack, you know, and they ought to know, yeah, there used to be people on Mars and they were the ice warriors and stuff. Right. Right. Yeah. There's, there's no clear indication of when exactly she's from, but they just late late late 21st century. Yeah. So the ice warriors took place in 5,080 so much for the forward. So this is an early warrior, but Zoe's people ought to remember this event. Yes. Right. And there have subsequently been earlier appearances like the 11th doctor episode Cold War, but I can't hold the showmakers responsible for something that was going to happen 40 years later. And see the future. So the we had a little fun thing, which was happened. This has happened a few times where the TARDIS lands and they're looking out through the viewer and they don't understand where they are. But it's very strange. Oh, it turns out they're in a museum. In fact, the first doctor had something like that, where we talked about recently, where they've done this gag. This is our second time we've landed in a space museum. Yeah. So they see a Soviet cosmonauts suit and rockets and that sort of thing, which is kind of funny. It's so Union was a thing back back in 1969. So and they meet Professor Eldred, who is a rocket scientist, a literal rocket scientist, who is keeping interest alive in this obsolete technology, luckily for Earth. And we get this exposition to exposition dump on team at like we get this whole explanation of what's going on. It's actually a film film, a little short film they show in the museum. Right. Right. Meanwhile, on the moon, we have basically everyone has wiped out except for Fuchsum, who's one of the guys controlling the team at and a couple of maintenance technicians. And he is Fuchsum is both incompetent. We learn and he's cowardly, although he goes in a bit of a journey. I mean, he does character does develop, you know, but at first he's willing to give the ice warriors whatever they want to save his skin. And in fact, betrays Earth pretty pretty deeply in his cowardice. So they, by the way, there's one bit I like where, you know, because once they realize that the team at link with the moon is not working, Jamie, I think, suggests well, we could go up in the TARDIS. And Zoe immediately says we could overshoot by a few million years. And even the doctor who normally is very defensive about the TARDIS and its malfunction says, or by a few million miles, I'm afraid the TARDIS is not suited to short-range travel, he says, which was the case at the time. But this is a rare admission by the doctor that the TARDIS is not that precisely guideable at this point. Right. Right. Which is why we, you know, we just basically don't see the TARDIS this entire episode, except at the beginning of the end. We have the professor of the, in the space was the M Professor Eldred. And we have Radnor, who's the guy in charge of the team at control. And they apparently know each other. There's a funny little exchange between them where, you know, they, the doctor, you know, they need a rocket ship to go to the moon. They've decided they need a rocket ship. So the doctor is there with them. But Eldred says, oh, you've been spying on me. And Radnor responds, oh, no, no, no, no, no. We stopped that a long time ago. It's a fun little admission. We were spying on you. There's some funny stuff in this. Like when they go up in the rocket, you know, the doctor in Jamie or the doctor in Zoe are totally comfortable with rockets, you know, being from futuristic civilizations. And they're like, Jamie, are you okay? And he's like, Oh, yeah, I'm fine. But he looks terrified. And at another point, the doctor is assuring them. The rocket will, will be no problem. But you can see that Patrick Trout and his cross and his fingers secretly. Yeah. You know, they, they take a huge risk when they take the rocket because they don't, you know, a, they don't have enough fuel to go there and come back. As you mentioned, they're relying on their being fuel slocks on the moon. And B, they don't know whether the team at on the moon can be repaired, was working, whatever, like this could be a one way trip for them. And it's it's pretty risky the thing that they're going. Well, it is. And it's clear they're not really being very safety conscious because the three of them don't even wear spacesuits in the rocket. No. And it's apparently a very fast rocket because it took Apollo 11, but five days, three days, three days to get to the moon. Yeah, they get there pretty fast. Now, the other characters, we have Miss Kelly Kelly mentioned. She's smart, efficient. She's the one who's, you know, calm and in control and in command of things, you know, a bit of a rarity for a female role in this time period. I mean, that she was competent and I was rich. Well, then you do tend to find such roles on Dr. Who, you know, even in the second doctor's time. And especially in futuristic settings. But yeah, Kelly's great. Apparently the part was originally written for a man. And she and the man had a female assistant and they decided to gender flop those roles. So we got