#right before this rtd is like “everyone could tell that we were making history with this moment” lol

[gallifvrey]

catherine tates lack of doctor who knowledge to this day is my absolute favorite thing

#right before this rtd is like “everyone could tell that we were making history with this moment” lol #yh everyone except catherine tate sdkfhjsdfskjdlfk #doctor who #dw spoilers #the giggle

[yeonchi]

Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Special Review Part 3/3: The Giggle

Air date: 9 December 2023

"RTD did a prototype regeneration and I have mixed feelings about it. Wait, what? He really said that? Oh, thanks a lot, RTD, you're Shirakura 2.0 now. #RIPDoctorWho"

This not-so spoiler-free thought is how I'm opening the review for this special. Although details of the bi-generation were leaked online previously, the concept may be familiar to you if you've read about my personal project in Kisekae Insights. It is because of this that this review will be a crossover with a filler instalment of Kisekae Insights, for which I'll also be repeating the same content for the sake of that series. Don't be surprised if you read that instalment and it's literally the same things I'm going to talk about in this.

By the time I finish writing this review, enough time will have passed for you to have watched the episode by now, so hopefully that justifies my not-so spoiler-free thought. Regardless, spoilers will continue after the break.

Apologies for the delay in getting this review out. I've been really busy this past week especially with what I had planned for this review. Stay tuned to the end for my future plans of these reviews. No, seriously, I mean it.

What the left thinks freedom protesters want

After a cold opening in 1925 Soho with a man called Charles Banerjee buying Stooky Bill from the Toymaker's shop to test the new invention of television with John Logie Baird, we cut back to the present day, where London is in a peaceful protest chaos. The Doctor sees a man trying to fight a car and he goes to ask him what he is doing; the man, who can't drive, insists that he has the right to the road because he paid for it with his taxes. When asked why he can't stand on the kerb and be safe, the man tells the Doctor to blame "them" because things changed two days ago (which would have been when the Doctor and Donna left in the TARDIS) when people started thinking they were right and refused to change their minds. Yeah no, when people wake up and realise the cookers were right they (ideally) band together and protest the government. This is just society losing common sense.

The Toymaker, dancing amongst the chaos, briefly dances with the Doctor before UNIT comes for the Doctor and Donna. Upon arrival, they are greeted by Shirley, Kate Stewart and, much to the Doctor's surprise, Mel Bush. Kate and UNIT explain the situation to the Doctor and Donna; the Doctor, Donna, Wilf and Mel aren't affected due to long-term travel in the TARDIS making their brainwaves out of sync while the rest of UNIT aren't affected because of an arm brace device called the Zeedex, a creation of the Vlinx. Kate uses herself to demonstrate the effects of the situation on society by having her Zeedex turned off and going full Karen; something inside the brain is causing spikes that make people lose common sense. A slight problem with using Kate as an example; Wilf wasn't affected by the spikes despite being in the TARDIS for a couple of hours at most, but Kate was invited into the TARDIS a couple of years back and she was only in there for a couple of hours as well (at most), so by that logic, Kate shouldn't be affected by the spikes. However, I suppose you can argue that the spikes didn't affect Kate and Wilf as much due to their brief time in the TARDIS.

The Doctor and UNIT speculate as to what could be the trigger for the spikes; Kate notes that the KOSAT 5 satellite was activated two days ago to fully connect the world online, but there is nothing strange being transmitted from it like the old Archangel Network had. As the Doctor notes that everyone has access to a screen for the first time in history, Donna realises that the spike peaks are like a tune; Mel sings the tune and everyone (but the Doctor and the Vlinx) reacts to it like they heard it before. Shirley finds the exact same notes in a clip of Stooky Bill from 1925 and the Doctor realises that it isn't a tune, but a giggle in everyone's head burnt into every screen since the invention of screens.

The Doctor gives Kate permission to use the Galvanic Beam to destroy KOSAT 5 due to all world leaders being affected by the giggle before going back to 1925 Soho with Donna. You know, I honestly like how the Doctor's attitude to UNIT has changed over the years. When UNIT was reintroduced in the revived series, the Doctor was wary of them and he had an aversion to them using weapons, but now that Kate has been Chief Scientific Officer for over a decade in real time, the Doctor is able to entrust Kate with taking down a satellite in a situation such as this.

In the Toyroom

Upon arriving in 1925, Donna notes that the Doctor just keeps charging on and that he hasn't stopped for anything, speculating that his old face came back because he was wearing himself out. Except for that time when he willingly spent 900 years on Trenzalore to keep the Time Lords and Daleks from starting another Time War. Or when he spent 24 years on Darillium with River Song. Or that time when the Doctor stayed with the Ponds for a year- ok, bad example, but you get my drift.

Dismissing the subject, the Doctor and Donna head into the Toymaker's shop. The Toymaker knows Donna's name while the Doctor begins to realise who he is. The Doctor tells Donna to go back to the TARDIS and Donna says that he never told her to do that. Except for that time the Doctor sent Donna back to the TARDIS to get her away from the ATMOS gas. Or that time the Doctor teleported Donna back to the TARDIS to get her away from the Vashta Nerada before she ended up being saved.

The Toymaker runs back into a corridor and the Doctor and Donna follow; they end up entering his domain and they get separated. The Doctor encounters Charles, who has become a puppet after trying to see the Toymaker to cure the giggle in his head and losing a game against the Toymaker. Donna encounters the rest of the Stooky family and is attacked by them, though the manages to destroy Stooky Sue and scare away the Stooky Babbies before reuniting with the Doctor.

The two then find themselves before the Toymaker in front of a stage, where he gives Donna a proper catch-up on the Doctor's adventures with Amy, Clara, (lady) Bill and the Flux. The Doctor then decides to challenge the Toymaker to a game of cards; as the Toymaker mentions all the godly beings he has won against, he mentions the Master and someone he never dared face, The One Who Waits. The Doctor asks the Toymaker why everyone thinks they are right in 2023 and he says that he made every opinion supreme, turning cancel culture on its head so that everybody wins, but everybody loses as well.

The Toymaker wins the game, but counting the Doctor's previous encounter with him, they are at one-all and this is a best of three. The Toymaker decides to meet him again in 2023 before collapsing his shop. The Doctor and Donna manage to escape and they head back as well.

"Hai, si, ja, hold tight!"

UNIT fires the Galvanic Beam at KOSAT 5 and takes it out. The Doctor and Donna return and has UNIT use some software to hopefully track down the Toymaker, but as a song begins playing, the Toymaker makes his appearance in a song and dance sequence before disappearing through the floor. OK, I have to give credit here, this sequence beats the Master dancing to Boney M's Rasputin in The Power of the Doctor. Also, Neil Patrick Harris, being American, had never heard of the song where as "all Brits know it as if it was Happy Birthday". He had it set as his alarm ringtone and listened to it 30 times every morning (according to him), which really deserves kudos.

The Doctor tells UNIT to search the building for the Toymaker. Suddenly, they notice that the Toymaker is manning the Galvanic Beam, having thrown the staff off the helipad. The Doctor asks the Toymaker why he won't use his powers for good, to which the Toymaker states that good and bad are nothing to him. In the ensuing confrontation, the Toymaker shoots the Doctor with the Galvanic Beam, noting that by his rules, the next game will be played with the next Doctor. Donna and Mel go to the Doctor as he begins to regenerate, finally ready to accept his death, but then the regeneration stops as he notes that it feels different this time; the Doctor asks Donna and Mel to pull on his arms, separating the Fifteenth Doctor into the Fourteenth Doctor and giving him half of his clothes. The two Doctors push their hands together and they separate.

The Fifteenth Doctor notes that he bi-generated, something that is supposed to be a myth (how the fuck would you know, Fifteen). The two Doctors then challenge the Toymaker to a game of catch, where the one to drop the ball loses. The game is played and the Toymaker drops the ball thrown from Fourteen to Fifteen to himself; for the Fourteenth Doctor's prize, he banishes the Toymaker from existence, or rather causes him to fold up and drop back into his box (that was originally his shop) as he tells the Doctor that his legions are coming. Kate has a soldier take the box to the deepest vault and bind it in salt.

Later, the Fifteenth Doctor notes to the Fourteenth Doctor that he is running on fumes; noting everything that has happened since facing the Toymaker as the First Doctor. The Fifteenth Doctor isn't experiencing any averse post-regeneration effects because Fourteen is the one doing the rehab, out of order. Donna reiterates how Fourteen regenerated back into his face and found Donna because the time has come for him to come back home. As Fourteen wonders if he can let the TARDIS go, Fifteen suddenly goes and takes a mallet, speculating that the Toymaker's domain could still be in play because Fifteen hasn't gotten his prize yet. Heading outside with Fourteen and Donna, Fifteen hits the TARDIS with his mallet and it bi-generates, giving a (slightly) newer TARDIS with a wheelchair ramp and a jukebox. Fourteen and Donna part ways with Fifteen as he leaves in his new TARDIS.

Sometime later, Fourteen then goes to have lunch with the Nobles and Mel (at a house that he bought if this is to be believed), revealing that Fourteen has had adventures with Rose and Mel and that Wilf is shooting moles who have force fields. And so the story ends with the two Doctors already off on their separate ways.

Bi-generation

Right, we need to talk about the bi-generation scene and just straight up, I like the idea in execution, but not in principle. To explain it, I'm going to do a crossover special between my Doctor Who reviews and the Kisekae Insights series. For those of you who are reading this in my review, expect to see this again in a filler instalment of Kisekae Insights as I repeat basic facts fans will already know. For those of you who are reading this in Kisekae Insights, hello again and welcome to content grubbing hell. Join me for the ride and I hope you noted the spoiler warning before the break.

Firstly, a little explainer for those of you who are unfamiliar to Doctor Who. The concept of regeneration was created for Season 4 in 1966 when William Hartnell's failing health and poor relations with the new production team meant that he was becoming more of a burden, and so, it was decided that he would depart the series to be replaced by Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor. Since then, different actors have portrayed different Doctors over the years and with the modern series, a cycle has popped up within the fandom in relation to their reactions to departing and arriving Doctors:

With the cancellation of the classic series in 1989, Seventh Doctor Sylvester McCoy wouldn't get his regeneration scene until the 1996 TV movie featuring Eighth Doctor Paul McGann. However, the failure of the TV movie in the US led to the series being shelved again in the UK, with a regeneration seemingly nowhere in sight. Then, the series was revived in 2005 with Ninth Doctor Christopher Eccleston and Paul McGann would finally get his regeneration scene for the 50th Anniversary in 2013, additionally revealing a previously unknown incarnation of the Doctor who fought in the Time War played by John Hurt. In addition to an aborted regeneration as the Tenth Doctor played by David Tennant which created a new meta-crisis incarnation, this meant that Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith was the final incarnation of the Doctor's first regeneration cycle of twelve regenerations.

However, the Doctor was granted a second cycle of regenerations, which led him to regenerate into Twelfth Doctor Peter Capaldi. In the following incarnation, Thirteenth Doctor Jodie Whittaker would learn of a revelation that destroyed everything we knew about the Doctor; the Doctor was actually a being known as the Timeless Child, who could continually regenerate upon death. The Child was experimented on by its "mother", Tecteun, going through numerous incarnations so that she could unlock the secret of its regeneration and grant it to herself and her people to become the Time Lords. Personally, I am of the belief that Rassilon, one of the Founding Fathers of the Doctor's (actual) home planet, Gallifrey, created or discovered regeneration as we knew it without all the cultural appropriation bullshit with the Timeless Child. In either case, Time Lords were limited to twelve regenerations.

And so we get to the 60th Anniversary. After regenerating back into David Tennant, the Fourteenth Doctor gets into a confrontation with the Celestial Toymaker and is killed, but instead of regenerating as normal, he bi-generates, with Fifteenth Doctor Ncuti Gatwa splitting away from him.

Doctor Who is a series that is all about change. Aside from changing Doctors, the entire show itself changes every so often, from companions to the production team and much more. Regeneration for Time Lords is likened to the death of one incarnation and the birth of another, and like it or not, the dying incarnation in question needs to learn to move on. The Tenth Doctor famously said "I don't want to go" immediately before his regeneration and the Twelfth Doctor initially refused to regenerate before an encounter with the First Doctor pre-regeneration made him realise that the universe still needed the Doctor. The Timeless Child revelation ends up being a piece of fridge horror when you realise that Tecteun repeatedly killed the Timeless Child in her pursuit of regeneration (some people may say it isn't fridge horror but that's because I didn't realise the implication until much later).

Following the premiere of the special, Russell T Davies, in his everlasting inability to shut the fuck up, explains how with this bi-generation, all the other previous Doctors bi-generated as well, explaining how the other Doctors appeared in the memory TARDIS for Tales of the TARDIS. With that point, I don't agree, I think those were the Doctor's "Guardians of the Edge" from The Power of the Doctor projecting themselves into the memory TARDIS. The implication here seems to be that the previous incarnations bi-generated and continued to have adventures in some way. So much for Fifteen saying that bi-generation was a myth, because if this is supposed to be a rare occurrence, then RTD’s theory clearly goes against it.

