Posted in: BBC, Disney+, TV, YouTube | Tagged: boom, doctor who, steven moffat

Doctor Who Day: Steven Moffat Set for Live "Boom" YouTube Watchalong

Steven Moffat will be tweeting on Doctor Who Day (November 23rd) during the live "Boom" YouTube watchalong. Here's what you need to know...

Still aching over the Doctor Who drought until the Christmas Special? Well, maybe this will tide you over – the first season episode "Boom" will be getting a global watchalong on the series' official YouTube channel this Saturday at 7 pm GMT, which will be 2 pm EST and 10 am PT in the US. All this because Saturday November 23rd is Doctor Who Day. So, yay?

"Boom" is considered one of the best episodes of the first season of Doctor Who's first Disney+ era season. It's written by – who else? – former showrunner Steven Moffat, who was invited to write an episode by his old mate and returning showrunner Russell T. Davies. Moffat was playing with one of those screenwriting thought experiments: how might a hero save the day if they're stuck in one spot and can't move throughout the whole story? In "Boom," The Doctor steps on a landmine on a futuristic battlefield and has to stay there lest he ends up blowing up half the planet because the Time Lord's going boom makes a big, big boom. It's the equivalent of a "bottle" episode where there's only one interior set and location.

Bottle shows are usually written to save money on a series' budget so the money can be spent to film a more expensive episode. Not so with "Boom". It still cost a packet because they built a huge set that used Stagecraft, the same live digital projection technology that the Star Wars and Star Trek series use to create vast sets and landscapes live on a studio set. Once again, Moffat packed a whole load of Science Fiction universe-building into the story with an endless war perpetuated by the villainous corporation Villengard to drive profits, a militarized future Church of England whose priests are also active soldiers and combatants, a dangerous AI battlefield robot medic and nurse, and of course, Susan Twist as the AI. The combination of anti-war, anti-corporate satire, and surreal humor is a feature of both Doctor Who and Moffat's (and Davies') writing.

Moffat has already promised to livetweet during Doctor Who: "Boom," "I'll be tweeting along with this on Saturday. I will explain the plot (which totally makes sense), all the jokes (which ARE funny actually), and why I'm so clever and handsome. Be there or, you know, don't be – it's a free country #ThoughtsAndPrayers

Might Davies, Gatwa, Millie Gibson, and maybe some other cast members be live-tweeting with the global watch-along? These watch-alongs were partly responsible for Davies's return to Doctor Who, after all. You'll just have to watch the stream and social media to find out this Saturday.

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