Kelly being a woman and she has a male assistant. Right. And she's just totally competent, you know, and no one makes any big deal of anything, you know, which is nice. If you're gonna, if you're gonna do this kind of thing, it's better not to make a big deal out of it. You know, I much prefer having everyone just accept Kelly as she's like super competent and not worry about it as opposed to, well, I know she's super competent, but she's a woman and it's like, who cares? She's super competent. That's the point. We don't need to, we don't need to worry about the fact she's a woman. That's not relevant to what she's doing. Yeah. Although her boss would when he comes in, does say, in your case, Miss Kelly, efficiency and charm go hand in hand, you know, it's the obligatory, like you would not be acceptable in 21st century. Well, that's because people in 21st century workplaces are ridiculously hypersensitive and can't get the compliment. Exactly. By the way, I also wanted to mention, you know, I like some of the directorial choices in this. One of the things they do, they have various futuristic graphics and stuff and they give us a reverse point of view shot of like Kelly, when she's overseeing the rocket launch and what they do is they project onto her face these futuristic designs. And like one of them is a countdown. So you see the numbers on her face backwards, counting down as she's looking into some display that we don't get to see. But I just thought I, you know, I like I said, I don't normally even note direction, but I just thought that was very creative and I really liked seeing it and help give it an extra futuristic feel. Yeah, the often doctor who is, they don't do, they don't pay attention a lot of the details in this era, you know, of the controls or the technology. But in this one, that felt like they were doing a little extra with some of the stuff. And British television tends to have better, more creative direction than much American television does. In a lot of American television, the direction is basically give us an establishment shot and then push on for character close ups and then just bounce back and forth between the characters in close ups as their dialogue. And British television is frequently much more creative than that. Like I watched a thing a long time ago about the British sci-fi show Blake Seven and the direction they used in that. And it's like, yeah, right here in the first episode, you know, we were in this futuristic environment. They've got these metal staircases and we're shooting through the metal staircases to look at the characters. It's just much more than just establishing shot followed by a series of close ups. Right. You know, speaking of the technology, I have to laugh because the whole rocket and homing beacon navigation nonsense included a radio that they have to home in on that runs on vacuum tubes. Yeah, that was that was funny. So the doctor, you know, the second doctor is very has a very particular personality. And at one point he gets chased by the ice warriors in fear for his life. And of course, you get Patrick Troughton's funny run. He's like a machine sort of character. But he is a begging for his life and convinces them that he's a genius. It's very different from what you'd see from say the third doctor or the first doctor. It's that characteristic. Interesting. Yeah, he even at one point tells him he can help him like fuchsia meows. Right. Right. Which is apparently to be to betray the people of earth. So the ice warrior plan is to beam these seeds of death all over the world, which basically balloons. Filled with the filter, white balloons filled with like white powder that then turns into soap sides. Yeah. And this is not the only occasion in the second doctor's era where they've used soap suds as a special effect. This is like the second time they've done that. And so the these seeds of death, it's a genius plan sort of that it kills the people in the control center when they explode in the team at booth. And so they vent, they event it to the outside. Unless you cover your mouths with a handkerchief. Right. You know, if you get your N95 mask on in time. And they vent the gas outside, which is entirely the point to get it out there. And so that it can, you know, multiply the atmosphere and start sucking up all the oxygen. So a bit of a multi level plan. It's not a very simplistic, we're sending bombs to these places. No, no, they have they have more of a plan, which is good. Because if they sent bombs, the bombs would explode and destroy the transmit system. And that would be all they would destroy. It would it wouldn't Mars a former earth. Right. Right. There is a bit of a sequence in the on the moon base where first Jamie and the technician, the who are, you know, free from, you know, the ice worries. They're crawling through ducks to get to control center because they want to adjust the temperature ice warriors needed to be very, very cold. So they want to turn the heat up on them. And then at one point, the technician is like, he's got to crawl out through this