With all this in mind, the bi-generation takes away the gravitas mavitas of regeneration and leaves it without any meaning. If the Earth is in danger again, do the previous incarnations just go, "Oh, we'll just leave it to the latest one" like they lost their powers and their powers are with a legacy character like in Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger or Kamen Rider Zi-O? Nah, at least the Gokaigers returned their legendary powers to their original Rangers.

"But Azuma, Fifteen said that this was a rehab for Fourteen, he doesn't have to go through the standard post-regeneration instability because Fourteen's doing it for him on top of meditating on his past!"

I admit that I missed the rehab bit when I first watched it as I was thinking about how to address the bi-generation for this review. I thought bi-generation was a trick or a prize caused by the Toymaker, but it clearly wasn't seeing how the Toymaker reacted in surprise when it happened.

Regardless, the implications of bi-generation are still yet to be explained. Can the bi-generated Fourteenth Doctor (and maybe even the other Doctors) regenerate himself or will he have to merge back with Fifteen ala the Watcher? How is the Valeyard supposed to fit into this? If this was truly meant to be a rehab for Fourteen, then why did Fifteen bi-generate the TARDIS? Oh, but I guess we can't leave Fourteen without a TARDIS like how Eleven was basically stranded on Trenzalore for 900 years. That'll give him an excuse to forget about the emotional baggage Fifteen left him. How long can we expect Fourteen's rebab to go for? As long as it takes for Clara to finally decide to face her death at the hands of the raven, because this bi-generation was RTD doing a Moffat and Clara-ing Fourteen. (Side note, I can slightly forgive this if both Fourteen and Fifteen can regenerate and one of them becomes the Valeyard.)

The Timeless Child revelation makes all this even worse, because assuming the Doctor can regenerate unlimited times again at this point, it's all boiled down to "It's magic, we don't have to explain it." Hell, I didn't even bother counting how many regenerations the Doctor has in his second regenerative cycle at this point with the Master force-regenerating the Doctor into himself and then Yaz going to great pains to reverse it, that is how much the Timeless Child revelation made me stop giving a fuck.

OH, FUCK OFF.

Look, if the bi-generation was just between Fourteen and Fifteen, leaving it as the mythically rare occurrence that it should have been, then I would have been fine with it, but RTD implying that it echoed back and affected the Doctor’s past just so he can begin a “Doctorverse” is just bad, especially when we don’t know the full implications of bi-generation.

"But Azuma, didn't you do bi-generations as well in your personal project? You've got Doctor Whooves, the Pony Doctor and Storm Dasher, plus you've got all of Hiroki's prototypes in your stories. You even mentioned prototype regeneration in the not-so spoiler-free thought for this review!"

Oh yeah, it's coming. I haven't forgotten about that.

The Kisekae Connection

I could give you some links to previous instalments of Kisekae Insights where I talk about Hiroki Ichigo and his prototype regenerations, but since I'm padding out the review and I want to repeat things on Kisekae Insights, I'm going to do a full essay here, but before that, let's talk about two other connections related to the rest of the Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Specials.

Meta-crisis

The meta-crisis plot point was used for several characters in my personal project.

Kyōko Izumi was a new prototype introduced in December 2011. Immediately after his regeneration, not all of his appearance changed until during a crisis involving the Sycorax, where the TARDIS console opens and Kyōko received the power of the Time Vortex, giving him his new appearance. Once the Sycorax left, Kyōko began to have a mental breakdown like Donna did until the Doctor wiped his memory of the past few hours. Entrusting Kyōko to the care of the Lucky Stars of Saitama, the Doctor explains that until his regeneration stabilises, he cannot be reminded of him or he will die. The events of The End of Time take place during a time when Kyōko's regeneration hadn't stabilised yet and is a significant plot point in the story. The power of the Time Vortex gradually left him as well during that time.

In the serial Parallax of Love and Time (which forms the first four episodes of my Series 4), the meta-crisis plot of Journey's End is adapted with Doctor Whooves and his companion, Derpy Hooves, creating a non-cross-eyed alter ego within herself known as the DoctorDerpy, or Ditzy (Doo) as she would call herself. Derpy would be left in Ponyville with the Meta-Crisis Doctor Whooves, also known as Time Turner, while Doctor Whooves would get killed again and regenerate into his next incarnation. Derpy did not require her memories wiped because Equestrian magic can alleviate the strain of a Time Lord consciousness in ponies.

The same plot point would be repeated again when I actually adapted Journey's End for real in Series 5's The Return of Antoni. Fifi Forget-me-not used a prototype replica Soul Talisman (from a Parallax War universe) to regenerate herself, but she managed to siphon off much of her regeneration energy into the heart of the TARDIS before her appearance could change. Storm Dasher would end up looking into the heart of the TARDIS and become part-Time Lord as Derpy, in her Ditzy alter ego, appears and saves the TARDIS from being destroyed. Like with Derpy, Dasher did not require his memories to be wiped; in fact, becoming part-Time Lord and representing a new Element of Harmony, Time, were precursors to him becoming Ultraman Ginga and evolving into an alicorn years later.

Trans character

I didn't include this in my topic about trans issues for last week's review because I didn't want to distract from them, especially given how I handled the subject.

Towards the end of the Salacian Time War in Series 7's opener, a new male prototype who would be known as Korasuke Hayashi was born. As he was left in the care of Yuno at the Hidamari Apartments, Korasuke would need to disguise himself as a female to even be there and so, with Yuno's help, he assumes the persona of Kumiko Hayashi.

During the 50th Anniversary Series, a mishap during an adventure caused Kumiko to become permanently female, though unable to have children. Uniquely, this happened without Kumiko going through things like mental health evaluation, hormone therapy and gender reassignment surgery, which is why I acknowledge that this is far from being an accurate portrayal of trans people. (I don't know if this was mentioned or not, but the Doctor might have offered to find a way to make Kumiko a boy again but Kumiko refused because of reasons I'm about to explain now.)

The reason why I made Kumiko permanently female was because I started to forget that she was actually Korasuke, so I decided to get that out of the way. I don't think of Kumiko's old name as a deadname because I didn't use it much, so that name didn't stick with people and therefore Kumiko isn’t fixated on people deadnaming or misgendering her.

Oh no, a male in a female-only space, I guess I'm cancelled by TERFs now. Oh wait, I basically blackfaced the transgender experience, so I guess I'm cancelled by the trans community for being a transphobe now. Lol calm down, you clearly don't understand that this is (fan)fiction and that I acknowledged that this is not an accurate representation of being trans.

Can Kumiko be non-binary as well? I don't know, think what you want. She's already transgender anyway.

Bi-generation case 1: Quad-generation

In The End of Time, the Doctor regenerated into his next incarnation, but three other individuals regenerated from him - two of them got their own TARDISes. For additional reasons that are detailed in previous instalments of Kisekae Insights, the Doctor ended up using six regenerations in one go, creating three ponies with a regeneration each and splitting away two human lives that had merged into him.

Of the three ponies were two Time Lords, Doctor Whooves and the Pony Doctor, and an Earth pony named Jee Gun who later became Storm Dasher. Long story short, Doctor Whooves gained a meta-crisis incarnation, then the Pony Doctor sacrificed the regeneration he had so that Doctor Whooves could regenerate again.

Although the reason why this quad-generation happened wasn't explained initially, the Doctor would make use of a Time Puncher used by Girl Power to ensure that the existences of the three ponies would be cemented - a future revision is expected to slightly change this by having the Doctor input some history that the Time Puncher apparently missed, unintentionally becoming the reason for their existences in the first place.

The difference between this and the bi-generation is that the old (David Tennant) incarnation doesn't stay around, though you can say that he did end up becoming Doctor Whooves for a time.

Oh, and by the way? At the end of my Doctor Who series, the Doctor regenerates into himself for a final time and it is later revealed that he and the TARDIS became one, repairing the TARDIS' chameleon circuit while also allowing the Doctor to assume whatever form he wants, so the Curator and the past Doctors can still be things without this bi-generation mess.

Bi-generation case 2: Prototype regeneration

This case is the closest analog to the bi-generation we saw in the episode and yet in my opinion, is better than it. For one thing, the character in question who can bi-generate is NOT the Doctor and for another, the mechanics of it have been thoroughly explained in multiple lore dumps over the years, basically repeating the same thing I'm about to describe.

The Fifteenth Doctor was right when he said that bi-generation was a myth because I did write it as a phenomenon that only happens to one person. To explain it, we'll need to look at the Doctor's origins from the POV of my personal project. Enjoy this description copied verbatim from #2 because it's taking long enough writing two posts at the same time as it is:

During the Time War, the Time Lords were desperate for more soldiers and resurrecting their dead wasn’t enough for them. As such, Lord President Rassilon invented a virus, suspended in Mako energy, and spread it on Earth at some points in history. While the virus would have no effect on the infected, it would sometimes result in the souls of their offspring being harvested and transported to Gallifrey, where they would become new Time Lords. The human “shells” would be left with corrupted chromosomes and/or brain activity as a result. Other humans documented these genetic and neurodevelopmental disorders over the years, resulting in what we know today as disorders like Down syndrome and autism (though I should note that the Time Lords probably didn’t cause every disorder known to mankind).

At essentially the same time, the Shinra Electric Power Company worked on the Jenova Project, injecting a number of people with Jenova cells in the process. By chance, one of those people had a child *1 with someone who was infected with Rassilon’s virus and also a twin *2 that they were unaware about until its birth. Unfortunately, in the present-day view of the project, Shinra had already fallen and there are no plans for a “reunion theory”. *3

After the twins were born, they had to be taken to another hospital due to complications. In the middle of the night, the Time Lords were extracting the child’s soul (the other babies in the nursery were chanting an angelic prayer in the process) when the twin suddenly emitted a blast of Mako energy, causing everything to go silent. In reality, that soul was knocked out of the Time Vortex and landed on Gallifrey long before the Time War. That soul became the Time Lord who would be known as the Doctor. My backstory is that he was found by Omega and raised like any other Gallifreyan. *4

The child would later be diagnosed with autism. Uniquely, due to the Time Lord and Jenova DNA in him coupled with whatever remnant Mako energy there was (I dunno), the child also had the ability to regenerate, but it would create another body in the process and he was also susceptible to regenerating following emotional distress (like a broken heart or something, think Takotsubo cardiomyopathy). The child would keep on living as the “archetype”, while the new body created would take on a separate identity and live as a “prototype”. The process varies each time; either the child would regenerate into the prototype and the archetype (or real self) would manifest sometime later, or the child would regenerate into his next incarnation and the prototype would manifest later. As for the twin, well, everyone forgot about him because of the Time War, so he was put up for adoption as if he were an orphan. However, he did not share his brother’s regeneration abilities. In the story, they meet each other again and basically, all is well.

*1: Hiroki Ichigo *2: Parker Zhou *3: Until Soulbound Series 4 *4: See? No Timeless Child bullshit here.

So in summary, the Doctor was born from Hiroki Ichigo due to circumstances and Hiroki is able to bi-generate as a result. You know, seeing how Fifteen was basically leaving his emotional baggage to Fourteen for his "rehab", I think I have a better tl;dr explanation for my version of it: "Oh no, my family or someone who was supposed to be close to me hurt my feelings! I guess I'll regenerate, become a different person and escape my emotional baggage because I'm too much of a snowflake to cope!" God, I fucking hate myself.

Like the Doctor, Hiroki has gone through a forgotten regeneration (Hayato Kisaichi), a meta-crisis regeneration (Takumi Kamijō/Kumiko Hayashi) and a female regeneration (Momoka Mizutani). In fact, with the exception of the meta-crisis regeneration, Hiroki was the other two prototypes for a short amount of time before they separated, meaning that I predicted bi-generation nearly a decade before RTD showed it to the world.

The main reason why bi-generation works better for Hiroki than the Doctor is because regeneration is different for Hiroki than any other Time Lord. Also, it is made clear that Hiroki has the same twelve regeneration limit of other Time Lords (barring certain exceptions) and the prototypes are unable to regenerate themselves. The way regeneration works for Hiroki is that he is still the same person who only changes slightly with each regeneration - in fact, you could say that the prototypes were new incarnations that split off from Hiroki instead of him regenerating into each one, but by that logic Hiroki would have had three female incarnations before Jodie Whittaker debuted as the Thirteenth Doctor. Then again, Steven Moffat made Joanna Lumley the Thirteenth Doctor in The Curse of Fatal Death, so this isn't the one-up I thought it would be.

Hiroki's final regeneration is made to be different from his original self because it signifies his final victory in the fight to be a different person, his ideal self. Despite this however, Hiroki's problems always have a way of catching up to him, and while he has found a way to conquer each and every one, there is one big problem that he has neglected for a long time, but that is a story for another day...

You know, over the years I've come to realise that "prototype" and "archetype" are inaccurate words to describe my version of bi-generation, but now that I've actually seen bi-generation for myself, maybe there were better names that I could have used:

prototype regeneration = bi-generation

prototype = splinter

archetype = original

No, I'm not going to revise all mentions of "prototype regeneration" to "bi-generation". I may be doing revised editions of my stories, but the prototype regenerations (among other things) are a core part of them that changing anything about them would make my stories drastically different. I'm not an SJW revisionist.

