779 – The Impossible Planet | Sleepin’ With Doctor Who S2 E9

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and friends beyond the binary, and my Patron peeps, the antenna is tuned into my sleepy whatever Patrons. Thanks for supporting the show and let's get on with the show.

Hey, are you up all night tossing, turning, mind racing, trouble getting to sleep, trouble staying asleep? Well welcome. This is Sleep With Me, the podcast that puts you to sleep. We do it with a bedtime story. Alls you need to do is get in bed, turn out the lights, and press play. I'll do the rest. What I'm going to attempt to do is I got this nice, safe place here and I've got it ready for you. You could even observe it at a distant, if you wish. Sometimes that's nice.

You say, “Hey, I'm going to get this.” You just sit over there. I'm going to set the places. I'm going to smooth it. I'm going to pat it. I'm going to rub it down. You just watch and see if you're… Kind of like if you're prepping a bit for a pet. You say, “Hey, I'm going to make your bed here, but you don't have to get in. Just watch me get it ready, and then maybe you'll want to get in it too.” I've never tried this with a child, but maybe that's the way to say to get them in bed. Say, “Hey, why don't you watch over there. I'm going to make your bed extra snugly.” Maybe tuck in an imaginary child for that extra, like a little bit of play acting, or maybe talk to the pillows and say, “Hey, pillows, can I get you comfortable here?” But that's really what I'm trying to do.

Then I'm going to send my voice across the deep, dark night. I'm going to use lowing, soothing, creaky dulcet tones, pointless meanders, superfluous tangents. I'm going to go off topic, get confused, used filler words. Pauses, we'll have a few. Then some more, but intentional and accidental pauses, gratuitous ones, oh boy. Gratuitous jokes, podcaster amusing himself.

Also, it's been a while since I've talked about amuse bouche. I know the season of Top Chef started when I'm recording this. By the time you hear this, it'll probably be over. But I kind of like watching that in one big chunk, the whole season. I haven't watched it yet. So I don't know if they made any amuse bouche. It's even a hard word to say. But this podcast is kind of like it. It includes… I think that's a little bit, that sort of amuse bouche is. I'm sorry chefs and linguists.

What was my point? Oh, I'm here to take your mind off stuff, to keep you company in the deep, dark night. The way I'm going to do it is if you're new, it's a little bit different. This podcast is one without tech. I do have microphone technique, and not on the level of the great hiphop and R&B performers and emcees of the world, but I do have microphone technique to keep these lowing, soothing, creaky dulcet tones going and so I can really be there for you.

But if you're new, here's a couple of things to know. This show is different. Initially, it won't make a lot of sense, and you'll say, “What is this?” Or, “What is he doing?” Or, “What is he talking about?” Sometimes you might say it in a voice that's not like that. That's cool. It usually works best if you give the podcast a few tries kind of passively. But initially with some skepticism, I totally understand that.

Structurally what to expect, if you thought you were skeptical before, structurally what to expect is the show starts off with a few minutes of business, that's how we keep a podcast free and keep that 90-hours of work a week it takes to keep a show going, that's the business side. Then there's a 12 or 14-minute intro. A lot of times traditionally in the history of introductions, except for big speeches where you have to butter up the speech maker or award winners, intros are usually limited to say, hey, this is the Sleep With Me podcast, a podcast to put you to sleep. Now I'm going to tell you a bedtime story.

When I first started making the podcast, it was a bit like that. But what I learned over time is that not everybody falls asleep at the same pace and no one, except for some of us fall asleep really fast, and so the intro has kind of slowly evolved to be part of a lot of listeners' wind-down routine, whether they're getting ready for bed or they're in bed, and then the day… I'm taking you into this world, a world of amusing you with my mispronunciations of amuse bouche. Amusing bouches, like you had the Mighty Boosh and that was amusing show too. This is an amusing bouche too, kind of.

So where was I? I got bouched. I did get bouched. Now I'm picturing Julien's hair. Scoots is [inaudible 00:05:25] a British show from 15… I say, well yeah, have you seen his hair? It's beautiful.

Okay, so let me get back. Where was I? Oh, I was saying the intros are really long, because I tend to try to describe the intro and how it should work, and then I go off topic. Believe me, I was interrupting going off topic, because I was thinking about it. Then I started thinking about Russell Brand. One part of my brain said those two are friends. I said, “Okay, but let's get back to the new listeners.”

Then some listeners skip the intro, but two or three percent of people, and the more and more people are listening during the day, also part of a wind-down routine or an unwinding routine. That's kind of how the intro became settled on that 12 to 14 to 11 to 17 to 15 to 16 to 18 or so minutes is that it's kind of like it gives you a chance, if you're new, to get to know me, which yeah might say, “Okay, I've gotten to know you. Now I know I don't need to give you my full attention.” I'd say, “Job done.” It also makes bedtime kind of… You say, “Well, I don't know what Scoots is going to talk about,” because one of the things is that the variety of the show, I feel like those parts of us that are keeping us awake are very adaptable. They're somehow wound in with our human nature, and so they adapt. You might say, “Well, I'm going to bomb my feet. Then I'm going to bomb my elbows.”

