This weird and wonderful series has, sadly, a paucity of phones. The only time they appear is in the phonetastic and bone-chilling Lucky Day…

Lucky Day

Hunky heart-throb, and all-round nice guy Conrad Clark has this device:

Not much to go on. Looks like an Android. The vertical camera cluster, buttons on the right, and inset front camera means it is probably a Samsung - but you'd be hard pressed to tell which!

Ruby Sunday has the same yellow clad phone from Joy To The World.

A few closeups as well.

I'm pretty sure that's the Google Pixel 5.

Carla's phone is wrapped in an anonymous case.

That's the same case as last year's episodes. But there's not much to go on. That tiny camera cluster could be from anything other than an iPhone. Think you know what it is? Leave a note in the comments.

Most of <Think_Tank>'s phones are blurry and in the background, so it's hard to say what they are. One goon has this device:

Given the bevel around the camera lenses, and the flash near the top, I think it's the Samsung S21 5G

Another has this model:

Again, not much detail there. It looks like it has a fingerprint sensor on the rear. Any clues?

Shirley Bingham, UNIT's technical marvel, has this foldable phone.

Although the scene is quite dark, I reckon it is the same phone she was rocking in The Star Beast.

Up next!

Will there be more phones in "The War Between the Land and the Sea"? Stay tuned!

So, let's knock down some common complaints, eh?

iT's To POLIticALly CorREct wItH alL ThE GENdeR EqUAliTy

The very first episode of Doctor Who had two men and two women in the lead roles. It has always strived for gender balance. Even in the Peter Davison era there were two female and one male companion.

I don't think The Doctor has ever travelled with only a male companion. The audience has always been boys and girls who want to explore the universe. This isn't new.

This complaint is just so "Urgh! Girls!" Grow up.

It's jUsT a rIP OFF of iNDiaNA JoNES!

A recent episode featured the gang dropping into buried chambers, recovering ancient artefacts, and "travelling by map". The whole point of the Doctor Who show is to reflect tropes towards kids who are too young to have seen them the first time round. The classic Tom Baker story "The Invisible Enemy" is an "homage" to "Fantastic Voyage". The target audience of the time would have been unlikely to have seen the movie on its original run - so they get to experience it this way.

Similarly, how many of 2021's tweens have seen the original Indiana Jones' "travel by map" sequence? Precious few, I'd say. What a delight it will be for them when their parents or older siblings introduce them to it after this series.

Of course, Indiana Jones is "ripping off" a thousand old movies with this trope. But that's the point - Who isn't always about startlingly original stories. Mostly it's about retelling cool stories to a new audience.

WHY aRE THEy'Re all theSe ethnICs ON SCReEn?

Although Martha Jones was the first Black companion (shamefully late in the new era), she was preceded by (again, shamefully few) Black actors. Not least Angela Bruce who was kicking arse as Brigadier Winifred Bambera at the tail-end of the 1980s. God, were Whovians moaning about her in newsletters? I hope not! Behind the scenes, Waris Hussein (from India) was the director of the very first serial. The comics in the 1970s and 1980s also featured Black companions.

You know what, that's not a great record. If the next series features a Black Doctor, a Japanese companion, and a Cherokee enemy, that'd be great!

wHen DID iT bECOme so PoLItICaL?

After "The Village of the Angels", I saw someone tweeting that they were glad this episode didn't "shove politics down our throat." This is an episode which features a character saying the Angels are less terrifying than the horrors he saw when liberating Belsen Concentration Camp...

The DALEKs running around screaming "EXTERMINATE" - well, it doesn't take a genius to work out what inspired them! If you watch the 1970s "Genesis of the Daleks" they are explicitly racist fascists.

Jon Pertwee's "The Green Death" is, again, an explicitly environmental story.

Politics has always been a part of Doctor Who. But when you were 12 years old, you just absorbed it as part of the story.

thEir RewRiTIng coNtiNUiTY!

During the first Doctor's tenure, there's little to suggest that he's an alien. The Time Lord race are only mentioned at the end of Patrick Troughton's run! Regenerational limits are something which have been played about with endlessly. Romana could regenerate at will. Pertwee's Doctor said he was thousands of years old.

According to the official BBC merchandise, Daleks are the Yeti!

In a show about rewriting history, it's only natural that there should be very little "fixed" in the continuity.

alL ThEY dO IS tALK to Each OthEr BUT THeReS No CHARaCTeR DEvElopmETn

Like, have you watched any of the old serials? Endless rounds of talking because special effects are too expensive! Companions who stay as the same stock characters year after year. Exposition and monologues which go on for hours. Characters randomly deciding to do something stupid just to advance the plot.

Such is the nature of episodic TV. This most recent crop of companions have gone through such incredible emotional journeys. Something unthinkable in the olden days. It's refreshing to see characters talk about how their experiences have changed them.

