Doctor Who: Modern 1x5: "World War Three" | Reaction!

[@ErisRising]

This is rapidly becoming my favorite Who reaction channel ever. Dad's background in Classic Who helps, but only because he's using it as a foundation to appreciate the new stuff rather than as a point of comparison at the expense of either. Definitely looking forward to a very specific one this season/series.

[@Ricky_McCoy]

Looking at the episode, it looks like Mickey's newspaper says "Don't get the Colly Wobbles". A shame, I wish it said wobbly wobblies

[@alexbruce9499]

Colly-wobbles meaning a nervous or upset stomach, similar to butterflies in the stomach. The paper would be a production mock-up so it could be an in-joke (maybe a reference to the Slitheen farting?) or just nonsense text that the audience aren't meant to see, but it could make some sense as probably a sports headline on the back page of a tabloid newspaper. Wibbly-wobbly as a Doctor Who thing wouldn't exist for another few seasons and was penned by another writer, so would have been a remarkable coincidence if it had said that.

[@Ricky_McCoy]

@@alexbruce9499 Well put, my thoughts exactly.

[@joshuajoshua2732]

Twitter didn't exist in 2005. Departures of the Classic Who companions. Susan Foreman: Was left behind in 2164 because she fell in love. Ian and Barbara Wright: Weren't sent off they took the Dalek time machine back to 1965. Vicki: Decided to stay on Troy because she fell in love. Steven Taylor: Was encouraged by the Doctor to stay on a colony planet to help the elders. Katarina: Sacked out to an airlock. Sara Kingdom: Aged to death by the time destructor. Dodo Chaplet: Departed off-screen. Ben and Polly: Both went back to their own time where they left off. Jamie McCrimmon: Sent back home with his memories of the Doctor erased. Victoria Waterfield: Decided to stay on 1960's earth. Zoe Heriot: Sent back home with her memories of the Doctor erased. Liz Shaw: Departed off-screen. Jo Grant: Fell in love with Clive and decided to leave. Sarah Jane Smith: Was dropped off home because humans weren't allowed on Gallifrey. Harry Sullivan: Decided to stay on earth. Leela: Decided to stay on Gallifrey because she fell in love. K-9 Mark I: Stayed on Gallifrey with Leela. Romana I: Regenerated. Romana II: Stayed behind on E-Space. K-9 Mark II: Stayed with Romana on E-Space. Adric: Killed off in an explosion of a spaceship. Nyssa: Stayed behind on Terminus to help the sick. Tegan Jovanka: Decided to leave after all the trauma and the dealings of killings she witnessed and had enough. Turlough: Decided to go back to his home planet Trion. Pergulilliam "Peri" Brown: Was thought dead but later became a warrior queen and married King Ycornos. Melanie "Mel" Bush: Decided to travel with Glitz for some reason. Ace: Departed off-screen. Grace Holloway: Decided not to travel with the Doctor in the TARDIS. Departures of the NuWho companions. Rose Tyler: We all know Richard has yet to find out ;).

[@CRINOTH]

It's not quite right to imply that the Labour party decided after the election to pick Keir Starmer to be PM. He was already the leader of the party since 2020 and, so long as he held that position, was always going to be PM if Labour won (unless he had failed to hold his seat in parliament - then his party would have had an interesting decision or two to make). Essentially though, we always know who the PM will be should any particular party win the election. The surprises only come when they change PMs mid-term - which is as likely as not. Change of PM doesn't cause a general election (unless a government loses a confidence vote) as the mandate doesn't belong specifically to the PM. So long as the governing party has a majority in the House of Commons it can complete the full 5 year term regardless of how many times it changes PM - though in practice the British people will only tolerate one change per term... what happened in the 2019-24 parliament (Johnson, Truss, Sunak) stretched tolerances too far.

[@joshua.910]

Your dads half right regarding our elections. The leader of the party becomes the PM. No one gets nominated as such.

[@dylanshadowstar9779]

Same system we have in Australia

[@tweediestcomb]

love both of your reactions

[@SeanS102]

I think the issue with Presidential term lengths and campaigning is that the campaigning starts much too early in the United States, in the UK there is of course constant opposition and challenges to the government, but formal campaigning does not begin until an election is called, and election campaigns generally last about a six weeks. The last election was called on 22nd of May and was conducted on the 4th of July. I'm a Brit living in the US now and it is quite astounding just how much political noise the US electorate has to put up with, people back home get fed up of politics during our election campaigns! It's almost inescapable in the States, and as you say not totally fair on a President who has to spend so much time thinking about the next election when they should be concentrating on governing.