That routine might help for a while to help you unwind. But as soon as it becomes predictable, maybe that brain that's worried about spreadsheets or whatever starts carping back up. It says, “There's nothing amusing about these bouches.” So that's why the podcast has this long intro that changes every time, because ideally if you become a regular listener, you get in bed and you say, “Oh boy. Scoots is going to talk about nothing for 14 minutes, but it's going to be about something kind of, and also nothing.” You say, “I don't even know how it's possible, but it's like a…” You say, “Well, describe the humor used in the Sleep With Me podcast intro.” You say, “Hold on. I don't know if it's humorous. It's more of an amuse.” “So it's amusing.” “No, just short of amusing. It's amuse. A bit like amuse bouche.”

They'd say, “Isn't that like a mouthful of… It's not an appetizer, because it's too small, and technically I've seen it on Top Chef, and I think at really fancy restaurants they give it to you because they've charged you so much. They say, ‘Well, this is the 11-course menu, if you count the amuse bouche and the palate cleansers.' I think it's just a mouthful, and Scoots, he's almost not an earful.” They'd say, “Okay, I'm not following you.” You say, “Yeah, exactly.”

That's the intro of the podcast. It too get there. Then after the intro, we will be talking about an episode of Dr. Who in a kind of… This one will be pretty indirect. You say, “Well, these are the character names. One of the character's named Scootie, so that was cool.” So we'll talk about the episode. Then we'll kind of talk about, well, what is some of the things that I wondered about? What is metallurgy? Is that actually a thing or not? That didn't come up. That's just random examples. It's a structure of the show. In between the intro and the show is the business to keep sponsors that help keep the show free. At the end of the show are thank-yous to people who help keep the show going. So that's structurally how the show works. Oh yeah, you don't need to listen. I think we kind of established that.

Here's the other funny thing. There's no pressure for you to fall asleep. The episodes are an hour, because I'm here to keep you company. I'm here to take your mind off stuff, to be at your bedside, kind of clowning around, if you wish, and to be [inaudible 00:09:48]. So to be almost amusing. You'd say, “Yeah, it's an amuse. There's amusement parks, there's amusement things, there's amusement, and it may be amuse bouche in amusements or not,” but you'd say, “Well, that's an amusing…” Ideally, I don't want to tell anybody how to do things, but here's… I don't know if I've actually had an amuse bouche. Like the last time I ate at a restaurant with courses was… I don't think Golden Corral counts as… But then here's a tip. If you have Golden Corral, maybe you have an amuse bouche station.

So what was my point? I was going to… Oh, here's if you're a kid listening or you're on your third or your fourth act, believe me, my life's had more than two acts. So I don't want people to do that to you, whoever said that. So if you're a chef on your first act or your fourth act, if you're in the middle of a play playing a chef, stick to your play. You probably shouldn't even be listening to this podcast right now. You should be out there on stage.

But otherwise, if you are designing amuse bouches, maybe a little clue could be is this going to be amusing? Transcendently, like the broader sense of amusing, because you say, “Well…” Because a lot of these good cooks, they take you on a journey, right? Or chefs, excuse me. I think this is just my philosophy that I just came up with now on amuse bouches, [inaudible 00:11:37] amuse bouche and also illustrated pictures from the Mighty Boosh, a piece of fan fiction and a cookbook by Scoots, but mostly it's not cooking. It's a philosophic… It's me philosophizing on making your bouches amusing or amuse. You say, “Oh boy, what is that on the back of my palate there? Is this both hot and cold at the same time? Is this macaroni?” You say, “No, it's mochi.” That's usually what they say on the show when it's good or on those cooking show. “No, no, it's a mochi compote with,” something.

I remember a couple years ago there was sunchokes were big. This was probably five seasons ago. But they'd say it's a compote of mochi stuff with sunchokes. They'd say, “Gosh darn.” I said, “Holy macaroni.” I'm saying it again, because I wouldn't know how to say holy mochi sunchoke-aroni.

Anyway, I guess I'm off topic. I'm here to keep you company as you drift off to sleep, to be your friend, to be your board bud, because I've been there and I believe it for you. Maybe you could believe it with me. You do deserve a good night's sleep. You deserve a life where you can flourish and where you treat yourself and you're treated with dignity and respect. I hope I can provide a little solace, a little amuse, I guess. Words Scoots has overused: amuse. Alex, I'll take words that almost rhymed for 300. What is fuse and amuse? No, those actually rhyme. Oh, that was incorrect, because I think I was supposed to say amuse and misuse. You're right, Alex. Thanks, I'll get back to the end of the intro.

Oh, it's also Alex. He just frowned at me. He wrote it on his screen. That's the host of Jeopardy. I have a mirror… Well, anyway, another facet of my imagination, we could say, if it was only true. If I didn't have a direct 24/7 feed to Alex Trebek. You see, what happened when Jeopardy became avant garde? They say, “Well, that was the guy from Sleep With Me. Poor Alex, he somehow had a 24/7 feed of the dearest Scooter and his brain. So yeah, he started coming up with these strange questions. He also switched to only eating amuse bouche. He would demand all his meals be broken into tiny mouth bites. That took a lot of time for him to eat a meal, because it would be like 84 servings just for lunch, because they were small servings.” So that was it. That was it for Jeopardy.