ventilation duct. And he can't fit through the opening. Like I'm staring at him like, dude, if you just twisted your shoulder a little bit. But but we had to have this like whole thing where no, no, he can't fit. So that Zoe has to do it later. Yeah, she comes back with him. And so she will go through the thing. And and she turns up the heat. And it's like 50 or 60 centigrade, which is good not. Yeah, really hot. Yeah, that's 100 something degrees 120 degrees or something in there. And for Martians who would be used to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, blue zero or more, that's yet scalding hot. Right. In fact, it kills several of them. Yeah, that's about one thing I like is so when the Martians start putting the seed pods down on Earth, one of the people on Earth is thinking why certain why are certain cities getting these seed pods? And he eventually pieces it together. They're all in the Northern Hemisphere. And it's winter right now in the Northern Hemisphere. So they must be sensitive to temperature. Um, and so that's kind of an neat thing. Also, at about the same time, up on the moon, Fuchsum is having some character development because the ice warriors tell him to beam the doctor into space. And he says, well, that can be done, but I'll have to reset the machine so that it doesn't need a booth. But he says, but that can be done. But he bocks. And he's like, so he shows it, even though he's willing to cooperate with the ice warriors, he's not ready to just kill somebody. Right. And Jamie and Zoe, they've, they've, the ice warriors have put the doctor in the transmat chamber and Jamie and Zoe sneak up from behind the chamber and yank the doctor out through the ductwork. So it looks like he's been transmitted when really he wouldn't. But I like the fact that Fuchsum is getting this on his character arc. We've now seen what his limit is. He won't actually kill somebody. And that moves him down the line towards he's eventually going to betray the ice warriors and redeem himself. Right. He's even the sacrifices on life. He convinces Kelly and the doctor that, oh, we've got a switch or like a delay switch. So I'll send you guys back to earth and then I'll just use the delay switch to come back. And he's he's lying. Yeah, he knows and Kelly knows, but but he kind of convinces her for the moment that the delay switch is not broken. But he's deliberately self-sacrificing himself. Right. I also really like a heaven my notes. I just love how practical and spunky Zoe is. Yeah. She is the best female companion of the trout near by far. She's also the perfect counterpoint for Jamie. I mean, he's the boy from the past. She's the girl from the future. And she I really like how Jamie and Zoe are sort of mirror images of each other because Zoe's primary character. They're both spunky. And I like I really like that there. But Zoe's primary character characteristic is she's smart. You know, she's as smart as the doctor basically. And but she's also brave. Meanwhile, Jamie, his primary characteristic is he's brave. But he's also smart. He can roll with these futuristic situations and stuff and hold his own. So so I just love the smart and brave girl from the future and the brave and smart boy from the past. I only wish they'd hit on this combination earlier. Yeah. Patrick Troughton's run because I just think it's it's ideal. And I also love how nobody but Jamie being from the past makes anything out of the fact that Zoe's female. Right. Right. Yeah. She's just like, I'm going to take care of this. And she goes and takes care of it. So one of the things that kind of got me about this one, the story is the security guards are the silliest security guard. They wear these clear bowls on their heads. Yeah. At one point with this one guy is kind of stalking an ice warrior outdoors. And he's kind of following him. And when the ice warrior spots him, he just runs out into the open to get shot. Yeah, the worst soldier ever. Yeah. He didn't really get the cover part of either the duck or the cover part of duck and cover, correct. So you mentioned like the beam into the Northern Hemisphere. And the this ice warrior goes to the weather control station because at this point in time, not only do we have team at, but we also have apparently absolute control over the weather. And so they want to make sure it won't rain because like the aliens and signs they they they they stupidly arrived on a planet with their plan that could be washed away by water. The stuff that kills you literally falls out of the sky. Right. Right. So he sabotages the weather control station. But of course, the doctor eventually gets a working and it starts raining and washes all the fungus away that is the problem. There is one point in the fifth or sixth episode where this officious bureaucrat shows up from the United Nations sort of rat rat nurse boss like the team at control guys boss. Yeah, his name is Sir James Gregson. So they barely still have titles of nobility at this point. Apparently he throws his weight around. He highlights the absurdity of the team