This concludes the Doctor Who review/Kisekae Insights crossover. And now, we take you back to your respective hells of series. They don't get any better than this.

The Celestial Toymaker

This episode featured the return of the Celestial Toymaker, now known only as the Toymaker, played by Neil Patrick Harris. His first appearance was in the third season of the classic series, played by Michael Gough. The Toymaker was a being who loved to play games with others, but he hated to lose and the games would always be rigged in his favour. While he would never cheat, as he was bound by the rules of the games set by himself or his opponents, he could bend them to some extent or conveniently forget to mention them. He also had the power to manipulate reality and if he were to lose a game, that power would briefly be granted to his opponent so they can claim their prize. Hmm, could the Toymaker have been behind the Desire Grand Prix of Kamen Rider Geats? Nah, totally not at all.

The "celestial" element of the Toymaker was toned down in this episode, though the Doctor does mention the word once. In the 1966 serial, the Toymaker is shown dressed like a Chinese mandarin, or a bureaucrat in imperial times. Huh, I wonder if they had a Central Bureaucracy. Oh, wait.

Anyway, because of that, SJWs in the 21st century thought that this was problematic because of "cultural appropriation" (also, the serial contained the use of the hard-r n-word in the traditional form of a counting rhyme), so RTD decided that this white villain would be played by a white man. On top of that, RTD wanted to acknowledge this by giving the 2023 Toymaker a racist aspect by having him speak in German and French accents in addition to British and a little bit of American accents. So I guess being (or God forbid, acting) German or French is racist now? Also, I can tell that some German words were made up in the Toymaker's lines. That's just as racist as people mixing Asian sounds together and making up Asian words that make no sense in their original languages. Look, jokes aside, this isn't a "shut up RTD" moment because this wasn't his fault. The problematic elements have been there for years.

There's a little aspect of the Toymaker's "racism" that I must disagree with:

The Toymaker: "I really must apologise for the rain. You must be used to sunnier climes." Charles: "I was born in Cheltenham."

Yeah well, I'm from Queensland. We get cyclones. OK, I'm not really from Queensland, but this isn't the racist attack you think it is, RTD.

The song used in the Toymaker's song and dance scene, Spice Up Your Life by the Spice Girls, had a problematic lyric that goes "Yellow man in Timbuktu/Colour for both me and you". The Spice Girls have revised that line in future performances so that it becomes "happy people in Timbuktu", which doesn't fit the syllables of the original line. RTD acknowledged this and so the line was covered up in the episode. You know, with my usual aversion to political correctness gone mad, I'm the kind of person who actually doesn't care about the line and I'm Asian. In fact, thanks to China's One Belt One Road Initiative, that line has never been more accurate.

If you didn't get the joke, Timbuktu is a city in Mali and Mali, like many African countries, is a member of the initiative. Although Mali is a landlocked country, it is expected to benefit from the African Continental Free Trade Area. In fact, a Chinese company has set up Konyobla and Karan villages in Mali with solar-powered electricity and water pumps. Granted, they are very far away from Timbuktu, but they'll get there sooner or later.

Also, Chinese singer Nicholas Tse 謝霆鋒 (famous for hosting a cooking show that makes Gordon Ramsay look like Ncuti Gatwa) sang a song called 黃種人, which literally translates to "yellow people". And it's not just him. Other Chinese singers have sung songs with nationalistic themes that make reference to "yellow skin". Again, this isn't a "shut up RTD" moment because this is more of a dig at the Spice Girls.

Also, the last line of the song before the Toymaker disappeared - did the "Hai" get blorted out in it? I know the line was misheard for many years, but there was nothing problematic about it. However, when that line was replayed again in Unleashed, the "Hai" didn't get blorted out. What the hell, sound team?

Anyway, of the original 1966 serial, only one episode of four was recovered (the audio remains intact for all four episodes), so the entire serial is set to be re-released in an animated format with a reconstruction of the three missing episodes and a new remaster of the recovered fourth episode. The animation style is... rather controversial, apparently.

Other general thoughts

Clearly the London scene at the beginning of this episode (and Kate going full Karen) was meant to satirise the coronavirus pandemic of 2020-22, what with everyone being right and all (hence why I titled that section "What the left thinks freedom protesters want"). Donna suggests to Kate that they distribute the Zeedex to everyone, to which Kate shows her a clip of Trinity Wells (RTD's go-to American news presenter played by Lachele Carl) on her own show, talking about how the Zeedex is a conspiracy to control and monitor humanity, a clear satire of vaccines and vaccine mandates. One question, was there ever an intention to distribute the Zeedex to the wider population? It just sounds like a lot of money and time wasted when you could just have UNIT use the Zeedex while the Doctor tries to solve the situation. That being said, if that was the case, then it can be presumed that Trinity Wells knew about the Zeedex from leaked or stolen information.

Wilf is featured in this episode, however Bernard Cribbins was not due to his health, hence his appearance was done with a stand-in, an archive line from Series 4 and a mention at the end. When I heard Wilf say to Donna, "You go with the Doctor" in the preview clip, it felt a bit heartwarming because it reminded me of how Sylvia was so hesitant regarding aliens and distrusting of the Doctor back then (even more so when Donna's memory was wiped) while Wilf was a lot more open-minded and sympathetic to his granddaughter. RTD apparently had a version of the episode where Wilf was revealed to have died to acknowledge Bernard Cribbins' death, but Phil Collinson opposed it.

I have a weird irk about using the definite article when addressing aliens in normal conversation like their name is a title. It's always "the something", like "the Meep" or "the Vlinx" when you could drop the definite article and nobody would bat an eye. You could do that with "the Doctor" and just address him as "Doctor" like everyone has because it's a title.

The Toymaker talks about what happened to the Master; the Master begged the Toymaker for his life in exchange for one final game, but he lost and he was sealed in a gold tooth- okay, that is too many teeth for a mouth, the rest of the teeth have to be fake. Anyway, after the Toymaker was defeated, a hand with red nail polish picks up the gold tooth- alright, I know this is a direct rip off of the signet ring from Last of the Time Lords and I know what RTD is getting at. Can we fucking not, please? Moffat killed off the Master, then Chibnall resurrected him to deliver the stupid Timeless Child retcon before killing him off again. Can we just have an incarnation where the Doctor doesn't have to face the Master again- oh right, the bi-generation. Really wrote myself into a corner with that one. But still, surely there are loads of other Time Lords that could be brought back? With Mel back in the picture, can we finally have a return of the Rani maybe? Hell, you brought the Toymaker back and made him like the Master, because everything he did is totally what the modern series Master would do.

Also, the Toymaker tells the Doctor that he made a jigsaw out of his history, which some fans have interpreted to be a retcon of the Timeless Child. Ahahahahaha, no it isn't. If we're supposed to believe that this was the Toymaker's doing, then why did we get the Tecteun double-down in Flux or the mention last episode? Yeah, RTD's not going to retcon the Timeless Child because he has to give face to Chibnall (as part of the Fitzroy Crowd), but he mentioned that this was a "loosening of the rules"; fans can say anything about the Doctor now, whether he was really half-human as the Eighth Doctor, whether he was actually the Timeless Child or the other. Yeah, I sure do appreciate this attempt at "ignoring" the Timeless Child retcon, not that fans could do this already or the extended universe was breaking the rules before later stories defined them.

During the bi-generation, the Fifteenth Doctor is left without pants (because Fourteen took them), and so for the last 15 minutes of the episode, he is just walking about in a shirt, an untied tie and briefs, the absence of trousers which I didn't notice initially. John Barrowman got cancelled for less than this (quite literally, in a manner of speaking) and he got thrown under the bus because of Noel Clarke (albeit indirectly).

Mel Bush was a companion of the Sixth and Seventh Doctors. Her debut was in Terror of the Vervoids, the third serial of The Trial of a Time Lord saga which showed Mel being from the Sixth Doctor's future at the time of his trial and thus her introduction was left to extended media. She stayed with the Doctor through his later regeneration before she decided to leave and travel with Sabalom Glitz, the Doctor now travelling with Glitz's former companion Ace. In this episode's recollection of events, Mel travelled with Glitz until he died at the age of 101. After attending a space funeral, Mel decided to head back to Earth on a Zingo (space Uber?), but she found herself with nothing on Earth (she describes herself as an orphan here but that only applies to children, not adults). She had a cameo at the end of The Power of the Doctor and in this episode, she is shown working with Kate and Shirley at UNIT.

Say what you will about these specials undermining Donna's character development, but she truly got a happy ending in the end and she deserved it. She's got her memories back, her mother likes her and the Doctor, and she's got a high-paying job at UNIT (£120k plus 5 weeks' holiday). Heck, the Fourteenth Doctor and Mel got their happy endings as well; Fourteen doesn't have to go and Mel finally found another family after losing hers.

The Fifteenth Doctor's TARDIS has a wheelchair ramp now, "bringing it into the 21st century" as Shirley says. Apparently on set, this was known as the "Tharries Ramp", something that was confirmed by Benjamin Cook after RTD was inspired to do so from watching his videos. It's nice and all, but... Tharries once bugged Bowlestrek and NoelZone to do a stream together with them (he even casually refers to himself as a "mini Bowlestrek" lmao) before turning on them to hang with the likes of Channel Pup and Mr TARDIS, even going to far as to copyright strike the stream for "privacy violations" because he was clearly ashamed of it. Congratulations, RTD, you pandered to a left-wing grifter. Sure, being disabled doesn't mean that someone is evil, but it doesn't mean that they are incapable of evil just because they are disabled (case in point Davros). Evil doesn't discriminate whether you are disabled or not.

In the end, Donna believes that the Doctor got his old face back and found her because it was destiny telling him to come home. Somehow, I find that hard to believe given how the DoctorDonna was the cause of the Doctor and Donna meeting in the first place, helped by Dalek Caan. Maybe this could have been the Toymaker's apology offering or something, which would also explain how the Doctor's clothes changed when he regenerated back into his old face. Or maybe it might also be the work of The One Who Waits, possibly the Meep's "boss" mentioned in The Star Beast.

The anniversary roundup (and RTD’s work behind the scenes)

Oh, you thought I was done with this review? I haven't even covered the topic I was planning to cover for this week. God, this is going to be longer than a Content Cop at this point.

After signing back onto the series as showrunner in 2021, RTD has been working non-stop to make the 60th Anniversary the best it could be. At the time of writing, production is currently ongoing for Series 15, due to premiere in 2025, and promotion for the 60th Anniversary goes way back to the end of The Power of the Doctor. RTD and Bad Wolf have really taken the opportunity to make up for the irregular gaps and lack of promotion, two of the most frustrating shortcomings of the Chibnall era's production. Christmas Specials are back and the show is back on Saturday nights, which is a real plus.

While reviewing the 2022 Specials, I did get a bit pissy at the news that there wouldn't be any series until the 60th Anniversary. In addition to this, Series 14 and 15 will be eight episodes long with an additional Christmas Special. While mulling over this for the past year, I realised that a significant amount of the RTD and Moffat era's shortcomings came from having to produce 13 episodes and a Christmas Special in 9 months. Although the Chibnall era had its series reduced to 10 episodes each, Chibnall had to assist rookie writers which resulted in the series finale only being a first draft; all the other shortcomings came down to inexperience, incompetence or neglect.

On top of that, production values have evolved over the past 60 years to the point where we need to consider quality over quantity particularly with the amount of work required to produce an episode of a series like Doctor Who. The equivalent of 21 full-length episodes in the First Doctor era cannot be achieved with all the work, time and budget required in current year, which has necessitated the reduction of episodes in production over time. With these factors in consideration, I suppose I can accept that this is the cost of getting a series every year in this new era.

In terms of extended universe content, the Fourteenth Doctor is special in that he had his debut in comics before his first episode. Following his regeneration, the Fourteenth Doctor received a 14-issue long comic run in Doctor Who Magazine from November 2022, titled Liberation of the Daleks. The Doctor was not known to experience any post-regeneration complications, presumably due to going back to a previous body for a new incarnation.

As we got closer to the 60th anniversary, the episode titles for the specials were released six months prior in a reveal trailer. At the start of November 2023, BBC iPlayer in the UK launched Whoniverse, which hosted all content related to Doctor Who including all old episodes and spinoffs. Notably, the very first story, An Unearthly Child, is not available in the back catalogue due to a rights dispute with the inheritor of writer Anthony Coburn's estate, his son Stef. Stef claims that the BBC "offered a pittance" to him to relicense the story after cancelling it, claiming that his father also owned the rights to the TARDIS as well and that the BBC effectively "killed" his father by registering the TARDIS as a trademark in 1976 without asking permission or offering payment. Stef has also been known to be against the concept of regeneration, let alone the Thirteenth Doctor being a woman, but regardless of this or any insinuation of Stef being racist or anti-woke, I think we can agree that it is spiteful of him to hold back An Unearthly Child from the Whoniverse, not that it isn't available on physical media or other sources already. The BBC hasn't given their side of the story as far as we know, so there's not much more I can say on that. It's really saying something when even the notorious Ian Levine is speaking out against Stef and has been since 2013 according to a Twitter search.