Oh thanks. Anyway, I'm back. I don't know where I went, but that's kind of how the podcast works. I'm here to help. If your first few times listening, I know not everybody likes this show and I know it doesn't work for everybody. So if you're sitting here and you're on the fence, or maybe you're feeling like, “I'm not sure this is for me,” give it a few tries or not. There are other Sleep With Me like shows out there. There's plenty of audiobooks and another stuff to test out, but I'm here to help in my own unique way, but most of the listeners, and there's a good amount of listeners to this show, and 90% of them say, “It took two or three tries until the show started working for me and I understood the bouche part of it. I got that he was barely amusing right away, but what was the meaning of a bouche? Like a bit like a whoosh or…” So that's it. I'm here to help. I work very hard at this show, and I strive and I yearn, because I really want to help you fall asleep.

Thank you so much for your time and for coming by. Here's a couple ways we can keep the show going. If you're still with us and you could pay attention, it's a huge help in keeping the podcast out there for everybody. Thanks.

All right, so we're here talking about season two, episode eight or nine, depending on how you define where it falls. If you're watching on Amazon Prime though, it's episode nine. But in the official schedule, it's episode eight. A long story, but the title of the episode is the Impossible Planet. It is a two-parter. Oh by, are those two hands full of parts? Holy mackerel.

It opens, and first I thought the TARDIS was in a warehouse, which it kind of is. Kind of see something that looks like a conveyor belt type thing and stuff looking like it is being stored. The TARDIS has indigestion, oh that was funny. Rose says, “We could go somewhere else. It looks weird here.” They have a big laugh about that. “I think we're in a cupboard.”

But they talk about the indigestion. What does this say? “Doctor [inaudible 00:17:35] launch door 15.” Oh, let me see. Oh yeah, like the TARDIS didn't want to land inside a cupboard. Oh, they try to figure out. “We're in some kind of base. Moon base, a sea base, space base built out of kits.” Every time they open and close the door, it says, “Open door 15. Close door 15. Open door 16. Close door 16.”

The Doctor mentions… Where was I? Oh, that the flat packs in this case was built in a kit. Oh, and he says, “Wait a second? This is the sanctuary base. That's a thing. Flat pack wardrobe.” He goes, “This is a deep space exploration base.” Then this is where they're hearing things. This came up a couple times in the first season. He goes, “Listen to that, Rose. It's the drilling.” He says, “Interesting.” Then there's a big sign on the wall. The Doctor says, “Hold on, what's that.” It says, “Welcome to Hockey Sticks Academy where we double your hockey…” like there's two hockey sticks. Then there's these words that the Doctor can't read. They haven't been translated. Rose says, “I thought the TARDIS translated everything?”

Then we hear some string music and the Doctor, he goes, “That's weird. We're beyond the reach of the TARDIS' knowledge. We got to find out who's in charge. Writing's got to be old, impossibly old,” which brought up how old is the TARDIS? Which I did look into. Then they open door 19 and the Doctor goes, “Hey, nice base.” There's these creatures, ends up they're called the Ood. They say, “Hey, we're here to bring you lunch,” basically. A little bit of a tease-out before the opening, but all in fun and misdirection. They say, “We must feed our guests here.”

Then there's music. They go, “We're having some trouble communicating, but do you want any refreshment?” Then door 18 opens and humans come out. They say, “What in the Hockey Sticks Academy is going on here?” They kind of look like they were in the army or something. That's what I put, army units. Leather coats. “We got people here,” referring to the Doctor and Rose. They go back to their commander who says, “That's not possible. How would we have visitors on the space base out here?” Which the Doctor is a little confused. They go, “How'd you get here?” The Doctor says, “I don't even know where we are.” Then they go, “Hang on.”

This academy, the reason we double your hockey sticks is because we have an off-road Zamboni, which is what we're riding in. They say, “Hold on.” Then everything starts getting very, very bumpy. Something, “Big one, five alarm, star shunting, TNG.” Oh, like when it's bumping, it was like a TNG when they pretend like everything's shaking. Then they have this OMG moment. They say, “Real people? I can't believe we got other real people there.” The Doctor goes, “Yeah, hooray. Real people.” Rose goes, “Yeah, I'm Rose Tyler, definitely real. This is the Doctor.” They say, “Come on. This really is real people.”

They go back and forth. We immediately get a little bit more of a tease of who the Ood are. The Doctor goes, “Where are we? What planet are we on?” They go, “This isn't a planet. Why would it have a name? It's not a planet. It's a Hockey Sticks Academy.” Then they do a check-in. Doctor does not have a name, “Not so bad. Not so bad.” Shake effects.

We meet Ida, Danny, Toby, AKA, not my department Toby. He's one of the characters. Zach, commander Zach. Zachary Cross Flame. Like I said, that's a pretty cool name. Ida is a science officer. They say, “Well, this is a storm.” They say, “No, there's no storm. There's no atmosphere.” “So Zachary Cross Flame is captain. Mr. Jefferson's in charge of safety, making sure everybody has their skates and their helmets. Danny Bartock is in charge of ethics. Toby Zed is in charge of say, “It's not my department.” Scooti Manista, we first get out first Scooter-like character. She's a trainee in maintenance.

