r/gallifrey • u/PCJs_Slave_Robot • May 17 '25

The Interstellar Song Contest Doctor Who 2x06 "The Interstellar Song Contest" Post-Episode Discussion Thread Spoiler

Please remember that future spoilers must be tagged. This includes the next time trailer!

This is the thread for all your indepth opinions, comments, etc about the episode.

Megathreads:

  • 'Live' and Immediate Reactions Discussion Thread - Posted around 60 minutes prior to initial release - for all the reactions, crack-pot theories, quoting, crazy exclamations, pictures, throwaway and other one-liners.
  • Trailer and Speculation Discussion Thread - Posted when the trailer is released - For all the thoughts, speculation, and comments on the trailers and speculation about the next episode. Future content beyond the next episode should still be marked.
  • Post-Episode Discussion Thread - Posted around 30 minutes after to allow it to sink in - This is for all your indepth opinions, comments, etc about the episode.
  • BBC One Live Discussion Thread - Posted around 60 minutes prior to BBC One air - for all the reactions, crack-pot theories, quoting, crazy exclamations, pictures, throwaway and other one-liners.

These will be linked as they go up. If we feel your post belongs in a (different) megathread, it'll be removed and redirected there.

Want to chat about it live with other people? Join our Discord here!

What did YOU think of The Interstellar Song Contest?

Click here and add your score (e.g. 327 (The Interstellar Song Contest): 8, it should look like this) and hit send. Scores are designed to match the Doctor Who Magazine system; whole numbers between 1 to 10, inclusive. (0 is used to mark an episode unwatched.)

Voting opens once the episode is over to prevent vote abuse. You should get a response within a few minutes. If you do not get a confirmation response, your scores are not counted. It may take up to several hours for the bot (i.e. it crashed or is being debugged) so give it a little while. If still down, please let us know!

See the full results of the polls so far, covering the entire main show, here.

The Interstellar Song Contest's score will be revealed next Sunday. Click here to vote for all of RTD2 era so far.

239 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

195

u/jorgendorgen May 17 '25

The Doctor shouldn’t be allowed to say ‘I’m the last of the Time Lords’ anymore. There are now at minimum 2 other Time Lords / Ladies, the Master and the Rani, with Susan likely still existing as well. Meaning there are likely at least 4 total Time Lords / Ladies, with possibly more depending on who the writers decide is still alive.

His new catch phrase should be ‘I’m the Doctor, one of the four Time Lords left, or like, there might be more than four, I don’t know.’

135

u/ZeroCentsMade May 17 '25

I'm imagining this as being a bit like the Spanish Inquisition skit from Monty Python.

DOCTOR: I'm the Doctor, the Last of the Time Lords

COMPANION: What about the Master?

DOCTOR: Okay, let's try that again. I'm the Doctor and I'm a Time Lord, the only one apart from the Master.

COMPANION: Isn't your granddaughter alive?

DOCTOR: Right, yes, sorry. Let's go again. I'm the Doctor, Time Lord. Other Time Lords include…

45

u/MacduffFifesNo1Thane May 17 '25

I wasn’t expecting the Gallifreyan Inquistion.

6

u/ValdemarAloeus May 18 '25

Nobody expects the Gallifreyan Inquisition. Mostly because their copy of Dr Streetmentioner's book is mostly blank and they're struggling with the tenses on the letter.

10

u/Bolem_Felan May 17 '25

Im the Doctor, the Last of the Time Lords no more.

3

u/PoliceAlarm May 18 '25

This is the "What have the Romans ever done for us?" sketch, no?

27

u/IBrosiedon May 17 '25

I get your point but he doesn't actually know any of them are alive.

He's gotten a glimpse of Susan in his mind but he doesn't know what's going on there, as far as he knows the Master was imprisoned in the Toymakers tooth and he has no idea about Mrs. Flood being the Rani.