As November began, we got Talking Doctor Who, a documentary hosted by David Tennant featuring archived interviews from mostly past Doctors. There was also a six-part spinoff, Tales of the TARDIS, featuring omnibus editions of classic serials bookended by newly filmed scenes of the Doctors and companions in a memory TARDIS, an initiative presumably inspired by The Power of the Doctor as Tegan and Ace got a chance to appear again with their respective Doctors. According to Screen Rant, it fixed mistakes from said special by acknowledging a relationship between Tegan and Nyssa, had the Seventh Doctor acknowledge his manipulation of Ace, and fundamentally, bringing the Doctor into the companion therapy process. The article's writer says that the memory TARDIS is a "giant middle finger" to Graham's Companions Anonymous group, but it's not like it's impossible to have both things. Like I said before, this is where RTD stated that the bi-generated Doctors could come in, but my theory is that they were the Doctor's Guardians of the Edge being projected into the memory TARDIS.

On 23 November, The Daleks in Colour premiered as a colourised cut of the original 1963 serial that beat the Beatles in ratings and saved the show from cancellation before it even started. Compressing a 7-part serial into 75 minutes has honestly got to be a hell of an ask for editor Benjamin Cook, which isn't helped when people are panning it for things like the jump cuts and repeated flashbacks to things like the anti-radiation drugs. This version also has updated visual effects, a new soundtrack and additional Dalek voices from Nicholas Briggs. I thought it was alright, but other people may have stronger feelings than I do about it. I think it could have been better if it was 90 minutes long.

Following this, An Adventure in Space and Time was replayed, but with the ending changed to show Ncuti Gatwa instead of Matt Smith (along with more edits to the scenes showing the filming of the first serial due to rights issues). Apparently Mark Gatiss designed the scene so that it could feature any Doctor for any anniversary they decided to replay it. I'm a bit meh on this, but whatever.

On 25 November, after The Star Beast was broadcast, a documentary Doctor Who: 60 Years of Secrets and Scandals was broadcast on Channel 5 in the UK, covering various topics mostly relating to the classic series. In addition to this, BBC Radio released various audio documentaries relating to the classic series, the Wilderness Years and the modern series. A number of Doctor Who figures were invited on My Life In A Mixtape, where for an hour, they play the songs that defined their lives. Katy Manning (who played Jo) also narrated an audio special featuring an interview with composer Murray Gold by Richard Latto of BBC Radio Solent. I didn't care for it, but I did also listen to Surviving Doctor Who, where Toby Hadoke defined one word or phrase for each letter of the alphabet, and Doctor Who: 60 Years of Friends and Foes hosted by Sue Perkins, which explores how the show reflected the social history of the world across the decades.

Summary and verdict (and the future of these reviews)

If you've read up to here by now I'm sure you're tired of me ranting like a cooker gaslighting you into thinking I'm right or a lefty putting walls of text in a meme in an attempt to convince you why a half-Indian actor playing Isaac Newton isn't racist, so I won't belabour my verdict any more than necessary.

I liked the episode. Neil Patrick Harris as the Toymaker was great, we saw Kate Stewart and Mel Bush again and the Doctor and Donna got their happy ending. However, where it fails is the bi-generation, because the concept takes away the gravitas mavitas of regeneration and the implications of it are not fully explained. Unfortunately, there are no plans for David Tennant to return, at least for now. It's not as bad as the Timeless Child retcon, but it is up there.

Rating: 5/10 60th Anniversary cumulative total: 16/30 (53%)

In conclusion, the 60th Anniversary Specials were a return to form for Doctor Who after the Chibnall era all but killed it. I won't say that it's a good starting point for new fans because although it may be so, you should binge at least the first RTD era in order to understand the DoctorDonna storyline. It also sets up The One Who Waits as something that will be important for the Fifteenth Doctor's era and also lays the groundwork for another reboot of the series.

RTD did double-down on the Timeless Child again, but instead of pussying out like Chibnall did in Flux, he leaves the door open for fan interpretation by implying that the retcon was a game by the Toymaker, nonsensical though it may have been.

The Message is still prevalent throughout the three specials, but as I said in my spoiler-free thought for the first special, you have to be willing to overlook it in order to find enjoyment in this series (unless you clearly don't have a problem with it in the first place). While I am okay with the "woke" politics (belittling though they may be), I wasn't okay with RTD's stupid justifications for certain decisions he made in production, such as the decision to have the Doctor regenerate his clothes as well, justifying the portrayal of Davros without his life support wheelchair or the bi-generation working retroactively so that all the previous Doctors still exist in a sense.

Sure, RTD has done some phenomenal stories in his era which is deserving of our respect, but let's not forget how he treats critics and detractors on social media. Do you really want to support or care about the opinions of a showrunner who has a stick so far up his ass that he thinks he can say things like these and have sycophants (in both the access media and social media) support him doing so?

I compared the first RTD era to writers Naruhisa Arakawa and Yasuko Kobayashi with producer Naomi Takebe in Toei tokusatsu. Replace Naomi Takebe with Shinichirō Shirakura post-Super Hero Taisen/Twitter (Zi-O, Zenkaiger, Donbrothers) and you get the RTD2 era in a nutshell. Say what you will about Shirakura or even Chibnall, at least they didn't outright insult fans on social media.

With all that being said, I would like to announce that I won't be continuing to review the RTD2 era after these specials. The main reason isn't because of RTD or the bi-generation (though they are contributing factors), but it's because I've been feeling a bit burnt out on Doctor Who after watching Wild Blue Yonder and dealing with a few real life problems around that time. Also, I promised my fans an original story for the 20th anniversary of Sea Princesses in October 2024 and right now, I'm stuck doing side stories and tie-ins when I've barely made any progress on the main story. I'll still continue to watch Doctor Who as a casual fan, it's just that I might limit myself to posting thoughts about episodes if they're important for me to post about. I did consider doing reviews without restating the plot, but I thought it would be better if I stepped down from reviewing instead of trying to force out cut-down reviews.

How do I think The Message was handled during the 60th Anniversary specials compared to the Chibnall era? I expected to find more SJW red flags in the first two episodes of Series 11 than I found in these specials. Although I was dense to a lot of things back when I started the Thirteenth Doctor Reviews, I have to give Chibnall credit for the Timeless Child revelation and Flux because they enabled me to spot and call out RTD's bullshit during the specials.

At this point I'm feeling more apathetic to the current state of Doctor Who than anger and that's mostly because I've been emotionally detaching myself from the show once the Moffat era came to a close (this was also because I wanted to branch my personal project away from the BBC canon and do my own thing with the Doctor after Twice Upon a Time). The Timeless Child revelation was the terminal cancer for Doctor Who as I knew it, the double-down was the fatal blow and despite the return of RTD giving me hope, the bi-generation was the death knell. Although the Ncuti Gatwa era is slated to be a reboot, it's really just going to be "same same but different".

Speaking of Ncuti Gatwa, I will make a few comments about what we know. His new costume (I'm pretty sure he'll have different costumes in each episode) reminds me of Series 4 Donna Noble's look, and I'm sorry, but that is not a sonic screwdriver. Call it a remote if you like, but I'm surprised they didn't make it a flip phone. At least the Fourteenth Doctor's sonic screwdriver won't go to waste now that we know he's still around.

RTD has also stated that the show will be taking a step towards fantasy, something that will annoy people who knew it as a hard science-fiction show. I'm interested in seeing how it plays out. When I was in Year 10 English class, I mentioned to my friends how Doctor Who was a sci-fi show. My teacher overheard it and he made a counterpoint that it was a fantasy show. Thinking about it, he did have a point there as Doctor Who (and other sci-fi shows really) can be considered fantasy shows with a sci-fi setting - a science fantasy, if you will.

Before I sign off I will say one final thing about Christopher Eccleston. At the 2023 For The Love Of Sci-Fi convention in Manchester, Eccleston was asked what it would take for him to return to Doctor Who, and he said, "Sack Russell T Davies, sack Jane Tranter, sack Phil Collinson, sack Julie Gardner and I'll come back." Eccleston has been very open with what happened on Doctor Who given what we heard and I've also covered it in the Doctor Who 10 for 10 post for Series 1. I think if he were asked this at Dragon Con in 2021, before we knew that RTD was coming back and that the show would be produced by Bad Wolf, he would have said, "Get Doctor Who away from the BBC," meaning "Move the production away from BBC Studios".

That is it for my Doctor Who reviews. If you have managed to make it this far, thank you for reading this and a big thank you to everyone who has read and interacted with my reviews. Sorry I won't be able to continue reviewing the rest of the RTD2 era in depth and sorry I took longer than usual to finish this review. I feel like I've neglected myself over the years to dedicate myself to my internet audience and I hope to refocus my priorities to balance taking care of myself with content creation.

Despite the death of Doctor Who as I knew it, I hope the new Doctor Who will at least continue to be as enjoyable as it was over the past 60 years.

#RIPDoctorWho

#doctor who #doctor who 60th anniversary #fourteenth doctor #RIPDoctorWho

[sushigal007]

Running a little late with tonight's Doctor Who because I was at shooting practise, but I am committed to this, so lets go!

Right out the gate we've got proper Christmas vibes as the TARDIS materialises in a snowy Victorian alley and the Doctor walks out to see a Christmas market, before asking an urchin what day it is. It's a wise decision, because the Victorian Christmas aesthetic is super popular here in the UK, thank you Mr Dickens.

Don’t get used to it.

Then the action starts with a woman shouting for the Doctor. But not our Doctor. He mentions the sonic screwdriver, the TARDIS, and the Time Lords all in the space of ten seconds, so it looks like we've got a Doctor Ruth situation on our hands, because clearly this isn't a past Doctor. Of course, this is an old story, so I know he's not actually a future Doctor, but when it aired, we didn't know, and the only real clue that this isn't a future regeneration is that the new Doctor doesn't recognise Ten.

And then we see the new Cyber creatures. They do not spark joy.

Roll credits! David Morrisey gets his name in, just to tease us.

The Cybershade crawls up the wall, dragging both Doctors behind it. As they're hanging halfway up the side of a building, Ten asks if Doctor David, who I will now be calling DD, recognises him, which nope. Both Doctors get their bums skinned as they’re then dragged through the window and across the floor until Rosita sensibly cuts the rope with an axe.

Ten is excited to know which Doctor DD is, although he doesn't want to know how he dies. But DD is clueless. Ten twigs that he's had his memories messed with, DD says that huge chunks of his past are missing and wow, Chibnal must have had this playing on a loop.

Anyway, DD only really remembers the Cybermen and asks Ten what he was like, but nothing he says is ringing any bells.

Cybermen! They recognise DD as the Doctor, but not Ten.

We get our first look at todays idiot evil human who's decided to team up with the Cybermen. It's a lady, which is a nice change. She heads off to a funeral, presumably the same one DD and Rosita were talking about.

Ten ambushes DD and notes that his sonic screwdriver is literally a screwdriver. It's sonic because it makes a noise when it hits the wall, lol.

DD is investigating the murder of Jackson Lake. His body was never found, but then there were more murders and children started going missing.

Ten notices a fob watch. Is this important!? Could it be hiding Time Lord memories!?!?

No, it's just a fobwatch, RTD you tease.

Ten finds infostamps. It's the history of London. DD comes over all woozy and we get a wonky flashback. Apparently he was holding one the night he regenerated! And Ten was there!

Then he finds a Cyberman in a cupboard.

Ten outs himself as the Doctor to the Cybermen, and DD, but the Cybermen aren't interested in talking today thanks, so DD zaps them with the infostamp.

Ten gets out his stephoscope as DD questions him, so presumably he's now twigged that DD only has one heart and isn't him.

Funeral. The Cybermen's ladyfriend shows up in a slutty slutty full length dress that covers her ankles and shoulders. The men are outraged, because of course they are. Well, that and it's bright red. But then she cheerfully admits to arranging the death of the Reverend to get them all in once place, which is when the Cybermen kill everyone Miss Hartigan doesn't need. It is, alas, not as festive as death by evil Santas or robot angels. But at least it's snowing. Merry Christmas.

Ten is looking forward to seeing the TARDIS and aren't we all! He does some more sonicing as DD talks up Ten to Rosita. Then while he's rummaging through Jackson Lake's luggage which DD has confiscated as evidence, she tells him how they met when he saved her from the Cybermen.

Then Ten finds an infostamp in Jackson's luggage.

And we see the TARDIS! It's... a hot air balloon. DD has made the acronym work.

Ten has begun to figure out what's going on. We don't get to hear it yet though, we're back to Miss Hartigan, who's having a lovely time puppeting the men she left alive.

Ten starts explaining things to DD and asks for that fob watch. Turns out it IS important - it's got JL engraved on the back. DD is Jackson Lake and got the compressed history of the Doctor beamed straight into his head, oops. DD is rather annoyed by that, and wants to know what else he’s missing, and Ten points out that Jackson Lake had way too much luggage for one person.

Bells start ringing, it's Christmas Day! Let's have a flashback to Jackson's wife being murdered!

Then Ten finds a whole bunch of infostamps, all beeping to bring the Cybermen.

Outside, a whole line of orphans are being led away by one of Miss Hartigan's guys, but the Doctor can't risk deprogramming him because the Cybershades are watching. So him and Rosita follow, because I guess the Cybermen aren't interested in being stealthy today. How convenient.