Then the character's speaking who is Ida, I believe, says, “This is home.” Then a door opens in the ceiling, and we see that the Hockey Stick Academy is somehow floating above a black hole, which they say is impossible. They say, “No, we're in orbit around it.” The Doctor says, “You can't be.” They say, “Perpetual geosynchronous orbit,” or whatever. “Geostationary orbit,” Ida says. Then they say, “Discuss.” The Doctor goes, “Rose must not miss one of the only interesting science lessons other than dinosaurs, which was black holes.” Or maybe the doctor just explains, because she says, “What's that?” I think she knows what a… Because she says, “Yeah, we should be pulled in, right?” The doctor goes, “Yeah.” They go, “So what's out there making all the shaking? What are we driving?” They say, “We're driving on stars. So we got a Zamboni that drives on stars.”

Let's see what else here. [inaudible 00:24:22] “Discuss.” Let's see. “Welcome aboard. A bit worse than a storm. We get a cool view of the base and the rocks.” Then Toby goes to door 28. He's got blueprints. He hears some whispering. He says, “Who's that?” They say, “Former director of this academy, and the competition with an ancient hockey stick method.” He also says the rocket link is fine, or somebody says that. Somebody says something about K37 gems or [gams 00:25:00]. They talk about Kroptor and it's a bitter pill to swallow. Oh, they're trying to figure out… Oh, that was with the black hole. It's K37 gen 5. Then according to the [inaudible 00:25:25] this is called Kroptor, the bitter pill. The black hole swallowed and then spit it back out. Rose goes, “I like it.” The Doctor goes, “How did you get out here?” They go, “We flew in because of the gravity field somehow kept constant, the gravity funnel.”

Rose goes, “You flew in here, like a rollercoaster?” They go, “Yeah, but we shouldn't have, but we made it. We're really looking for the power, whatever's powering that. It could solve everything. It could solve a gravity funnel.” Oh, like this term, “needs must”, phenomenal amounts of power. What does that say? [inaudible 00:26:14] “What was your name?” “We have [noitleles 00:26:22].” Let me look here. Oh, Rose tries to meet the Ood. They say, “We don't have names. We're kind of like a collective being.” Oh, Doctor also picks up a calculator and starts doing some calculating. We found out the Ood are a bit like droids. They get stuck working without pay. Scooti even calls Rose a friend of the Ood. She goes, “Since when is this cool that you could just make collective beings work for you?”

Let's see. The Doctor goes, “Jeez, to generate that gravity field, you need a power source with an inverted self-reflex of six to the power of six ever six seconds. Triple sixes, if you catch my drift.” They go, “How'd you figure that out so fast? Took us bunch of years to figure that out.” The doctor says, “I'm good at it.” “Okay, we've been digging down 10 miles below to find the power source. 90 stats on the Blazon scale,” or something.

Rose goes, “What are you, the chief dramatist?” That was a great joke, which the Doctor thought was very funny too. The said, “Well, there's some great civilization.” I think Toby says like, “That's what the writing is. I can't translate it. That's probably what the power source is. It's called us in. That's why we're here.” The Doctor goes, “What was your name?” He says it to Captain Zach. He goes, “Zach, right?” Zach goes, “Yep.” The Doctor goes, “What made you come here?” He gets all human loving again, because he was here and he has to give Zach a big hug. He goes, “I'm going to hug you. Is that all right?” He gives… It's a very sweet moment, because it seemed like Zach needed a hug, and it was a really genuine, good hug. Zach accepted it.

Lots of human love. The Doctor loves humans. He goes, “You're amazing, human beings.” He goes, “You should get out of here. I don't know what you're doing here anyway.” They go, “How'd you get here?” Doctor goes, “Oh my ship. It was in the habitation area three. The go, “You mean storage six?” They go, “Yeah, cupboard or something.” Then they go, “Ooh boy, that one fell down the well or something. We probably won't hear from that for a while.” Oh, also when the doctor was doing all the human loving, Rose was loving his loving.

We also get some good views of the Doctor's tie and ascot. Oh, it was the very slow burn of the missing TARDIS. There's Mission Impossible music playing. Doctor gets to door 16. It won't open. The TARDIS is gone. The door's out of commission. Disbelief, and then there's a zoom-out for the whole base. Then we talk about, what does this say? Robot drills and duty rosters. “We've only recently [inaudible 00:29:54]…” Hold on. Let me see what that says. Let's see. They just talk about drilling. Oh, here's the… Let's see. TARDIS must have got down.

Oh, “We only have one drill, one shaft. That's all we got equipment for. We could give you a lift back once we're done.” The Doctor kind of worries, “Oh boy, I got Rose into another one.” Rose goes, “Doc, we're at a hockey academy that doesn't even teach hockey that has an off-road Zumba or whatever. Don't worry. This is wild.” Let's see. The Doctor apologizes to Rose. They have a sad hug with a zoom-out.

