Episode 280
He Finds a Way to Fix It
Monday 25 December 2023
No, you can’t. They’ve been there for millions of years, through storms and floods and wars and time. Nobody really understands where the music comes from. It’s probably something to do with the precise positions, the distance between both towers. Even the locals aren’t sure. All anyone will ever tell you is that when the wind stands fair and the night is perfect, when you least expect it but always when you need it the most… there is a Song.
This week, the Doctor and River live happily ever after, and Jack Shanahan joins us to discuss The Husbands of River Song.
Notes and links
Brendan mentions that this story was recorded after Alex Kingston started working with Big Finish on her long-running series The Diary of River Song. In fact, the first volume of that series is, like The Husbands of River Song, released in December 2015.
We get our first sight of Peter Capaldi’s wedding ring on 4 August 2013, during a close-up of his right hand in Doctor Who Live: The Next Doctor, the thirty-minute live broadcast in which Peter Capaldi is unveiled to the world as the Twelfth Doctor.
Night and the Doctor is a series of five minisodes released on the Blu-ray box set of Series 6 — Bad Night, Good Night, First Night, and the completely unrelated Up All Night. In Last Night, the Doctor runs into a future version of himself, with a new haircut and a suit, about to take River to their last date on the planet Darillium.
Speaking of Moffat recycling his own ideas, Sally Sparrow is first featured in a short story in the 2006 Doctor Who Annual called What I Did on My Christmas Holidays by Sally Sparrow, in which Sally receives messages from the Ninth Doctor, who is trapped without the TARDIS in 1985. Here’s a link to the story itself.
Jack mentions that he has just recorded an episode of A Hamster with a Blunt Penknife with Joe Ford in which they watched Wild Blue Yonder.
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Nathan is on X as @nathanbottomley, Brendan is @brandybongos, and Jack is @shackjanahan. The Flight Through Entirety theme was arranged by Cameron Lam. You can follow the podcast on X at @FTEpodcast.
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And more
Our new podcast, The Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire, is your number-one source for our ill-considered takes on the Second RTD Era. Here’s our take on The Star Beast, our take on Wild Blue Yonder, and our take on The Giggle. Our Christmassy take on The Church on Ruby Road will be out on 27 December. Like and subscribe.
There’s also Startling Barbara Bain, our Space: 1999 commentary podcast. Two episodes have been released so far: our commentary on the pilot episode Breakaway, and our commentary on the episode Force of Life. We’re planning to release the next episode, Collision Course, just before the start of the new year.
Maximum Power continues its journey through Series C of Blakes 7. This week, a proper science fiction writer takes hold of the show — with remarkable results — in Sarcophagus.
And finally there’s our Star Trek commentary podcast, Untitled Star Trek Project, featuring Nathan and friend-of-the-podcast Joe Ford. It’s taking a well-earned break during the holidays right now, but it brought in the festive season with a commentary on Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, featuring friend-of-the-podcast Tom Salinsky.