at being the only that means a transportation. And then it's broken. Now it's working. He's trying to get this explanation like none of this makes any sense. And it's like he doesn't even believe that there there's an alien invasion going on. He just thinks it's all separate things. Yeah. Kind of the highest absurdity of the of the whole plot, which is not that the plot is bad, but it's just so complex. Like this whole thing is a crazy story. Well, and I like the fact it's complex. You know, it makes it more interesting than if there was just a single single thing they've got to do. Definitely. Also Sir Gregson is like constantly shouting questions at people. And at one point the doctor is like, let us answer one question at a time, please. You know, it's like, yeah, let let the people you're asking questions of have a chance to answer them before you ask the next question. Right. Oh, by the way, speaking of your comment on the guards, one comment I noticed like when the guard's stalking him and he the ice wearing and he's hiding behind a tree. He doesn't, you know, duck down behind the tree further. He runs out to get shot. Another thing that I thought was ridiculous about the security guards is they're not using anything but hand weapons on on on the ice warriors. And they learn after the first encounter that hand weapons are ineffectual on against their armor. So it's like guys bring out a bazooka and try that, you know, get to move up from small arms. That's some pretty small pea shooters that they're carrying around. Those are like 22s. I mean, let's try some, you know, maybe that maybe in the future you don't have larger calibers in your arsenal, but well, I would, you should. You know, I was thinking, okay, I can pretend these guns are like more powerful than modern guns. But still, there should be weapons that are not as easy to carry around as these that are going to be even more powerful. Right. Right. I mean, go get a cannon with a cannonball from the from Jamie's time and fire a cannonball at one of these things. I'm not sure. Nice where you can stop that one flying ball lead. Any other notes on this one, Jimmy? Well, one thing that I liked is they have there's another prescient aspect to this, which is they've got Alexa devices all over the place. They don't call them that they just call them the computer, but they're routing messages to to the main guys. Radnor? Radnor. Yeah. So wherever Radnor goes, you know, the messages get routed to him through through basically Alexa devices, which they're wherever he goes. He gets his messages, he responds to them, they put people up on screen, they give voice communication, and they provide automated question answering at one point when, you know, at one point, Jamie and Zoe, the doctor has told them to get a message to Radnor about water destroys the the the soap suds, which, you know, water does in real life too. And so they they talk to the Alexa and it says, I'm sorry, they're in conference. He's not available. And so they decide to go to the weather station themselves. And, and Zoe had just made this point of, you know, Jamie said, well, where are we going to find Radnor? She says, well, that's the computer. And then, you know, she does. And it's functioning as it should. And then it's like, well, okay, we're going to go to the to the weather bureau. How do we find that? Well, we'll just have to find it. It's like, Zoe, you just asked the computer where someone was, and it answered you, asked the computer for directions. That's, that's what we do today. So even though they were prescient about, and it wouldn't have hurt the plot if they did that, it's not like them not knowing how to get there as a plot point. You know, they they just proceed there, even though we don't see them get directions. But the the computer could have just told them and it would have been fine. So they they got that, okay, we're going to have omnipresent computers that you can talk to that have voice interfaces and that they can relay messages and information around to you. You know, they just didn't fully think through all the things you could do with them. I'm just glad our Alexa is in series and whatnot. Don't have the weird effect of the, you know, it's like, it's sort of like an emphasize the end sounds. Inspector Radner is not available. Yeah. Yeah. No information yet available. It was very weird. It actually almost like, what's his name from Galaxy Quest? Yeah. The third, we're very happy. Yeah. Yeah. Anything else on this one, Jimmy? Nope. All right, we do have some of that promised listener feedback. This comes from our recent discussion of the fourth Doctor story, Destiny of the Daleks, Bill Swan 4419 on YouTube writes, little award hated the scar to Lila and I was saying it wrong. Lala Lala Ward hated the scarf too. Check out her frivolity extra. And I wasn't sure what frivolity was, but speculating. I believe it's an extra on a DVD. Okay. Okay. Okay. When you watch on the DVD or maybe not, maybe be wrong about that. Yeah. But I can imagine she would hate to scarf too. I mean, I