Slides, like real total slides, seems like they are on… Oh, it looks like there's slides, photograph slides for a slide projector on their table. Then they have a night working playlist, ravel's Bolero. Gamma [fantry 00:31:00]. I don't know what that says. But there's a dude working in luggage. Toby searches, walking near door 38. He said, “Stop it, [inaudible 00:31:16] Ood. He's missing.” Oh, “The temperature of the Ood habitat is rising, actually.” Toby goes to door 38. He's trying to find something. He keeps hearing that old hockey coach who says, “There's a better way. Toby, join me.”

Then it's lunch time, Rose says… The Ood says to her, “You want some sauce with that?” She goes, “Oh yeah, I'll give it a go.” She says, “You know, I was a dinner lady once.” In an earlier episode this season, it looked like… Or maybe they did give her soy sauce and a brown sauce. I think they might have had two sauces. I put Ood Freudian slip. Oh yeah, the Oods keep having Freudian slips about wanting to take the baths and hang glide, which doesn't have anything to do with hockey. You see a 3D drilling model that made me say WTF for some reason.

Then we get, “Close door three.” Toby gets woken up. The old hockey coach sings “Total Eclipse of the Heart” he says, “Don't turn around.” He says, “I have so many names, nicknames, you know. Sweet Skates, Pucky [Leroo 00:32:50].” He goes, “That's what I'm known as, but don't look.” Then the language is going off the paper in the pottery. Then it's on Toby in a henna-style tattoo. So it's really interesting tough to follow stuff.

Then Zach, they say, “Oh boy, the Scarlet System,” something. “A big moment in history.” Oh yeah, this is kind of interesting. “Red cloud, it used to be the Scarlet System, home to a mighty civilization spanning a billion years. It goes into the black hole.” Really watching time, but I thought Ida was a little too enthusiastic about that and too enthralled, considering the moment. They say, “Leave it open.” The Doctor says, “I want to keep a lookout. Don't worry. It won't bother me. How do you diner that just eats…” The black hole just eats thing, because Rose says, “Isn't it the gateway to the universe?” The Doctor goes, “Not that one. This one's just an eater.” Let's see.

Scooti has to go check on some doors. Rose's phone's out of range. She can't call her mom, so they have another thing about, “I'm supposed to get you back to Jackie.” The Doctor goes, “We're 500 years from anywhere.” “Can you build a TARDIS?” “No.” This was really important. “The TARDISes are grown, not built, you know. So we're kind of stuck.” The Doctor goes, “Well, what are we going to do? Get a ride from them?” Rose goes, “Yeah, and then we'll live our lives together. Maybe we'll hold hands and stuff, have a proper house.” I think the Doctor says that. “I could settle down in a house. Now, that's pretty wild.” So they have some laughs about it, but Doctor returns to, he says, “You know, I told Jackie I'd get you home.” Rose goes, “Don't worry. We'll sort it out.” Then she says, “Everyone leaves home in the end. I don't mind being stuck with you. That's pretty sweet.” Then the phone rings. “He's awake,” somebody says on the other line. They mean the old hockey coach.

Then Toby wakes up. There's drama. There's a rush to the Ood. We've learned they communicate by low-level telepathic field, but it's up to basic 30. It's only supposed to be at basic five. So you could tell the Ood they're basic, they'd say, “Sure. That's the field we communicate on.” But a basic 30 means they're hearing something loud or something. The Oods, they're talking about a better hockey academy, like they're some sort of viral advertiser for another company though. They say, “This hockey academy's not as good as another one, an ancient one.” Let's see. They say, “A hockey academy where you could worship the founder.

Scooti's looking for Toby. “Open door 41.” She goes, “What do you mean? Someone went outside without a space suit on, without hockey skates?” A snowsuit, not a space suit, or both of those. Then what does this say? Scotty, static, “He's awake. He bathes in the black sun.” That's how tough this hockey coach thinks he is. That's what he claims one of his nicknames is, which [inaudible 00:36:43] say, “That's a pretty big nickname to claim for yourself, cowboy.” Toby kind of goes into this laughing state, a bit like a movie from a long time ago.

Then he has some sort of hockey [inaudible 00:37:05] Scooti looks at him. She's like, “What are you doing outside?” He forces a hull breach, which he says, “Scooti, you're going to the other academy.” But that upsets the balance of the ship. Everyone runs around for a while until they get the breach sealed. Toby sneaks back and tries to play cool, but Scooti's gone to the new… She ends up going to the academy, the great academy in the sky, because they say there's two academies competing with this other hockey academy, one in an ancient pit, the other in the black hole. So Scooti goes to the black hole to go to the hockey academy.

Toby has his hands behind his back in habitation three. He has some protectant on with a dash of three, not here, or a big black hole in the sky. Let me look over what any of that means. The breach shield, it could go habitation three. “I could have used a drink. Protein one with a dash of three.” Oh, that's one of Rose's drinks that she likes that they make on the ship. They say, “Well…” This is when they find out, they get Scooti's letter. “Sorry, I decided to go to another thing.” Even though we were friends, and she had that sweet nickname Scooti, her real name… “I see. Well I'm going to…” They say that she decided to do that, 43K 2.1. I guess that's the year. They really take it hard. There's some big music kind of underlying that she's on the… Maybe she was their young rookie star. It was weird that I had a crush on Scooti, even though she has the same nickname as me.