Is there technobabble? Sure! But we all love a bit of polarity reversal, right?

And on and on...

I'm shameless in my love of Doctor Who. I think it is a brilliant way to introduce sci-fi to a new generation. To show them it isn't all shooting lasers at baddies and ultraviolence. To communicate that being clever is admirable and brute-force isn't the only way to save the day. To confuse them so much that they rewatch endlessly. To show everyone that there's a brighter future out there. To poke fun at pomposity, and be a beacon of hope for kids who feel a little different and a little left out. To be scary - but good scary. To save the day with a song in your heart and a mystery at your heels. To explore the infinite and still be home in time for tea.

If your main complaint is that it doesn't make you feel the same way as it did when you were twelve - then I suggest you pull your head out of your arse and rediscover your inner child.

It's a Panopticon '93 Officially licensed TARDIS - similar to this one on RetroTrader.

Click to embiggen images.

It's a little scuffed, but nothing a lick of paint can't fix. Of slight - very slight - annoyance is that it's a fraction too shallow to hold standard DVD cases and have the doors tightly shut.  So I've decided to keep them open to show off my collection.

By my reckoning, each shelf can hold about 34 DVDs - so 136 in total.  With around 11 completely missing serials, from a total of 157, it looks like I might have to find a way to make this one ever-so slightly bigger on the inside...

Thanks to my ever loving - and ever patient - wife, Liz, for putting up with me.  She's a far better companion than any the Doctor ever had :-)

The BBC, however, need a few lessons in how to optimise the experience. As part of their Prisoner Zero page - the BBC have an awesome "Wanted Poster". Here's the teaser image.

Prisoner Zero - QR Code

Let's take a look at the full QR code. This is about the size it would be if the poster were printed on A4.

QR Code

There are three problems with this QR code which reduce its functionality and usability.

Firstly, the contents of the QR are

MECARD:N:Doctor Who;URL:http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/;;

Aside from the fact the character is named "The Doctor", this is a rather large string to place in a QR code.  The longer the string, the more complex the code, the harder it is for a phone to decode it.

Secondly, QR codes are primarily used on mobile phones.  This is reinforced by the use of "MECARD" - a method to add someone to your address book.  Yet the URL the BBC point to isn't suitable for mobile!

This is crazy. There's a wonderful mobile friendly version of the Doctor Who site - http://bbc.mobi/drwho - why not point to that? People will be scanning this code on their mobile and then being directed to the BBC's desktop site. Madness!

Finally, the colouring.  While QR codes can work in any colour, they're easier to scan if the contrast is high.  That usually means black squares on a white background.  It's not so important if you've got a multi-megapixel camera with auto-focus and all sorts of other technology.  However, the primary audience for Doctor Who is children and teenagers. Not the sort of demographic to have awesome camera phones.

Fixing The QR Code

Using my QR Code generator, I've created a faster, simpler, and more useful QR Code.

http://bbc.mobi/drwho

Have a scan - it takes you directly to the mobile site.

I'm a big fan of QR Codes, but they have to be used sensibly.  Remember to keep your URLs short and point them at mobile friendly sites.

Touchscreen

It's quite hard to see throughout the episode. It just looks like a standard touchscreen device in a rubber casing.  I had wondered if the props team had created a dummy phone to be used.

What Phone?

Annoyingly, the phone is almost always out of focus.

Except for this shot.

BlackBerry Storm

Aha! That's the BlackBerry Operating System.  That means it can only be a BlackBerry Storm or Storm2!

The Storm2 doesn't have separate buttons on the screen - so this must be an original Storm.  The BBC have taken the logo button off the front to prevent accusations of bias or commercial influence, no doubt.

As an aside, look how the Doctor sends the photos - MMS!

MMS

Better hope those aliens don't have iPhones!

Slight spoilers here, so wait until you've seen the show.

Towards the end, the Doctor is having a stand off with the Atari.  He's discussing the planet Earth and asks...

Is this world protected?

The Atari play a montage of various baddies the Doctor has seen off including the Silurians / Sea Devils!) - but take a look at these three images.

Ood

Everyone loves the Ood, right? But I don't remember them attacking Earth?  I suppose you could make the case that the Doctor saved the Earth when he stopped all the Ood going mad but a) we never saw what was happening on Earth and b) that was relative future to the episode and there's no indication the Atari can time travel.

Hath

The Hath are a different kettle of fish.  There is no indication that they were ever even on Earth, let alone a threat to it.  So what are they doing in the montage?

Library

Finally, I'm pretty sure that's the Vashta_Nerada - they exist on all worlds, sure, but they were only ever defeated in The Library.

That is literally the only thing I could find to complain about in the episode.  I thought the new titles were fab, loved the new assistant and think that Matt Smith - a fellow UEA alumnus - is outstanding.

Here's to the fifth 33rd season of Doctor Who!