mean, I mean, Tom Baker, I don't know, did having to drag that thing around? Oh, I'm getting it caught on stuff. I can imagine that could be annoying. Do you know how they got that scarf was they wanted him to have a scarf and they got the thread to make it and they gave it to a seamstress known as Bagonia Pope. And Bagonia Pope did not know how long they wanted the scarf to be. So she just kept knitting until she'd used all the yarn they gave her. It's good thing I didn't give her more. Mark Gillies on YouTube writes, this was, this was my first did Dalek episode I ever saw. I think he means when he was a kid. I was very unimpressed with them. I was still new to Doctor Who and didn't know they had a history with the show. I kept saying they look like salt dispensers. My friend and I made a song out of their seeking locate seeking exterminate. I much preferred them a valance and I was disappointed they never returned. I was also really unhappy with the new Romana. I really liked to Romana one and was embarrassed for Romana to acting so silly. I had no trouble with the regeneration because I'd never seen one before. Okay, so there's several things there. The first one is yeah, the Daleks do look like salt shakers and pepper shakers, which are commonly designed together in pairs. And in fact, in British culture, they frequently refer to the Daleks as pepper pots because they look like pepper shakers. I also liked Romana one. I thought she was really cool. I wish she had stayed longer on the show. I don't mind lal award. In this particular episode, the contrast is so stark to Romana one. But this is a passing thing Romana two will get better. Yeah, I mean, I remember we've seen the only other one I've seen her in is Shada and she was she was great in that she was. Yeah, I think she was really good in that one. So it's the thing where whenever this, you know, a regeneration of some sort of replacement, you miss the old one that you've gotten used to and you enjoyed the new one is like, Oh, I don't know if I'm going to like this. And then you come to like them. Well, there's also a problem from the writing point of view, because the writers don't know what the new actor is going to be like. And so they tend to write the way the for the previous actor or what they were doing with the previous actor or they just make guesses. This was a problem with that Tom Baker noted when he came on the show, because John Perky had a much more regal. I hate to say it this way, but kind of snobbish approach to the character. And and so Baker complained that the first few scripts he did, like robot, which was a leftover John Perky script, the doctor was written in this much more elie snobbish snobbish stiff manner. And he had to deliberately try to find things to do to shake it up. Yeah. And then the writers eventually cottoned on to the fact, Oh, Tom Baker has this very different much more informal character. And they were able to start writing for that. Yeah. And the same thing is, uh, is is true. I think here with Romana, they don't yet. They haven't yet figured out the character of Romana, too. Oh, and the Mavellans. Yeah, I know. I would have loved to see more of the Mavellans. They do technically appear in a montage in the 12th doctor's time, where he and Bill Potts. It's in the episode, the girl with the star and ride that introduces Bill Potts. Yeah. And the doctor is taking her on kind of a tour of different places in time and space. And we see the Daleks fighting the Mavellans again. But that's it. But you can hear more stories involving the Mavellans in big finish. So there is some expanded Mavellan content. If you're looking for something dark to you, you can probably find it in big finish. Excellent. Well, thank you both for your feedback. We really do appreciate it. And now we'd like to take a moment to thank our patrons and make it possible for us to create the secrets of Doctor Who, including Tomo G, Sharon P, Joel I, Edward R, and Derek M. There are generous donations at SQPN.com/give. Make it possible for us to continue the secrets of Doctor Who and all the shows at Stark West. And you can join them by visiting SQPN.com/give. We'd also like to thank Simon Yannick, who edited this episode. So that's it from us this time. What did you think of the seeds of death? You can let us know by commenting on the show at SQPN.com or the secrets of Doctor Who Facebook page. Send an email to Doctor Who at SQPN.com. Visit the Stark West Discard community at SQPN.com/discord. And you can watch the secrets of Doctor Who on our YouTube channel at youtube.com/starkwestmedia. We'll be back next time when we'll be discussing the third Doctor story, The Green Death. Until then, Jimmy Yakin, thank you for joining me in sharing the secrets of Doctor Who. Looking forward to the second part of our death trilogy, Seed to Death, and then The Green Death, and one more death after that. The City of Death. And once again, I'm Dom Betanelli. Thank you for listening to the Secrets of Doctor Who on Stark question. Remember, he has no more idea than the man in the moon.