In Doctor Who’s third serial, “Edge of Destruction,” the Daleks Aren’t Robots!? crew must contend with the most dangerous of adversaries — A RUSHED BOTTLE EPISODE! Meanwhile, the crew of the Tardis deals with the second most dangerous adversary: audience complaints.

Daleks Aren’t Robots!? is a podcast in which two Whovian friends take two non-Whovians on a deep dive through the show from the very beginning.

Theme: Garage – Monplaisir

Podcast Contents Include

Editor’s Note: The following are my original notes for the podcast, slightly edited for readability. They’re very far from the full contents of the pod, though.  – Kari

THE GUEST STAR

1. The guest star in this one is the Tardis, the ship itself. It still sounds like a hungry T-rex. We are gonna need to call the RSPCT here.
2. It’s also apparently somewhat of a person. As it turns out, the reason everything has gone wrong is that they were trying to drive into the start of a new solar system and the ship stopped and tried to explain it to them, but it has no method of direct communication.
3. The Tardis is very clever, but it would be better served with a more direct means of communicating, since the humans aren’t terribly quick on the uptake!

THE TEAM

1. Susan gets very stabby in this episode, and threatens to stab Ian with a pair of scissors. We all have those feelings about Ian, girl.
2. Barbara is the queen of everything in this one. She figures out that the Tardis is trying to explain itself to them, and is able to connect the images on the viewscreen to what is happening.
3. The Doctor doesn’t ACTUALLY apologize to Barbara, just compliments her a few times toward the end. Then he can’t seem to understand why she hasn’t forgiven him! But at least he seems to recognize she’s the smart one.
4. The Doctor lies to the women that they have 10 minutes left when there are only 5, which is a real dick move, and Ian helps him do that, so f*** Ian.
5. The Doctor obliquely takes credit for Barbara figuring out what’s going on (because HE put HER under stress by accusing her, you see) which is also a dick move.
6. The Doctor drugs everyone to sleep, but sort of admits that’s what he’s doing–only to Ian though. Dick mooooove.
7. The Doctor threatens to “put them off the ship.” So he’s definitely willing to murder them.
8. We all saw Ian’s boxers a few times. Why isn’t the Doctor willing to murder US?

THE SETTING

1. We learn a lot about the Tardis this time. Ian sleeps in an equipment room off by himself, as far as I can tell; the women share a room. Everyone sleeps in what looks like barcaloungers? And is that outfit Susan’s wearing a nightgown or wizards’ robes or a snuggie?
2. The Tardis doors can’t be opened by an accident, they have to be opened on purpose.
3. They have magic bandages that turn white when the wound is healed.
4. The food machine has a milk button, and the water shows up in little baggies.

THE SHOW

1. At one point someone says of the Doctor that “his heart seems all right and his breathing’s quite regular.” Doesn’t the Doctor have two hearts?
2. The Doctor flubs THREE SEPARATE LINES in this one, and none of them were apparently worth another take.
3. This is a good episode set-up, but the resolution is weak and hinges on a switch that got stuck due to a spring. The set up is much better than the solution.
4. Everyone is acting oddly at some point in this one. Whatever the Tardis was doing to them apparently confused them but also made them a bit homicidal or paranoid.
5. What WAS the Tardis doing to them?

Sources Include

• ShannonSullivan.com
• The TARDIS Data Core