Miss Hartigan shows up and has a chat with Ten. She wants liberation, which, OK, understandable. The Cybermen do not recognise Ten, so he chucks them a rigged infostamp, which they immediately fix lol. Miss Hartigan says the children are being used for work, and she has chosen the day specially because Christmas is for birth and a new message for the people and I must say, I do appreciate a Christmas episode where the villains acknowledge the significance of the date. We could certainly do with the reminder, there's not really many Chrismas vibes in this episode now.

The Cybermen advance. Jackson zaps them. Miss Hartigan yells for the Shades, which still do not spark joy and Rosita get to punch a bitch, go Rosita. Even Ten cannot really bring himself to voice more than a token disapproval. Jackson tells them he found a deed to a property, so if that's where he found the Cybermen, maybe that's a way into the Cybermen’s factory.

Miss Hartigan's men are no longer of use, so that's them dead while the children get to work.

The Cybermen lead Miss Hartigan to a throne. She thinks it's great. Until they tell her it's for her. She's pretty annoyed because she didn't want to be converted, but they insist. She's just too emotional (er...) and so removing her feelings will liberate her. All hail the CyberKing. Her eyes open and they're completely black. Why? Well, what the hell, why not.

Cool steampunk aesthetic with the engine. What is it an engine for though?

Ten notices something's funky with the engine. The Cybermen notice there's something funky with their new CyberKing. She's still got emotions, oops. She decideds she's gonna make some new Cybermen with logic and passion, which the old Cybermen aren't thrilled with, but a little zapping soon gets them to reconsider.

Time to evacuate some adorable orphans. God knows what's going to happen to them now the guys who run the workhouses are all dead. Jackson watches them run and finally remembers what else the Cybermen took from him - his son. Which is why his brain broke. He is, of course, the very last little orphan left in the building as it begins to fall apart.

The CyberKing rises!

Ten pulls off a heroic rescue and delivers baby Lake to his daddy.

Oh, Rosita knows where to send the orphans, good.

The CyberKing rises out of the Thames and all I can see is the Death Egg Robot from Sonic The Hedgehog 2, especially as it goes stomping across London. Miss Hartigan cannot understand why her people are not thrilled to get stomped on.

Ten nicks Jackson's TARDIS.

The Death Egg Robot starts zapping.

The TARDIS flies up to Hartigan level. Ten flatters her brain and offers to take her somewhere else to live. She declines, so he zaps her with the rest of the infostamps. It opens her mind (?) so she screams the Cybermen to death (???) and the Death Egg starts falling apart. I am, alas, completely underwhelmed. Ten blasts it with a doohickey he picked up earlier, some time travel technology the Cybermen nicked from the Daleks, and then Jackson explains it because I'd actually forgotten about it.

Everybody cheers the Doctor, yay.

Jackson says people will remember this for years to go. The Silence watch from the shadows and grumble about how much work it's gonna be to make sure they don't. (Not really, but yeah, that's probably how it works.)

Rosita gets to be little Freddie's new nursemaid, just in case she was thinking of having aspirations.

Ten lets Jackson have a peep in the real TARDIS because let's be fair, he earned it.

Jackson asks why Ten has no companion at the moment and Ten says sometimes they forget him, so this is post Donna-mindwipe. I couldn't remember exactly when that happened, so thanks for clearing that up for me, guys. It's interesting to see that Jackson gets to keep his Doctor memories, nice to see SOMEone does.

And then they head off for Christmas dinner.

FINAL THOUGHTS.

So, not a bad story, but I didn't enjoy is as much as the last two. I do like the whole thing with Jackson Lake and his missing memories and you can really see the inspiration for Doctor Ruth here, because an unknow Doctor who doesn't remember the current Doctor really was just too good a premise to visit just the once.

Unfortunately, the Cybermen subplot just isn't as interesting. They don't really add much to the story and the Cybershades add even less, which is probably why we never saw them again after this. Another wasted opportunity was Rosita, who really didn't get enough to do. She's there simply because the Doctor has a companion, so Jackson had to have one too. Oh, and also so Ten could tell us how great her name is, just in case we'd forgotten about Rose, as if he'd ever let me. Miss Hartigan was fun though. I would’ve liked to see more of her.

But this story's biggest crime is that it's just not Christmassy enough. It started off well with the snowy Victorian Christmas market, but other than the continuous snow and a few Merry Christmasses back and forth, that's it. No more decorations, no festive villains, not even Christmas carols. Such a missed opportunity.

#nonsims #doctor who #Tenth Doctor #the next doctor #sushi's christmas doctor who rewatch

[austerlitzborodinoleipzig]

The Timeless Children review.

There’s a lot to say about the Timeless Children, but setting aside discussion about what that new lore dump means for the show, and trying to keep things about this episode...

A bad episode with okay lore, and some noted improvements on Chibnall’s part. 

I’m okay with retcons. It’s Doctor Who. Nothing is sacred. (I mean, except the core values of the main character. Having the Doctor selling the Master to the Nazis as a POC is so much worse). Things will get retconned/modified. Are certain retcons bullshit? Yes, but that’s another matter. Fundamentaly I don’t think Who canon, if there’s even such thing, should be kept safe. Like it or not, the showrunner is in charge. There’s no such thing as respect for the fans, or for the previous eras. 

And like I’m the first to complain but really if Chibshow wants to stick the middle finger at Moffat show, that’s his godamm right. The showrunner has full ownership of the show, otherwise it would hamper the creative process. We can discuss why the changes made are bad, but saying “How dare Chibnall retcon the deep lore” is idiotic. 

So kudos to Chibnall for daring. I mean The Timeless Children left a bad aftertaste in my mouth, but hey it was engaging. I wanted to know more, which compared to Series 11 is a vast improvement. 

So yes lore was okay. 

Did I like the reveal/retcon ? Not really. 

Is it possible to make something interesting out of that? I’ve seen some good takes about it, so yeah. On the downside this is Chibnall we’re talking about, so trust him to pick the least interesting idea.

Will I come to terms with it? I did not like the idea of the War Doctor, or the fact that Doctor saved Gallifrey at first. I’ve come round since, and even like it now. I expect I’ll have digested all of it in the coming months, and I’ll be able to make it fit with my own headcanons/continuity/personal conception of Doctor Who... 

Does it really change anything? The Timeless Child, not so much. All the pre-Hartnell Doctors and the fact that the Doctor worked for the CIA (or the Division, whatever the fuck the difference is), yes, a lot, and I like it even less. 

Are there ways to go around it? Yes there are. And also the scope of Doctor Who is so big, you can comfortably ignore it. 

The episode was bad.

Bad because the lore was infodumped in the most boring and unimaginative way, with the Master just doing exposition for 60% of the runtime. Also the Matrix looks boring. Fucking grey background.

Ashad is perhaps the Chibnall villain with the most potential. I’m still thinking voluntarily converted Cyberman is a great idea that deserved a lot more of exploring. There’s really some fascinating implications... And all of that got flushed down the toilet, because Ashad got unceremoniously killed by the Master. 

Also, hello big MacGuffin death particle. Chibnall, would it kill you to make the effort to introduce the great big “plot-resolve” button in the previous episode?What a convenient reveal with no groundwork, that feels telegraphed from a mile. 

Worst of it is probably the moment where the Doctor awakes, ensues some excruciating moments, where the Doctor tries to figure out the Master’s plan, while we, the audience have already been informed, by means of exposition. And then we get more exposition for the death particle we already got 20 minutes ago, with bad dialogue to boot. “There’s a myth...” Oh ffs! Why use myth? Nothing in that dialogue is mythic, Chibnall is not lyrical enough for it. That’s imitation of mythic.

Also unclear on the specifics of how the death particle works. Per the Master and Ashad, it erases all the life in the Galaxy. And then during exposition n°2, provided by Ravio, we hear it only erases life on one planet, which is what the Doctor tries to do at the end. 

But “all organic life”... By all account had Ashad activated it, it would have killed the Cybermen as well, or at least him. They’re not pure robots and we can clearly see with Ashad that there’s organic living bits underneath. So all that big ascension will be without Ashad. Of course you could make the case that the Ascension is really the Cyberium’s aim and that it does not care the slightest about Ashad. 

Also we shall have dominion... Over what, if you killed everyone? Again, poorly thought out motivations for Ashad. Mostly it sounds cool, but it’s empty when you take a closer look at it. 

And speaking of the Cyber Time Lords. Well, we’re told they were made with the corpses of dead Time Lords the Master kept. If they’re dead, we’re assuming it’s permanent death, otherwise they would have regenerated... So where the hell does the regeneration ability comes from? And if they are corpses in Cybersuits, how come they would be affected by the death particle, as they are definitely not living?

I mean it’s Doctor Who so I’m willing to overlook this details if there’s a good story told behind it. Like, the Daleks’ plot in The Dalek Invasion of Earth is fucking stupid. Let’s mine the Earth’s core, to replace it with a motor and then drive Earth around in space, like a big spaceship. But then that’s a small detail in an episode whose purpose is elsewhere : presenting a dystopian vision of England, a post apocalyptic, facist world. It’s about the pure dread for the spectator of seing his world overrun by space Nazis. It’s the first episode of the show’s history with an alien invasion. It’s also about Susan. And there’s also quite a chunk devoted to mostly Barbara, but also Ian for a bit: how they react to that world that seems familiar and at the same time, completely alien. 

Here there’s no story behind it. It’s basically a dressing for the big lore reveal. 

It’s a bad Cyberman story. Nothing about the Cyberzealot is really explored in a meaningful way. He’s supposedly conflicted... Yeah because we’re told so by the Doctor in Ascension. Show not tell, yadda, yadda, yadda... So Cybermen are nothing more than your generic evil robots... And even the Master sees how stupid that is and takes the piss (rightly so). 

Supporting cast is there for nothing more than exposition, or action sequences that do nothing more than distracting us from the lore reveal, because that’s the only thing really going on in that ep. 

And yet again we have a final that does a piss poor job with the companions. Second in a row. To be fair, Battle of Raging Avatar tried to give some closure to Ryan and Graham... It just did it so badly it does not even register as a try. 

This time Yaz is the better served with three(!) character bits. Tis only fair after Series 11. But still feels underbaked. I mean I think it will all depend on whether she leaves with the Christmas Special. She still has been massively underserved by the show. The last episodes, starting with Praxeus she did get some good content, but that‘s a bit late and still not enough, when you compare it with the other New Who companions. And well one of Yaz’s traits is her need for validation from the Doctor... and here she gets it from Graham??? In itself it’s a really fine moment. but underwhelming if that is to be the conclusion of her arc. 

And again, there’s only minimal progression in terms of development for the fam. Yaz has perhaps the most significant one, going from   Doctor is the best person -> I’m the best person. 

Graham has mostly been stucked with comic relief this series, and goes from. Decent bloke that married Grace to ... You’re okay?? 

Ryan... I feel this season really did not know what to do with him. He doesn’t have anything to do in the final, just fire at a bunch of Cybermen. That bit with the bomb is one of the most half-assed excuses for an arc I’ve seen. So Ryan beats dyspraxia, said dyspraxia being only mentioned when it’s convenient, or when we need to establish the character, because he really believes in himself and focuses??? And yet I had so much hope after Woman Who Fell To Earth and that really good bike scene. 

Also the relationship between the Doctor and her fam is again unresolved... My fam, I need them... That feels unearned after a whole season of agressively pushing the Doctor and the companions apart, and with the Doctor becoming more and more distant, and sometimes an asshole. I was waiting for the show to adress that... And it peters out.  The episode fails on an emotional level. 

The big climax... Sigh... Is yet another riff from RTD, this time from that super good scene from Parting of the Ways... Except less well done, because we’ve seen all that before, what else is new? Also the resolution of that in Series 1 was a moment of grace and love, and just beautiful, and felt satisfying, and paid off the Doctor’s arc... Here we have wannabe-Obi-Wan/Luke-from-the-sequel conveniently sacrifying himself. Again, the less well done remix of the RTD years. And that final cliffhanger would have been charming had we not been coming from a season that consistently mined the RTD-nostalgia. 

That bit with Ruth was lovely, and gives me some hope for the way the lore is going to be treated but... Doctor!Ruth is magnificent and yet again upstages Thirteen a bit. And I think it’s a bit of a problem when your incumbent Doctor gets upstaged by other incarnations...

Another problem here is that the Doctor remains totally passive, ineffective, and with limited agency throughout the episode, which was... eh. Doesn’t make for a good story. 

Still some things were good

The Master was definitely the best thing about this episode. Maybe unpopular opinion but Chibnall nailed the Master. So many good moments

the whole kicking himself for not thinking of a good one liner before zapping the Ashad

his whole motivation: I’ve seen some really good posts going round, but of course everything is totally in character for the Master. Jealousy at being upstaged by the Doctor, again. Hint of race supremacy. Cannot bear the fact that his not from the Master race, because all his claims to superiority have gone up in smoke. He’s not a renegade prince anymore. He’s a renegade fake. 