[@kemmdog4444]

Great to have you both back.

[@jacobhogan3208]

While you might not count Katarina or Sarah Kingdom, they were people who travelled with the Doctor and got killed. Katarina herself especially would not have died the way she did without the Doctor involved in her life.

[@stephencoppins9467]

Justice for Katarina and Sara Kingdom - they count. ❣️❣️

[@Oswald-t7x]

Even if we can count them as companions because of it, they didn't really have much time to shine and be remembered by the audience as with others, so their deaths aren't that important on emotional level for the story

[@andrewbowman4611]

I'm not sure, but I suspect the newspaper headline, if it's on the reverse, probably reads Wembley as opposed to wibbly-wobbly. Wembley stadium being a football ground in London, where Rose and Mickey et al live. I'm actually genuinely surprised Richard hadn't heard of Hannibal's journey across the Alps. I'd have thought that was pretty bog-standard stuff for a history teacher. Maybe that's just in the UK, though.

[@Longshanks1690]

I assume he’s knows about Hannibal, it’s just the trick with vinegar he’s never heard of before.

[@richardlemin7840]

Andrew: Yes, I taught about Hannibal in my World History classes, but had never read about vinegar. ~Dad

[@TastySalamanders]

38:50 On parliamentary systems and the Prime Minister: While there might be subtle differences between different countries implementation of the system; generally speaking: The Prime Minister is just the leader of the party in government and the parties choose their own leader. Parties often have rules to prevent frequent changing of leaders (and therefore the Prime Minister if that party is in power) from internal party politics. But those rules only exist in the party as an organisation; so different parties within the same country can have different rules about their own leadership. I believe the issue in Israel's parliament isn't internal party politics; but rather that no party in their parliament has been getting a majority. When that happens parties have to get together and try and form a coalition government or a minority government (here in Australia for example; the Liberal Party and National Party are basically in a permanent coalition, to the point in Australian politics they are just collectively referred to as The Coalition). But getting back to Israel's coalition governments - since they are comprised of multiple parties - the relationship between the parties keeps breaking down and collapsing the government and forcing new elections.

[@benjaminwilson2945]

38:52 Sorry but I think that is a bad idea. We would still be stuck with Liz Truss if that was the case.

[@joshuaverran9443]

We have the same parliamentary system in australia as well.

[@ValueNetwork]

Fun fact: the “Bad Wolf” graffiti added to the Tardis was just a random choice by the production team, since This 2 parter was the first thing that they filmed, and RTD ran with it and added bad wolf Easter eggs to the other scripts. (Obviously spoiler alert: as far as I’m aware the idea of rose looking into the heart of the Tardis in the finale was always the plan, but that entity having the name “Bad Wolf” was added into the script when RTD saw the graffiti and decided to use the words “Bad wolf” to foreshadow the finale.)

[@ZondaFRoadster]

I love how the alien guts are very obviously ramen noodles dyed green. One of those classic 'low budget on display' moments. 😆

[@purrceys7959]

Talking about the British parliamentary system - didn't Liz Truss lose the confidence of her party and parliament in only 49 days? I remember jokes that people had lettuce in their fridge that had lasted longer. As a Canadian, we've occasionally had Prime Ministers who lasted less than 1 year. I don't have an issue with this and I think most Brits were relieved to see Liz Truss go. As Americans, you have no way of removing a president except through impeachment (and it doesn't work, there's never been a successful impeachment, remember Nixon resigned) so you're stuck with them for 4 years and your executive branch has become increasingly powerful in recent years. Prime Ministers have to retain the confidence of their party and parliament to stay in power. The monarch is the symbolic head but he/can cannot overrule the governing party, only advise. As a Canadian, even though the parliamentary system isn't perfect, I think it is preferable, we also don't have the gridlock and shutdowns that have become endemic in the American system in recent years.

[@SeanS102]

There was a literal lettuce out of a fridge that lasted longer, a newspaper set up a livestream monitoring it, and it did indeed outlast her

[@franohmsford7548]

Nyssa couldn't return to Traken - Traken was wiped from existence in Logopolis! You forgot Peri never got to go home btw.

