The Shooting Gallery of Retired British Thespians (Hell Bent)

This week, the Doctor learns that mere relentless persistence is no match for the inevitability of loss, and a Doctor Who spinoff is created which we will never get to see. It’s Hell Bent.

Notes and links

According to Todd, the old woman in the barn is either Leela or Aunt Adah from the Star Trek: Voyager pilot episode Caretaker — a hologram created by a vast pan-dimensional being to make the crew of Voyager feel at home by offering them lemonade, sugar cookies and corn.

Magic or magical realism is a genre closely associated with Latin America, and particularly the writers Gabriel García Márquez and Jorge Luis Borges, although the genre has influenced other writers like China Miéville (who got a mention in the shownotes a couple of weeks ago). Here’s an article about the genre published by Vox in 2014, just after Márquez’s death.

We speculate about awards which Heaven Sent might have won. It was nominated in 2016 for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form), but it lost to the Jessica Jones episode AKA Smile. (The Saturn Awards don’t include an award for an individual television episode.)

And more

We’ve just launched a new podcast called The Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire, which broadcasts to the world our ill-considered first impressions of each new episode of the new RTD era. Here’s our take on The Star Beast; our take on Wild Blue Yonder will be out on Monday.

Our second newest podcast is Startling Barbara Bain, our Space: 1999 commentary podcast, whose second episode was released a week ago. In that episode, we talked over the show’s second story, Force of Life. We’re planning to release the next episode after Christmas.

Maximum Power is continuing its journey through Series C of Blakes 7. This week, Vila gets his end away in City at the Edge of the World.

And finally, there’s our Star Trek commentary podcast, Untitled Star Trek Project, featuring Nathan and friend-of-the-podcast Joe Ford. This week, they watched an aggressively mediocre episode of the Original Series called Whom Gods Destroy.