That really good bit where he’s sad his gamble paid off, and he did not died when killing Ashad. This is a suicidal Master, a bit like Simm, but Simm had the rage to live, while Dhawan!Master... Just wants to sow destruction, doesn’t matter if it’s his own. Mostly really broken, with an identity crisis no less than the Doctor’s and going on a destructive rampage instead. 

The carped is red because it’s drenched in the blood of the Time Lords. That line and its delivery is one of the highlights of the episode. It’s so perfectly ridiculous and bad on purpose and over the top. 

Also Dhawan has a really great voice and I could here him speak forever. Does he narrate books?

Interesting how even if he’s Thirteen’s Master, the Dhawan Master just screams Eleven. The clothes. The mannerism, the lines and the delivery... I could see Smith in his performance. 

Another good bit is Ko Sharmus... Finally someone to articulate why the whole take “guns=bad” that was going on these two series was bad. Because yeah sometimes people try to kill you so you have to fight back. 

I was afraid that Ko Sharmus would be undermined... And he’s the hero of the episode. And I’m really glad that Thirteen failure to fire the bomb was depicted for what it was... A failure. Because then Ko Sharmus gets his hero moment and saves the day, by firing it. 

Criticism of the Doctor’s position for what it is: self righteousness and hypocrisy?? In my Chibshow??? That’s more likely than you think.

And finally the Cyber Time Lords were ridiculous and I loved everything about the design. 

So really, my problem is not the lore. My problem is that Chibnall is going balls to the wall, firing from all cylinders, doing big lore... And still fails to tell an engaging story. 

#doctor who #the timeless children #thirteenth doctor #yazmin khan #graham o'brien #ryan sinclair #dw meta

[the-desolated-quill]

The Woman Who Fell To Earth - Doctor Who blog (Change, my dear. And it seems not a moment too soon)

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

Never before have I gone into a Doctor Who episode with such a mixture of excitement and dread as I did with The Woman Who Fell To Earth. On the one hand we’ve finally got a female Doctor, something most Whovians have been waiting decades for, but on the other hand she’s being written by Chris Chibnall, a writer who (and let’s be generous here) has never exactly managed to win me over in the past. His past Doctor Who episodes were often derivative, stupid and poorly written and while yes he did create Broadchurch (a show that people assure me is good, but I still have little to no interest in watching), he was also the showrunner of the god awful spinoff Torchwood, which was essentially Doctor Who’s Suicide Squad. 

So yeah, the thought of him sitting in the driver’s seat and at such a crucial moment in Doctor Who’s long history didn’t exactly get me hyped for the new series and if I’m honest, come Sunday 7th October, I was bracing myself for the worst.

Then the most pleasant of surprises. The Woman Who Fell To Earth turned out to be really, really good. I’m actually gobsmacked by how much I enjoyed this episode. I never thought I’d see the day where I’d be praising a Chibnall episode, but here we are.

I think one of the reasons why I enjoyed this episode so much is because it feels like all the aspects that annoyed me about RTD and Moffat’s respective eras have been sheared away. There’s no convoluted plots. No dangling arcs. No forced whimsy. No smart arse dialogue or pretentious speeches. In fact this had a lot more in common with a classic series story in terms of its pacing and scale. It’s not some global threat where everyone is dashing about like headless chickens on speed. The threat is contained to one town in Northern England where only a handful of people are in danger. Even the music has mercifully been restrained. While I do have a fondness for Murray Gold’s work on Doctor Who, his music often had a tendency to go too overboard, bombarding the senses and drowning the audience in slush. New composer Segun Akinola offers a much more subtle and moving score. It enhances the action and certain emotional moments without bashing you over the head and, crucially, Akinola knows when to shut up and let the actors carry the scene.

I must say it’s such a relief to see some humanity injected back into Doctor Who again. After years of convoluted, timey wimey Moffat nonsense, Chibnall has had the good sense to bring everything back to basics. It’s not about the aliens, the special effects, the exotic locations or the overly pretentious plots that require a fucking flow chart in order to make sense of them. It’s all about the characters. And what wonderful characters they are. Ensemble casts rarely work on Doctor Who, but I have to say I really like this cast. Out of all the new companions, Ryan is probably my favourite. Tosin Cole gives a really good performance and I really like how he’s written. In particular I like how the episode portrays his dyspraxia. The way New Who has handled things like disability and mental health in the past has left a lot to be desired, but here Chibnall gets it just right. He never makes a big thing out of it and the episode never comes across as patronising or condescending. It’s treated like any other character trait, which is exactly how it should be.

Mandip Gill is also good as Yasmin Khan, a police officer who feels like she’s not getting the most out of her life or career. She reminds me slightly of Rose Tyler, but unlike Rose, Yasmin is more proactive. She doesn’t sit around waiting for something to happen. She pursues new opportunities when they come up and gets frustrated when someone puts a wall in front of her. It’ll be interesting to see how she’ll adapt to time travel over the course of the series.

And then there’s Graham, played by Bradley Walsh. To all my non-British readers, let me give you a quick education on the wonders that is Mr. Walsh. He’s one of our most versatile performers. He’s been a footballer, a comedian, an actor and a gameshow host. He’s an incredibly funny man as well as a great dramatic performer. Having seen him in Law & Order UK, I knew he’d be perfect and he didn’t disappoint. There’s a weariness to him that’s incredibly charming and likeable, but then he’s able to go from comedic to emotional at the drop of a hat. The eulogy he gives at Grace’s funeral was incredibly powerful and moving, as are the moments where he tries to bond with Ryan, who’s clearly sceptical of any kind of father figure in his life due to how unreliable his dad is. Both Graham and Ryan are the ones to keep a close eye on I think. Ryan in particular will be carrying a lot of baggage as the series progresses. His determination to ride a bike shows not only the pain he feels toward losing his Nan, but also the guilt. If he hadn’t lost his temper, chucked his bike down a cliff and then pressed the weird glowing shapes, none of this would have happened. He clearly feels he’s responsible for her death and I’m looking forward to seeing not only how he grows and moves on from that, but also how Graham will step up and help him, being the grandfather Ryan needs if not necessarily the one he wants.

It’s the characterisation that is The Woman Who Fell To Earth’s greatest strength. Not just the from the main cast, but the supporting characters too. Little moments like the old man telling his granddaughter he loves her before getting killed by the Stenza or the crane operator listening to self motivation tapes is what gives this episode more depth and soul. And then of course there’s Grace, played wonderfully by Sharon D. Clarke. I’m hard pressed to think of a single character from the Moffat era that I gave anything resembling a shit about, which is why it’s so remarkable that I’m able to care this much about Grace despite the short time we get to know her. She’s caring, supportive and energetic. She feels like the perfect companion for the Doctor and I would have loved to have seen her in the TARDIS with everyone else, which is what makes her death so heartbreaking. She’s not some random redshirt getting axed because the script requires more tension. She’s a three dimensional character we really like coming to a tragic end.

Okay. Okay. Let’s get to the main topic of conversation. How’s the new Doctor? Have the ‘feminazis’ ruined it? Is she swapping makeup tips with the Cybermen? Is she struggling to parallel park the TARDIS? Did she accidentally kill a whole species because it was her time of the month? (these are all things I’ve seriously heard butthurt fanboys say since Jodie Whittaker was cast and I think we can all agree it’s beyond pathetic). Well, quelle surprise, turns out the Doctor’s sex change didn’t jumpstart the SJW apocalypse after all. Who’d have thought women could be Doctors too? What a novel concept.

The minute she fell into the train, I was sold. Whereas Peter Capaldi took three whole series to finally come into his own (not that Capaldi is necessarily to blame for that. Blame the monkey at the fucking typewriter for that one), with Jodie Whittaker it’s instantaneous. She is the Doctor.

It helps that Chibnall largely dispenses with all the usual post-regeneration bullshit. With the fainting and gurning kept to a minimum, we can get on with actually learning about this new Doctor and I love what I’m seeing so far. She’s quick-witted, compassionate and quirky, but not to the point where it becomes annoying like Matt Smith’s often did (in my opinion. Tastes differ, obviously. I personally found Eleven to be unbearable at times). After the Twelfth Doctor, with his borderline misanthropy and his inability to even so much as blow his nose without a companion to hold his hand, Thirteen comes like a breath of fresh air. 

One thing I especially like about her is her complete lack of arrogance and boring machismo that previous New Who Doctors were sometimes guilty of. Rather than having her boast about how clever she is, like Ten or Eleven would have, she just shows us by building a new sonic screwdriver out of spoons. And she never tries to lord her moral superiority over others. Quite the opposite in fact. This is a Doctor who clearly values teamwork and can recognise strength in others. There are flashes of darkness too, like when she manipulates the Stenza into killing himself with his own DNA bombs, but she’s not driven by some inherent belief that she is right and they are wrong. She’s driven by the fact that she has gotten to know these people and doesn’t want anything to happen to them. Thirteen is quite possibly one of the most down to earth Doctors I’ve ever seen and I’m extremely excited to see more.

As I said, The Woman Who Fell To Earth is largely about its characters, which is just as well because the plot is... I wouldn’t say it’s bad, but it’s definitely the least interesting thing about the episode. I liked the look of the Stenza, with the teeth embedded in his face, and the gathering coil. I liked that it was a small scale threat and largely self contained, and I liked the way the plot slowly unfolds over the course of the story. However it is a bit derivative. The Stenza is pretty much a PG-13 version of the Predator and he is a bit one note. That being said, it doesn’t detract from the enjoyment factor of the episode. By keeping the plot simple for the most part, it allows Chibnall to fully explore the characters, who are clearly supposed to be the main focus.

In short, I’m pleased to say that I really liked Chris Chibnall’s first offering as showrunner (never thought I’d ever type this). The Woman Who Fell To Earth is without a doubt one of the most confident starts to a new Doctor I’ve ever seen and I’m very much anticipating where the series goes from here. For the first time, in a long time, I’m excited for the next Doctor Who adventure :D

(Oh, btw, all those idiots who were saying that Doctor Who’s ratings have been falling and that a female Doctor would kill the show off, so far this series the ratings have been at its highest since the show came back in 2005. Guess the reason why the ratings were low during the Moffat era wasn’t because of the World Cup, warm weather, streaming television or SJW propoganda. It was because Steven Moffat is a really shit writer. Go figure)

#the woman who fell to earth #chris chibnall #doctor who #thirteenth doctor #jodie whittaker #graham o'brien #bradley walsh #yasmin khan #mandip gill #ryan sinclair #tosin cole #bbc #review #spoilers

[wineanddinosaur]

Next Round: Challenging the Aperol Spritz With Sera Luce’s Justin Pass

On this episode of “Next Round,” host Adam Teeter chats with Justin Pass, founder of Sera Luce Venetian Spritz. Pass discusses his journey in creating one of the early players in the RTD space, and explains his reasoning behind challenging the well-known Aperol Spritz. He describes what makes his product different from the classic Aperol Spritz, why it pairs so well with food, and why we can expect to see more RTDs on cocktail menus across the U.S.

Justin Pass gives listeners a history lesson on spritz — a cocktail that dates back a century — and describes Sera Luce’s production process. Tune in to learn more.

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Adam Teeter: From Brooklyn, New York, I’m Adam Teeter, and this is a VinePair “Next Round” conversation. Today, we’re talking with Justin Pass, the founder Sera Luce Venetian Spritz. Justin, what’s going on, man?

Justin Pass: How’s it going, Adam? It’s great to be here. Thank you so much for having me. How are you?

A: Good, man. You and I started talking about a year ago, I think, when you were first launching the Spritz. Well ahead of the game at that point, I might say. Now it feels like this canned cocktail craze is everywhere.

J: It sure is.

A: I want to talk to you a little bit about your background and how you decided to create this in the first place.

J: Yeah, so I’ll give you the quick and dirty of it. I graduated college longer ago than I’d like to remember, in 2003. And the year before that, actually, I was really fortunate to be able to do a semester in Florence, Italy, which is funny because I actually wanted to go to South America. I was an anthropology minor, and I wanted to go see if I could live with an indigenous tribe in South America. Then 9/11 happened, and my options for going abroad were quickly cut down. I had an older sister, and she’d gone to London. A lot of her friends have gone to Italy, and she absolutely loves Florence. She would say, “You have to go, you’re going to love Florence. You love food.” I’ve been into food my whole life but Italy is where I really started to connect it all. Whereas in the past I just enjoyed cooking and going to good restaurants and trying new foods, with a lot of the cultural aspects in the history of food, how much more is there than just the things that we eat? That’s where it really all started to come together for me. Flash forward a few years, and I end up going to culinary school. I graduated from the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) in 2008. Then I cooked for a little bit, but when I was at school, that’s when I really started to get serious about wine. I became very, very interested in all the wines of the world. Shortly after entering the restaurant business, I made a quick pivot into the wine business, where I was for about 10 years as a rep with some of the real big distributors. I also spent most of my career with a company called the Country Vintner, which is now part of Winebow. I was a fine-wine rep both here in D.C. and in L.A. for a little bit as well.

A: Very cool.