[@jacobhogan3208]

I like this two-parter but I will say that "World War Three" is a waste of a good title for me.

[@ClintBandito]

I will disgree because whilst it obviously doesn't happen, the commentary is very appropriate. I also doubt Doctor Who would do an actual story set in a "World War III" to avoid defining what that would be.

[@kemmdog4444]

Alex,I recently started Bad Batch and I’m enjoying it. Looking forward to your reviews.

[@kierenevans2521]

36:29 Hardly from nowhere, the tories have been a lame duck for a while now. It should be remember that when comparing the US and UK that the head of states are the president and monarch respectively. RTD seems to quite often portray the UK political system in an odd way.

[@SeanS102]

RTD is not very details orientated with politics, he's more broad strokes and vibes, there are loads of instances where he portrays things that are not quite accurate

[@christianwise637]

@@SeanS102 Probably the biggest example is the time he mistakenly assumed that "President-Elect" was just a fancier title for the POTUS

[@MuchWhittering]

Alex, I can't believe you almost forgot Harriet Jones' name. Don't you know who she is? I understand Jackie's concern. Rose and the Doctor are in life-threatening danger every Saturday evening, it's not inconceivable that one day she might die. So you talked about what happens when the PM dies in office. Incoming ramble about how the UK government works. So the Prime Minister of the UK is not actually "elected" by anyone. He/She is appointed directly by the monarch, and he can pick whomever he likes, technically. In reality though, the Prime Minister is whoever is the leader of the party with the most seats in Parliament. From 2010-2024, that was the Conservatives, but now (And indeed when this episode came out) it is the Labour Party. I assume Harriet is Labour, given it's 2006, and the previous PM Is meant to look like Blair. I assume what would happen in this situation is they'd appoint an interim person to act as PM until the Labour Party could choose a new leader. So when Harriet becomes Labour leader, she will automatically get invited to Buckingham Palace to be made PM. That's how Gordon Brown, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Rishi Sunak all got the job. They didn't win elections, they got the job because the previous one resigned and they were chosen by their parties, not by the people. Now, given how many high ranking politicians have died, it's likely a snap General Election would be called, where Harriet Jones could win the landslide majority she is said to have won. If nothing else, there'd need to be a ton of by-elections to replace all the dead MPs. To be clear, after becoming PM, Harriet Jones (Prime Minister) would still also be Harriet Jones (MP for Flydale North), as the PM is also an MP too. Quite how much actual MP work they have time to do, I don't know. But Keir Starmer is still MP for Holborn and St Pancras even though he's busy being Prime Minister. To be clear, the Labour Party didn't pick Starmer recently. He was chosen as new leader in 2020 after Jeremy Corbyn resigned. So he's been the potential next Prime Minister ever since then. When people voted Labour 4 weeks ago, they knew it was Starmer they were voting for. Our elections are not as fixed down as yours, either. We have to have one at least every 5 years, but that's a maximum, not fixed. The last election that happened "on time" was 2015. 2017 and 2019 all happened way earlier as an attempt by the Conservative Party to gain more power. Then 2 months ago Rishi Sunak suddenly called one for the 4th of July, even though it wasn't technically due until next January. Why exactly is unclear. Literally nobody thought his party was going to win. Best guess is that he wanted to hurry up and get it over with. When we have an election, we all vote locally for our Member of Parliament, across 650 constituencies across the UK. As mentioned, the leader of the party with the most seats gets made PM. But if Starmer died tomorrow, there's nobody officially who is next in line. We have a Deputy PM (Angela Rayner currently), but that office isn't even mandatory to exist, we've gone years without one before. If Starmer did die, likely Rayner would do the job for a bit until a new leader got chosen, which would probably be her anyway.

[@imafgc]

I don't think it's weird to discuss politics at the end of this episode, it's a very politically charged episode. As for how long someone should be president, I think so long as you can clearly maintain that you are having free, honest, true elections then someone should be able to hold as many terms as the people want, but you got to maintain the integrity of the elections meticulously

[@booradley8895]

The show has only gone political the last few years it is has been said, I beg to differ.

[@brucesimmons5517]

I don't know about this Harriet Jones lady...I think she looks kind of tired...

[@rebeccaburgess8710]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal%27s_crossing_of_the_Alps info on Hannibal