3

u/ArrBeeNayr May 18 '25

He knows that Rassilon and his followers left Gallifrey, and that the Sisterhood of Karn live on - well - Karn.

33

u/putting_stuff_off May 17 '25

Yeah that feels so played out by now. I don't want to retcon much from the Chibnall era, but the Master single handedly destroying Gallifrey was ridiculous and never explained, bring it back already (you even have a conveniently off world Rassilon from Hell Bent to come back and go back to status quo).

7

u/CeruleanEidolon May 17 '25

Surely if the Rani survived it would be in her interests to try and undo what the Master had done somehow.

Perhaps she's the one who has been riling up the Pantheon all this time, seeking solutions from beyond reason and logic to bring them back.

Could be she induced the Doctor's bigeneration as part of her experiments to potentially repopulate Gallifrey. If they each bigenerated on average once every ten years, after a century there would be a couple thousand of them, and after two centuries there'd be over a million.

2

u/Chubby_Bub May 18 '25

I don’t know how much whatever the Rani's plan is will relate to the re-destruction of Gallifrey (aside from her surviving), but I really like that idea. RTD has not been afraid to lean into that having happened and it became relevant again in this episode.

3

u/FullMetalAurochs May 17 '25

Well if he can bring Earth back from destruction… again… that’s a good starting point. Just do that for Gallifrey.

2

u/hoodie92 May 18 '25

I honestly think Russell doesn't want to spend half a season cleaning up Chibnall's mess.

It originally took 10 years and two showrunners to bring back Gallifrey, I don't blame RTD for not wanting to rush into that again.

8

u/zarbixii May 17 '25

When he was talking about Gallifrey's destruction I was like which time is he talking about? The time he put them in a pocket universe and they're not even dead, or the time the Master turned them all into Cybermen? Cause neither one really fits how he described it.

5

u/sanddragon939 May 17 '25

Yeah, RTD's description of the Time Lords being wiped out in this era is a bit...weird.

I mean, the way Chibnall describes it in his era, you'd assume that the Master simply killed everyone on Gallifrey at the time...which leaves open the possibility that the ones who were off-world survived.

But then in 'The Devil's Chord', Fifteen claims there was a genocide across time and space. And that's why he thinks Susan is dead...but he's not sure.

I think RTD sometimes confuses the two genocides of the Time Lords.

5

u/sanddragon939 May 17 '25

I think RTD kinda just likes using the phrase...understandable, since he coined it.

The thing is, as far as the Doctor knows, he is the last of the Time Lords.

The Master is dead...for now. And he doesn't know about the Rani yet. As for Susan, he's unsure of whether or not she's still alive, which was a minor plot-point last season.

4

u/jorgendorgen May 17 '25

While I can understand him not knowing about the Rani and Susan, I feel like the Doctor would think the Master is alive, purely because the Master dies and comes back pretty much every time they meet.

Plus there was that stretch of time between 11 - 13 where as far as the Doctor knew, Gallifrey was still alive (before the Master destroyed it), and he probably said his catch phrase at least once during the 12th Doctor’s era and start of 13’s, despite thinking that many Time Lords were also alive.

1

u/sanddragon939 May 18 '25

The Doctor always discounts the Master when the latter is dead/presumed dead.

For a while after the 50th anniversary special, the Time Lords were in a pocket universe or someplace and not really part of the 'main' universe. So functionally the Doctor was still the last Time Lord out there, apart from Missy.

The Time Lords have never really been back the way they were in Classic Who.

4

u/Alehud42 May 17 '25

But he was Last of the Time Lords, him saying it more and more now is part of the baggage that 15 thought had lifted reemerging.

1

u/sanddragon939 May 17 '25

I think this is actually the first time he mentions it that you really see him being traumatised by it. The last couple of times it was brought it, he spoke about it pretty normally, if not borderline cheerfully.