J: My career background and in terms of Sera Luce, my wife, who’s also my part-time business partner in this — she has a full-time gig. She works in documentary television, and that’s one of the reasons we’ve moved out to L.A. And when we decided to move back to the East Coast, we knew that on some level, we wanted to start a business. I come from a family of entrepreneurs, and it was something that had always been of interest to me, but having spent many years in wine distribution, I didn’t think the import game was for me. It just seemed like a really crowded space that takes a ton of money to get into. I wanted to try something different. I would love to say that there was this moment of, “Oh, my God, I’ve loved spritzes forever and I just couldn’t wait to make my own spritz.” That’s not entirely true. I came across the Aperol Spritz certainly by name, where I could understand what it was. I think I had it when I was abroad and probably as a 21-year-old, and if I had it, I probably didn’t like it, but I had seen it grow in popularity. At the time, this RTD space was really new. The canned wine space was really new, and I was surprised that there wasn’t something that existed within this cocktail space. We looked into it and looked at what the competition was out there and assessed it all. Then, we decided we could do better than what was out there, so we set about creating this company. I don’t want to bore you with the details, but it was basically a year and a half of research and reaching out to people and finding the right partners, and we’ve been really lucky in that regard to find some great manufacturing partners. Just our team across the board, I’m really happy with.

A: You didn’t know how to do any of this before you had the idea?

J: No. My knowledge of wine production was from spending 10 years in the wine industry. You visit a lot of wineries, you learn a little bit about the regulations. Usually, when you’re selling wine, you learn about regulation only when something happens that holds up a product or something comes up where regulation tends to be a huge obstacle. But regulation compliance is obviously a big part of that, so we spent a lot of time researching that. One of the reasons why I bring that up — because it sounds boring, on some level it is — but to an extent, it does play into our strategy in that we’re a wine-based cocktail. To answer your question, I knew nothing about this, this was purely like “let’s see where we can go, let’s bootstrap this and learn everything we can in the shortest amount of time possible.” That’s what we did, without sacrificing quality. I want to point that out, because at the end of the day, if you wanted to get a beverage into a can in three months and get it on the market, you could do it. I don’t think you could do it well. I think a lot of people try and do it, and I don’t think they do it well.

A: What do you mean by that? Is it because you think the taste isn’t there yet?

J: Yeah, there’s a lot of trial and error with this, right? As much as I love wine, I also love making cocktails. And I know you’ve spoken with a number of producers who make RTDs. It’s not as simple as just mixing these things together, putting in a can and slapping a label on it. There’s a lot of things that happen once you start mixing things together. You have to make it shelf-stable, so it’s a little more complicated than all that. Your alcohol levels, your sugar levels, all that scientific stuff that’s involved. You have to factor for that. Again, this is all stuff we had to learn as we went. Figuring out what’s going to work, what’s going to hold up in a can is, in some ways, about constantly testing things. I think having the right experience and palate certainly comes into it, but that’s just the beginning of it because you do have certain constraints that you’re not necessarily going to have as a bartender or a mixologist.

A: Yep. You have this background in wine, but why a spritz? Why not say, “Hey, I’m going to do canned rosé or I’m going to do sparkling wine in a can,” or things like that? What research did you do? And you can tell me you didn’t do any, but I’m assuming you did. How did you recognize that this was an opportunity? Because around the time that you were doing this or starting this, the only spritz I knew that was popular even two years ago was Aperol. What made you so confident that people would drink spritzes that weren’t made with Aperol? Were you already seeing that happening elsewhere? And yeah, why the spritz in the first place?

J: Certainly, let’s first address what I call the 800-pound orangutan in the room, because of the color. There’s no doubt that Aperol is the dominant player in this space in the aperitivo liqueur space. I know they’re planning on launching their own RTD in the U.S. this year. They’ve actually had it in Europe for a number of years. I’m the person who looks at something like that where someone is the absolute dominant player. And I hate the word disruptor because I think Silicon Valley has unfortunately bastardized it a little bit. While there’s always going to be a market leader, certainly as Americans and as people who like competition and don’t like to see dominance by one party, there’s always going to be an in, even if there is a No. 1 player. My feeling there was to get into this space, but let’s also do it in a space we felt that perhaps we could do it better. I don’t want to disparage any other product because I think Aperol makes a fantastic product. I drink Aperol. I have a bottle in my bar all the time, but we wanted to address this space. If you go to the gin space, there are many different styles of gin. If you’re looking at us from a flavor profile standpoint, there are certainly some similarities, but we’re more citrus and orange dominant. They lean a little bit heavier into their herbal notes and rhubarb. We have all those things, but it’s different proportions. At the end of the day, I think we differentiate ourselves enough in a flavor profile that, while you may have this one dominant player, at the end of the day, it’s not realistic that everyone is going to like this one thing and one thing only. We saw it as an opportunity as, “Hey, there’s this big player coming into this relatively new space in the U.S., let’s help expand that category.” There are plenty of really great artisanal aperitivo producers out there, boutique distillers who are focusing on the liqueurs and doing some apertivi or some digestivi. We came at it from this angle of it being a little more challenging to get into a bar program if they’re already going to be able to get Aperol and the customers know Aperol. Our strategy was a little bit more of, “Let’s come at this in a place where they’re not already the dominant player,” which is this RTD space, which I think is not a fad that’s going to go away quickly. I think this thing is very much here to stay.

A: I 100 percent agree.

J: And being a wine base allows us to be in certain places that some of the liquor producers can’t be or won’t be. It’s just not necessarily worth their time. That being said, we’re in lots of places that have full-on liquor programs, and they just like our product because it’s a really good product. We spent a lot of time making it taste good, for lack of a better word. And it’s very different. It’s weird because you come from the wine world, and so much of it is about respecting the grapes and working with what you have in terms of land. And I’m very straight about this, this is about developing a product that we think people are going to like the taste of.

A: Let’s talk about product development a little bit. You said it’s wine-based, so to dispel what people might think, does that mean it’s just Aperol-flavored wine? Is it going to taste like wine when you taste it? What do you mean when you say it’s wine-based? And how did you go about developing the product?

J: Yeah, absolutely. When I say it’s wine-based, that means two things. One, wine is the predominant ingredient in it, as it is in most spritzes. Most spritzes are going to be at least 50 percent Prosecco or whatever sparkling wine they’re using. We use a white wine from Italy and the grape is called Garganega. Most people, if they know a wine called Soave, which is one of the DOCG wines, it actually turns out to make a really great sparkling wine. It has this nice, crisp base, has a little bit of weight to it, which is important obviously when crafting a cocktail. You’ve got to take into consideration all these things, not just flavor profile, but the actual sensations that it’s going to have on the palate.

A: So, wait, are you actually buying wine in Italy?

J: Yeah, that’s right. We are, and this is something we probably could do more to promote. I was listening to one of your podcasts recently, and I think you were talking about gin and tonic. You were talking about how the tonic is as important as the gin.

A: Yeah.

J: And the wine that we use is very crucial to getting this product right. The wines of the Old World of Europe tend to be a little bit drier, a little bit less fruit-forward, and they tend to have lower alcohol. It’s a very different taste experience in blending this cocktail. That’s a key component of getting it right. We bring in our wine in bulk, and we bring it into a winery in the Finger Lakes, and then we do our final blending with our botanicals and other ingredients there.

A: So you add botanicals to the wine?

J: Yeah, we do.

A: So it’s almost like a vermouth?

J: The process is very much like a vermouth.

A: Interesting.

J: I like to bring that up for two reasons. One, obviously, I think the provenance of the Italian wine is important. Can I go a little bit into the history of the spritz?

A: Please.

J: The history actually goes beyond Aperol. Actually, the first mainstream main market aperitivo that people know in the industry today was Select. I think they were a year before Aperol, but that might be flipped around, so don’t take my word on that. But that was in 1919-1920. The spritz goes back almost 100 years before that, before the unification of Italy. Italy, as we know it today, is the country shaped like a boot. That country literally didn’t exist until 1865. It’s been a while since I checked the history of that, but I’m sure it was sometime in the ‘60s. About 30 years before that, this northeast region of Italy which is now Lombardy-Piedmont was a kingdom that was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. At the time you had a bunch of government officials, administrators, military merchants, etc. who had come over from Austria, from Germany into this area of what is now northeast Italy. Anyone who is an oenophile or just a wine geek knows the wines of Germany and Austria tend to be a bit lower in alcohol than those you get in Italy. So you had all these foreign people stationed over in this part of Italy, and they weren’t quite used to these lines, which they perceived to be very high in alcohol. They would often order them with spritzen which is the German word for splash. A spritzen of water, if you will.

A: Interesting.

J: That is how the spritz got started. Then, it was over time that people started adding carbonation, adding different bitters, and basically starting to create what was this Italian incarnation of the cocktail. Then, of course, you get these aperitivi liqueurs and add a lot more layers and get more bang for your buck. That’s how this modern incarnation of the spritz came about. Again, this is stuff that came up in our research over the year-and-a-half-plus process of creating this beverage. We thought that was a cool story. Again, this goes back to me having this realization that food is so much more than food. Food is history, right? There are so many things that go into it, so we just thought it was an interesting story to tell on top of making what happens to be a pretty delicious drink.

A: OK, so you bring the wine into Finger Lakes, you’re bittering it, and you’re adding botanicals, so you’re basically making vermouth. You sent me the product. I’ve tried it, and it tastes like a spritz. It doesn’t taste like I’m drinking vermouth or even carbonated vermouth. What is your process? Are you allowed to add any actual spirit to it?

J: That’s a tricky question. I think we talked about this a little bit, but yes and no. I have to be careful here, because the TTB is very, very strict about how they allow you to advertise your product. What I can say is that in the United States, in the winemaking process, you are allowed to use a portion of neutral — and I’m totally going to screw this up. It’s not fortification because fortification you would use in port or Madeira, which is generally done to arrest the fermentation process and also add preservation. Basically, what you’re allowed to do in winemaking is you can use a small amount of spirit, if the spirit comes from the same fruit. If you’re making cider, you can actually use a portion of neutral apple brandy to adjust the alcohol level of your final product. It’s really just to attain consistency. In the same realm, you can do this for grape wine as well. Use a neutral grape distillate. That’s not the majority of what’s in there in any wine that does this, but long story short, I can say that the TTB allows you to do this to a certain level. We’re doing that very much within the legal limits of that, which is important. It’s one of the things that we’re not necessarily legally supposed to “advertise it,” so I will say this is not an advertisement that we have spirits in our product, but it is an educational component. Just as it’s key for some producers to be able to have a very consistent alcohol level, this is key to being able to have the level of the flavor profile that we want while still keeping it as a wine. Again, wine is by far the largest ingredient that proportionally goes into this product, and it’s good wine. I had a rule from day one. I said, “I’m not putting any wine in this product where we’re just trying to mask some bad wine.” This had to be wine that I would drink as a table wine at a meal and enjoy. And that was harder to find than I thought. When I first was reaching out to different producers and explaining what I do, some of the samples that I got where it was astonishing that people would take this and say, “Oh, yeah, I’ll put that in a can.” That was rule No. 1. I have a culinary degree. I’m a chef in spirit and by training. I’m a big believer that you have to start with good ingredients. There’s no way of taking a bad ingredient and masking it with stuff to make it better. That’s going to stand out, so that wine is so important in what we do, again, having the right acidity, having the right mouthfeel, and then we like to think that we’re building upon that. To answer your original question, does this taste like wine? Well, I think it depends who you ask. As you said, does it taste like a Sauvignon Blanc that’s super fresh and citrusy? No. Would I say it tastes more like a vermouth? Absolutely. Another side note, too: In terms of aperitivo, we all think of the Aperol, the Camparis of the world, as these liqueurs. But traditionally, there are plenty of apertivi that are 100 percent wine-based. It really depends on the tradition of the area that they’re coming from. Again, depending on how you look at it, this is very much a wine product.

A: Interesting. But you are adding the flavor profiles that do make it similar to a Campari, correct? Or giving the aspect that it is similar to what someone is used to if they have had Campari Spritzes, Aperol Spritzes, etc.

J: Yeah, definitely. As far as a general category, having that bittering agent as well as a number of different herbal components and sugar. I want to be very clear that there is sugar in our product, just as there is sugar added to liqueur. That’s a portion of what we do. Again, this dominant citrus. And one of the things where I think we differentiate ourselves is that we’re a little bit more in the citrus camp than some of the other products out there. Also, I want to be clear that we use extracts, and we’re not masquerading an orange peel into what we do for several reasons. One, that tends to be a pretty inconsistent process and harder to control. It’s also a lot harder to extract the flavor profile that you want into an alcohol product without applying some form of heat to it. As you well know, heat is a huge enemy of wine. Again, that was a technical engineering challenge of, “How are we going to make this?” It’s how we make this product without applying heat. Using some of these very high-quality extracts that come from orange peels, the government makes us call it natural flavor, and that’s fine. But at the end of the day, this citrus that you’re tasting in there comes from these Valencia orange peels that are essentially steam-distilled to a very, very high concentration. Finding that flavor, I must have bought nearly 100 different orange flavor products on the market, just so I could say, “OK, here’s the one that we want to hone in on. How do we then go about and find it?”

A: Interesting. When you pour the liquid, and you sent it to me last summer, so I forget: Does it pour it with a color, or is it clear?

J: It is a color.

A: Is it pinkish-red?