Then they say, “The drill just stopped. We made it to Point Zero.” Then they say, “Let's put a hold on Ood,” because they're acting like they want to work at this other academy. “We got to go down and check where the drill ended up.” The Doctor goes, “I'm going.” They get into spacesuits. Let's see. “It's tough. See you later.” “Not if I see you first.” That's what the Doctor and Rose go back and forth. They have a laugh in a serious moment. Then the music rises. Then she gives him a helmet kiss. Then they say, “We can't override the…” Oh, they say, Danny says, “Ood, stay here. No overrides, you got that?” They all just sit there.

So the Doctor and Ida are going to go down in the well in spacesuits. There's a capsule countdown for them to go down there. They salute. Somebody salutes them and Rose waves goodbye. What's his name is looking at his hands like he had too many [sillosilby 00:40:15] silly, I mean. There's lots of 3D maps and descent shots, a little bit like back in… Was that Sea Base Alpha in Disney World where you went on a pretend elevator, the hydrolator. They say, “Hey, breathing is good. Make sure everybody's breathing.” Rose says that I think to the Doctor.

The Ood all kind of stand and turn, their arms at their sides. Everything is still heading out now. Oh yes, the Doctor… Everything is still. The Doctor and Ida head out of the tube into this massive cave. They use a gravity globe, which is kind of like a floating lantern. I forget which Harry… It's the same as the Harry Potter one, [incantorum 00:41:13] or something, incandescent tube, [fantorum 00:41:17], [incantorum 00:41:18]. It's a big chamber. There's kind of a giant temple with some statues. Ida says, “We got to go north, northwest.” They say, “We can't really read you down there. Not really good.” She goes, “Okay, well let's just go this way. There's no headed back.” The Doctor goes, “Those are not things you're supposed to say.” This was a shout-out to the Eastenders. He says, “It's almost as bad as, ‘Nothing can go wrong. This is going to be the best Christmas Walford's ever had.'”

So a little subtle cross-promotion. Then the Ood are staring at Danny. They say, “Danny, you're basic. Basic 100.” Then they find a big metal disk or seal, it looks like a… They say, “Is this a door that opens? It's 30 feet in diameter.” Then Danny is back in his henna tattoos, and he's kind of pulling a little bit of like the scene from Ghostbusters the movie, like a little bit like Gozer. He's pulling a Gozer. He says, “Gozer, is that Sigourney Weaver or is that Danny?” They say, “Report back,” or something. Then Toby stretches out and the Gozer thing passes onto the Ood and out of Toby.

The Doctor wants to go back up the tube to check on Rose. All the Oods start using their lights. They say, “Oh boy,” like everything's going to H-E double hockey sticks in a basket at this Hockey Sticks Academy. What the heck does he say? What are those? “Danny was acting weird.” Now the Ood are trouble. The Ood start running, trying to run the show. The Doctor doesn't know what's going on. Zach with the cool name, he can't get ahold of anybody. Then the Ood start talking as a group. They go, “Yeah, we're working at the new hockey academy. Look at this team we're going to have. We're calling ourselves the Hockey Legion. The Legion will be many. The Legion shall be few.” They go, “We don't know what's going on.” They say, “[abadon troptor 00:43:49].” Really this is going to be the best hockey academy, just like that movie.

Everyone's confused here clearly, because they say, “Well, we had our own academy. It was really just a cognitive dissonance device to get us through being stuck on this planet outside a black hole. It's not even a real hockey academy. We were just play  acting it. Now we have a competitor?” Then they find out oh boy, there's real shaking, because the whole academy is moving, not just the Zamboni. The Doctor is unsure of which way to go downstairs. The gravity field is losing orbit. The door that was sealed is opening up, and coming from the door that opens is the head of the hockey academy saying, “My hockey academy is going to be free.” Everyone says, “A free academy that's real and not imaginary? We better wait until next week for the rest of the episode.”

All right. Let's run through some stuff that came up in this episode. This was from newatlas.com August 20th, 2018. Nick Lavars wrote this article, Five of the Finest of Flat Pack Homes. Talk about making me wish I had property. This is really cool. I'll be quoting and reading directly from it. There's little doubt that the neatly packaged nature of a certain Swedish furniture-maker's products are a big reason for its success, and lately we've been looking into how that can translate into alternative housing solutions, whether it's convenience of fast, pop-up style construction or the ability to transport complete housing kids to locations, low cost, prefabricated flatpack homes are emerging as an increasingly popular option for house-hunters around the globe.

So there's a few of them. Cubicco's, C-U-B-I-C-C-O hurricane-resistant homes, they offer a range of them from small shelters to homes with a couple of bedrooms, sustainably sourced wood, vertical gardens, green roofs, solar, rainwater harvesting. They can stand up to winds of 290 kilometers an hour, starting at about $60K US. Then there's the Britespace by Avava Systems. It can operate on or off grid. Rainwater harvesting takes about six weeks to assemble. Weather-resistant hardwood siding or pictured stucco, a tasteful mix of high-end materials, bamboo, maple, oak. Starts at about 90K during installation.