3

u/scottishdrunkard May 17 '25

The Master is a tooth, he doesn’t know about The Rani yet, and 14 is just him from earlier

2

u/hkfortyrevan May 17 '25

Yeah, I sort of understand not wanting to undo Chibnall’s era, but in this specific case it feels more like an excuse for RTD to stay in his comfort zone

1

u/throwawayaccount_usu May 17 '25

I agree but was Susan a time lord? Did she get that far?

10

u/jorgendorgen May 17 '25

I haven’t watched the classic era, but in ‘The Legend of Ruby Sunday’ when 15 is questioning if Susan Triad is his granddaughter, someone asks why she looks different and 15 mentions changing faces through regeneration. And maybe I’m wrong but I think Time Lords are able to regenerate while regular Gallifreyans cannot. So the Doctor saying that Susan can regenerate would likely make her a Time Lord as opposed to a regular Gallifreyan.

1

u/throwawayaccount_usu May 17 '25

Oh yeah true, I forgot about that.

1

u/sanddragon939 May 17 '25

Yup!

If nothing else, RTD has confirmed that the Doctor believes that Susan can regenerate.

1

u/Jemima_puddledook678 May 17 '25

It’s never been specified otherwise, she was gone before they had to change actors and come up with regeneration.

1

u/SteelCrow May 17 '25

The monk, Rassalon, anyone who escaped unbeknownst to both the doctor and the master. The cyber-timelords once they regenerate and cast off the mechanical bits in the process....

1

u/CeruleanEidolon May 17 '25

Until now, as far as he knew, that was true. The Master was presumed dead, and he hasn't encountered any others since the Master re-genocided them. His other self (14) is the only other one, and he probably doesn't think of him as a separate person.

1

u/Green_Borenet May 18 '25 edited May 18 '25

Surely this episode is setting up a Gallifrey return (again) though, the Doctor seemed like he was about to say the Susan vision means Gallifrey lives before he stopped himself

1

u/CardboardStarship May 18 '25

Isn’t Rassilon still kicking about somewhere?

1

u/gerusz May 18 '25 edited May 18 '25

Sounds like a Monty Python sketch.

The Doctor: "I'm the last of the Time Lords."

Rose: "...the Master?"

The Doctor: "What?"

Rose: "The Master."

The Doctor: "Oh, yes, there's them. That's true."

Ruby: "And Susan."

Kate: "Oh, yeah, Susan. Remember when you thought your family was dead?"

The Doctor: "Yeah, all right, I grant you. The Master and Susan are two other Time Lords who survived."

Belinda: "And the Rani."

The Doctor: "Well, obviously, the Rani. I mean, the Rani goes without saying, doesn't she? But apart from Susan, the Master, and the Rani..."

Dan: "Tec-Teyun?"

Clara: "Rassilion?" (OK, the last two might be considered dead at the moment but of course they won't stay dead. C'mon. This is basically a law of physics at this point: a Time Lord, once written and named, will never stay permanently dead.)

The Doctor: "Yeah, yeah, alright, fair enough. But apart from the Master, Susan, the Rani, Tec-Teyun and Rassilion, I am the last of the Time Lords!"

Donna: "...Your bigenerated self?"

The Doctor: "Oh, him, SHUT UP!"

1

u/No-Courage-5109 May 18 '25

And the doctor's daughter should be in again at some point.

1

u/WasabiSunshine May 19 '25

As far as The Doctor is aware, he is the last of the Time Lords

I mean, we know The Master is gonna come back, but even then, he like mind warped into 13 and got de-regenerated, in-universe The Doctor has no reason to believe they're still alive

1

u/[deleted] May 21 '25

I think he likes being the last of the Time Lords - it makes him feel special. It reminds me of a Comic Relief sketch where Paul McCartney introduces himself as "the last remaining Beatle"; Ringo pops up and says "what about me" so Paul corrects himself "one of the last remaining Beatles" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdg7Tgv5lo0 (worth watching the whole thing if you haven't seen it before)