This one came in, it's M.A.Di House by Renato Vidal. This one looks pretty sweet. It's an A-frame. Renato Vidal, Italian Architect created this home from cross laminated timber and did so in a way that enables it to be shipped out and folded open on site, forming a complete two-level house in less than a day. The unfolded home has a height of 21.3 feet. Can be extended by adding more modules. The furnishings come on mounting boards that can be installed in a day. About $933 per square meter. There's the Plús Hús by Minarc. 320-square foot flatpack home assembled in a few days on site, all furnishings cut to size to keep waste to a minimum. Recycled materials, high installation values. 40% more energy efficient than traditional homes. Three sizes from $37-49,000.

There's the Kiss House, which reaches the gold standard for energy efficiency, uses cross laminated timber, and is gaining recognition as a sustainable alternative. Comes in three different sizes from two to four bedrooms with 923.5 square foot footprint. Arrives as stacks of panels prefabbed off site that can be assembled on a prepared slab in three to four days. It can be carried anywhere in the world. About a $2,500 per square meter, so that's around 200K, right? 1,000 would be 85,000. Oh, per square meter. Yeah, so about, yeah, that's not inexpensive.

So those are some prefab houses. It also brought up cross laminated timber. So we'll look that up on Wikipedia. Also known as CLT. It's a wood panel product made from gluing layers of solid-sawn lumber together. So you've probably seen this look before. Each layer of boards is oriented perpendicular to adjacent layers and glued on the wide faces of the board, usually in a symmetric way so that the outer layers have the same orientation. Usually an odd number of layers is most common. It just makes it more stiff and rigid structurally, kind of like plywood.

It was first developed in Germany and Austria in the '90s, but then in the 2000s, it got wider usage in Europe in various building systems, because it's more sustainable. So it usually it's split up into different steps. You can read more about it via the show notes. It's interesting.

What about string instruments? We talk about it a lot, but let's look at the musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings. You can pluck the strings or hit them or rub them with a bow. These are a few of my favorite things, or you know like the harpsichord, which I love. It is plucked by when you press the keys. With bowed instruments, the player rubs the strings with a horsehair bow, causing them to vibrate. With a hurdy-gurdy, the musician operates a mechanical wheel that rubs the strings.

Now the earliest stringed instruments date around 1300 BCE, seen in a cave painting in France, which may depict a musical bow. Actually, a hunting bow is used as a single-stringed instrument, and it developed from there. Bow harps, harps, lyres. Oh sorry, even those… You've seen Roman and Greek horse people playing lyres, which eventually led to them being able to play dyads and chords. Another innovation occurred when the bow harp was straightened out and a bridge was used to lift the strings off the neck, creating a lute. This picture of the… So archeological digs have discovered some in ancient Mesopotamian sites. Some lyres. There's other discoveries. So just a little bit about the history of stringed instruments.

I did try to find the age of the TARDIS. I don't know if I did though. Let's see. Anything else we haven't talked about? I know we briefly talked about it. TARDISes are grown, as stated by the Doctor in the Impossible Planet. They can only be grown on the Doctor's home planet of Gallifrey. They draw power from several sources, but primarily from the Eye of Harmony. It's said to be the nucleus of a black hole created by the early Time Lords, a singularity. They also draw power from the entire universe, as we covered earlier this season.

Let's see. Other elements needed include mercury, Zeiton-7, trachoid time crystals, arton energy. Must also be primed with the biological imprint of a Time Lord, which just happens when the Time Lord operates it for the first time. I'm looking for ages though. They're shown to be incredibly rugged and can withstand almost anything. Let's see. They can deal with that. The Doctor's TARDIS is an obsolete type 40 TT capsule borrowed from a repair shop. Let's see. 40 TT's navigational systems have malfunctioned. It was already old when the first Doctor took it, but the age is not specified.

Time Lord professor Chronotis says that Type 40 models came out when he was a boy. There was originally 305 registered Type 40s, but all the others had been decommissioned and were replaced by newer models. So that's interesting, the Doctor's got a hooptie of a TARDIS, in a good way. Yeah, the Doctor had been on board, at least as far as we know, in 1978, there'd been 523 years. 2011, 700 years, in 2013, about probably 900 years, depending on what episode. So yeah, it's pretty old. Wouldn't say ancient, because it just wouldn't, but I guess it depends on how you decide that.

What about Space GH, Space Casper Buddy? He was a super hero with a different name created by Hanna-Barbera, believe it or not, in the '60s. He had teen sidekicks Jan, Jace, and Blip. In the '90s, Space Buddy was a host of a show, Space Buddy Coast to Coast on Cartoon Network on Adult Swim. I don't know what made me think of this. But it debuted in '66. Let's see when I first encountered him, Space Buddy would deal with Moltar, Zorak, Metallus, Brak. The original series has shared time with an unrelated segment called Dino Boy in the Lost Valley. There were 42 Space Buddy episodes and 18 Dino Boy episodes. It was voiced by Gary Owens.

Then in '81, there was 22 new segments on Space Stars on NBC. Was this when I first saw it? I don't think so. That would have been… I think I was too young. I guess so. Maybe it was on some sort of recap, because I don't think I saw it in 1981.

Then Space Buddy started a show in '94. Wow, this happened in '94? It was a late night interview show. Guests included Beck, David Byrne, Bill Nye, Penn and Teller, Hansen, Joel Hodgeson, Jim Carrey, John Benjamin, John Stewart, Conan, Thurston Moore, Weird Al, Timothy Leary, and Mark Hamill. Relies on an absurd, surreal… Oh, here's Cartoon Planet. This is what I saw, maybe. '95. No, I guess not. When would I have watched this? I thought it was part of some other show, but let's see. So I guess that didn't really give us any information when I would have saw it, but interesting, beloved thing.

Another show, which came up, I don't know where this… Oh, because Rose says, “Yeah, we're real people,” this was a TV show Real People, which has come up a couple times. Byron Allen was on it, and he owns the Weather Channel, which was mentioned in an episode of the Good Place. Also, somebody was a guest on it that we covered recently. But it was a show that aired Wednesdays from 8:00 to 9:00 PM on NBC from 1979 to 1984. So again, I guess 8:00 PM I wouldn't have been watching this in '84, but somehow encountered it. It featured a panel of seated hosts and a large studio audience, pre-filmed segments, comedic banter, and each segment was a visit with someone with a unique occupation or hobby. Occasionally someone was brought into the studio.

In the early seasons, it was very popular, at the top of the ratings and a rare hit with NBC was third. They also had segments called funny pictures, funny newspaper errors where people would get a Real People T-shirt. It also covered serious topics. Regular hosts Sarah Prucell, Byron Allen, Bill Rafferty, Mark Russell, Peter Billingsley, and Fred Willard, John Barbour. Had a batch of imitators. Oh, That's Incredible! That's the show I remember. That's My Line. Oh, Syndicated. That's where I would have seen it, and edited into 30-minute segments called More Real People.

They tried doing spin-offs in the '80s. Real Kids was one of them starring Peter Billingsley. Then let's see what else we got here. Oh, that's really it. I can't remember who was a guest on there. Someone that came up. Now I don't know. Then we said, “Oh, okay, what about the term FYI?” It means for your information, but its usage dates back as far as 1941. It was in a 1959 episode of a TV show, and FYIs are a subset of RFC series, requests for comments. So just in case, FYI.

What is this one? I don't know what this one is. Sometimes my notes don't completely… It's a Wikipedia… Oh, Bela Bartok, I guess there was a character named Bartok. Hungarian composer, big fan of Bartok, I am. Ethnomusicologist. 1881 to 1945. Let's see. Childhood, his early career. I want to get to his music theory. This is mostly music. Music reflects two trends that dramatically changed the sound of music in the 20th century. One was the breakdown of the diatonic system of harmony that had served composers for the previous 200 years, and musical inspiration from his home country, Hungry.

In search for new forms of tonality, Bartok turned to Hungarian folk music as well as other folk music of the Carpathian Basin, as well as other folk music from the Carpathian Basin, even into Algeria and Turkey. In doing so, he became influential in that stream of modernism, which used indigenous music ant techniques. One characteristic of his style is Night music, which is mostly used in slow movements of multi-movement ensemble or orchestral compositions in his mature period with the dissonance providing a backdrop to sounds of nature and lonely melodies. His music can be grouped into different periods of his life, which you could read about. Let's just see what… Yeah, I guess you read more about it. Interesting though.

We also had some other ones that I'll link to that I'll have with YouTube. Tunnel boring machines, soy sauce, basic, north by northwest. Let's close out with a little lyrics from a song that [inaudible 01:02:50] about turn around, a song called “Total Eclipse of the Heart” by Bonnie Tyler. “Turn around, every now and then I get a little bit lonely and you're never coming around. Turn around, every now and then I get a little bit tired of listening to the sounds of my tears. Turn around, every now and then I get a little bit nervous that all the best years have gone by. Turn around. Every now and then I get a little bit worried, and then I see that look in your eyes. Turn around, bright eyes.

“Every now and then I get down. Turn around, bright eyes. Every now and then I lie down and I roll up. Turn around. Every now and then I get a little bit restless and I dream of something wild. Turn around. Every now and then I get a little bit helpless and I'm lying like a child in your arms. Turn around, every now and then I get a little bit annoyed and I know I've got to get out and cry. Turn around, every now and then I get a little bit worried, but then I see that look in your eye.

“I need you now tonight. I need you more than ever. If only you hold me tight, we'll be holding on forever. We'll only be making it right, because we'll never be wrong. Together, we can take it to the end of the line. Your love is like a shadow on me all of the time. I don't know what to do, and I'm always in the dark. We're living like a powder keg and giving off sparks. I really need you tonight. Forever is going to start tonight.

“Once upon a time I was falling in love, but now I'm only falling apart. There's nothing I can do. It's like a total eclipse of the heart. Once upon a time there was a light in my life, and now there's only love in the dark. Nothing I can say, a total eclipse of the heart.”

I think if the Doctor read this song, he'd say… You'll watch the second episode, because it's going to work out great. You never got to worry when you have the Doctor. Because he would say that this hockey academy might look like it's having an eclipse, but he said, “Your expectations are what's going to be eclipsed in the happiest of ways.” So yeah, here we go, some thank-yous.