J: Yeah. Again, this is a very traditional thing in Italy. These apertivi, bitter liqueurs across the board tend to have, by tradition, a red color. There’s a history there. I don’t know if I actually know specifically, but I do know that, psychologically, red can stimulate the appetite. I think that’s how it got in there as to why they use that color. We could have made it clear. I think we really wanted to respect the tradition of what this product has been and also to obviously, to an extent what the consumer already associates with these products.

A: OK, so we’ve talked a bunch about how you made it, but now it’s out in the market. How have you gotten it out in the market, and what are your plans for it?

J: Sure. We are in distribution in the Mid-Atlantic right now. Again, that’s a lot of research and meetings and finding the right distributors. I’m old school and believe that if you want a brand to last, you have to be on-premise in bars and restaurants as much as you are in retail. First of all, restaurants are going to make sure that you’re getting it at the right temperature and that you’re having an enjoyable experience with it. And we want to embrace that as much as we can. Covid has been a b*tch. I don’t like to complain about it because, at the end of the day, I have a ton of friends and business associates. Most of them are in the restaurant industry, and it’s been a far worse year for a lot of them than me. That being said, that has certainly affected our ability to get in front of consumers in the ways that we like to both off- and on-premise and certainly to be in bar programs to be featured. There hasn’t been a lot of marketing going on in restaurants for wine and spirits brands in the last year. And off-premise, too. At the end of the day, products need to be tasted. Beverages need to be tasted. That being said, we’ve had some really great success with certain restaurants that have really embraced the to-go cocktails and are looking for something that is easy and that’s up to their standards. This was a big thing for us. Coming from restaurants, I wanted something that a restaurant would serve with no problem. Luckily, that strategy has come to fruition. We’ve had some really great restaurant partners, particularly in the D.C. area. Fiola uses this as the main spritz that they’re serving on their cocktail menu.

A: That’s awesome.

J: That’s a huge honor for us. Fabio Trabocchi is an Italian chef, a James Beard Award-winning chef. To be able to be featured in their program is an incredible honor.

A: That’s cool that you’re their spritz. That’s really cool. They must see some benefits there, too, right? Obviously, it’s a quality that they don’t have to worry about who’s behind the bar in terms of ensuring that it’s always going to be a quality spritz, which is something we’ve talked about a bunch on the podcast in terms of this explosion of our RTDs. Will you see more of them go into bar programs because of that consistency? I think you’re helping to reinforce that, thinking that is probably going to happen.

J: Yeah, it’s definitely the consistency factor. It’s definitely a balance of having a bar program that they’re not necessarily super overwhelmed all the time. But really, I think it’s just a testament to our product because they’re the type of place that has that luxury that if they need to spend a minute and a half on every cocktail, they can and they will. But they like our product and sell it. This is another thing — and again, I don’t want to say anything about any other product. One of the things that I was very intentional about in crafting the flavor profile is that I wanted something that also goes with food. In Italy, food and wine go together. Yes, we think of the aperitivo as something you have before a meal, but that’s not even generally something that you’re going to have alone. Most times, if you have an aperitivo cocktail, you’re having some food with it, too. A lot of these cocktails, while they’re great, I think sometimes they can be almost too cloying and too overwhelming. We were all about balancing this so that it’s a super- tasty product that people are familiar with when they taste it to an extent. Also, you’re going to be able to sit there and have a meal with this and not feel like it’s overpowering your food — or even worse, maybe you don’t even think about it, but it is overpowering your food and making it not taste as good. We really wanted to be cognizant of that and make sure that whatever the applications are that a consumer or restaurateur wants with our product, they’re going to be comfortable using it.

A: Very cool. Well, this has been a really, really interesting conversation, Justin. I think that what you’re up to is really cool. The liquid is delicious. People often ask the question, “Where do you see yourself in five years?’ I think with Covid, we’ve realized that no one knows what is going to happen in five years. What about in the next two years or so? Where would you like to see the brand? What are your plans?

J: Certainly expand distribution. We’ve consciously held back on that during Covid. I won’t say it’s easy to get into other markets, but if you push enough, you can find a distributor anywhere. That’s really not the name of the game, though. Just because you can be sold anywhere, it doesn’t mean you’re going to be. Certainly that’s something that we want to start to ramp up again. I would definitely like to see us, again, be this alternative on-premise and be something that is sold in a wine store or within a restaurant or a store that has a beer-and-wine-only license. Are we going to be a household name in two years? Wow, that would be great. I like to be realistic in my expectations. But yeah, there’s that. And people often ask me if we are going to expand the line. That’s definitely in the plans for the future, but not immediately. Again, we have this niche category here that I really want to continue to be a strong player in. As you said, with Covid, you never know. We’re all having to pivot constantly these days, and you have no idea. So we keep an open mind, that’s for sure.

A: Very cool. Well, Justin, thanks again so much for joining me. I really appreciate it. It’s been super cool to chat with you and learn more about Sera Luce, and I wish you all the best of luck.

J: Adam, thanks so much for having me.

Thanks so much for listening to “VinePair Podcast.” If you love this show as much as we love making it, then please leave us a rating or review on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever it is you get your podcasts. It really helps everyone else discover the show.

Now for the credits. “VinePair” is produced and recorded in New York City and in Seattle, Wash., by myself and Zach Geballe, who does all the editing and loves to get the credit. Also, I would love to give a special shout-out to my VinePair co-founder, Josh Malin, for helping make all this possible and also to Keith Beavers, VinePair tasting director, who is additionally a producer on the show. I also want to, of course, thank every other member of the VinePair team who is instrumental in all of the ideas that go into making the show every week. Thanks so much for listening, and we’ll see you again.

Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.

The article Next Round: Challenging the Aperol Spritz With Sera Luce’s Justin Pass appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/next-round-justin-pass-sera-luce/

[johnboothus]

Next Round: Challenging the Aperol Spritz With Sera Luces Justin Pass

On this episode of “Next Round,” host Adam Teeter chats with Justin Pass, founder of Sera Luce Venetian Spritz. Pass discusses his journey in creating one of the early players in the RTD space, and explains his reasoning behind challenging the well-known Aperol Spritz. He describes what makes his product different from the classic Aperol Spritz, why it pairs so well with food, and why we can expect to see more RTDs on cocktail menus across the U.S.

Justin Pass gives listeners a history lesson on spritz — a cocktail that dates back a century — and describes Sera Luce’s production process. Tune in to learn more.

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Adam Teeter: From Brooklyn, New York, I’m Adam Teeter, and this is a VinePair “Next Round” conversation. Today, we’re talking with Justin Pass, the founder Sera Luce Venetian Spritz. Justin, what’s going on, man?

Justin Pass: How’s it going, Adam? It’s great to be here. Thank you so much for having me. How are you?

A: Good, man. You and I started talking about a year ago, I think, when you were first launching the Spritz. Well ahead of the game at that point, I might say. Now it feels like this canned cocktail craze is everywhere.

J: It sure is.

A: I want to talk to you a little bit about your background and how you decided to create this in the first place.

J: Yeah, so I’ll give you the quick and dirty of it. I graduated college longer ago than I’d like to remember, in 2003. And the year before that, actually, I was really fortunate to be able to do a semester in Florence, Italy, which is funny because I actually wanted to go to South America. I was an anthropology minor, and I wanted to go see if I could live with an indigenous tribe in South America. Then 9/11 happened, and my options for going abroad were quickly cut down. I had an older sister, and she’d gone to London. A lot of her friends have gone to Italy, and she absolutely loves Florence. She would say, “You have to go, you’re going to love Florence. You love food.” I’ve been into food my whole life but Italy is where I really started to connect it all. Whereas in the past I just enjoyed cooking and going to good restaurants and trying new foods, with a lot of the cultural aspects in the history of food, how much more is there than just the things that we eat? That’s where it really all started to come together for me. Flash forward a few years, and I end up going to culinary school. I graduated from the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) in 2008. Then I cooked for a little bit, but when I was at school, that’s when I really started to get serious about wine. I became very, very interested in all the wines of the world. Shortly after entering the restaurant business, I made a quick pivot into the wine business, where I was for about 10 years as a rep with some of the real big distributors. I also spent most of my career with a company called the Country Vintner, which is now part of Winebow. I was a fine-wine rep both here in D.C. and in L.A. for a little bit as well.

A: Very cool.

J: My career background and in terms of Sera Luce, my wife, who’s also my part-time business partner in this — she has a full-time gig. She works in documentary television, and that’s one of the reasons we’ve moved out to L.A. And when we decided to move back to the East Coast, we knew that on some level, we wanted to start a business. I come from a family of entrepreneurs, and it was something that had always been of interest to me, but having spent many years in wine distribution, I didn’t think the import game was for me. It just seemed like a really crowded space that takes a ton of money to get into. I wanted to try something different. I would love to say that there was this moment of, “Oh, my God, I’ve loved spritzes forever and I just couldn’t wait to make my own spritz.” That’s not entirely true. I came across the Aperol Spritz certainly by name, where I could understand what it was. I think I had it when I was abroad and probably as a 21-year-old, and if I had it, I probably didn’t like it, but I had seen it grow in popularity. At the time, this RTD space was really new. The canned wine space was really new, and I was surprised that there wasn’t something that existed within this cocktail space. We looked into it and looked at what the competition was out there and assessed it all. Then, we decided we could do better than what was out there, so we set about creating this company. I don’t want to bore you with the details, but it was basically a year and a half of research and reaching out to people and finding the right partners, and we’ve been really lucky in that regard to find some great manufacturing partners. Just our team across the board, I’m really happy with.

A: You didn’t know how to do any of this before you had the idea?

J: No. My knowledge of wine production was from spending 10 years in the wine industry. You visit a lot of wineries, you learn a little bit about the regulations. Usually, when you’re selling wine, you learn about regulation only when something happens that holds up a product or something comes up where regulation tends to be a huge obstacle. But regulation compliance is obviously a big part of that, so we spent a lot of time researching that. One of the reasons why I bring that up — because it sounds boring, on some level it is — but to an extent, it does play into our strategy in that we’re a wine-based cocktail. To answer your question, I knew nothing about this, this was purely like “let’s see where we can go, let’s bootstrap this and learn everything we can in the shortest amount of time possible.” That’s what we did, without sacrificing quality. I want to point that out, because at the end of the day, if you wanted to get a beverage into a can in three months and get it on the market, you could do it. I don’t think you could do it well. I think a lot of people try and do it, and I don’t think they do it well.

A: What do you mean by that? Is it because you think the taste isn’t there yet?

J: Yeah, there’s a lot of trial and error with this, right? As much as I love wine, I also love making cocktails. And I know you’ve spoken with a number of producers who make RTDs. It’s not as simple as just mixing these things together, putting in a can and slapping a label on it. There’s a lot of things that happen once you start mixing things together. You have to make it shelf-stable, so it’s a little more complicated than all that. Your alcohol levels, your sugar levels, all that scientific stuff that’s involved. You have to factor for that. Again, this is all stuff we had to learn as we went. Figuring out what’s going to work, what’s going to hold up in a can is, in some ways, about constantly testing things. I think having the right experience and palate certainly comes into it, but that’s just the beginning of it because you do have certain constraints that you’re not necessarily going to have as a bartender or a mixologist.

A: Yep. You have this background in wine, but why a spritz? Why not say, “Hey, I’m going to do canned rosé or I’m going to do sparkling wine in a can,” or things like that? What research did you do? And you can tell me you didn’t do any, but I’m assuming you did. How did you recognize that this was an opportunity? Because around the time that you were doing this or starting this, the only spritz I knew that was popular even two years ago was Aperol. What made you so confident that people would drink spritzes that weren’t made with Aperol? Were you already seeing that happening elsewhere? And yeah, why the spritz in the first place?

J: Certainly, let’s first address what I call the 800-pound orangutan in the room, because of the color. There’s no doubt that Aperol is the dominant player in this space in the aperitivo liqueur space. I know they’re planning on launching their own RTD in the U.S. this year. They’ve actually had it in Europe for a number of years. I’m the person who looks at something like that where someone is the absolute dominant player. And I hate the word disruptor because I think Silicon Valley has unfortunately bastardized it a little bit. While there’s always going to be a market leader, certainly as Americans and as people who like competition and don’t like to see dominance by one party, there’s always going to be an in, even if there is a No. 1 player. My feeling there was to get into this space, but let’s also do it in a space we felt that perhaps we could do it better. I don’t want to disparage any other product because I think Aperol makes a fantastic product. I drink Aperol. I have a bottle in my bar all the time, but we wanted to address this space. If you go to the gin space, there are many different styles of gin. If you’re looking at us from a flavor profile standpoint, there are certainly some similarities, but we’re more citrus and orange dominant. They lean a little bit heavier into their herbal notes and rhubarb. We have all those things, but it’s different proportions. At the end of the day, I think we differentiate ourselves enough in a flavor profile that, while you may have this one dominant player, at the end of the day, it’s not realistic that everyone is going to like this one thing and one thing only. We saw it as an opportunity as, “Hey, there’s this big player coming into this relatively new space in the U.S., let’s help expand that category.” There are plenty of really great artisanal aperitivo producers out there, boutique distillers who are focusing on the liqueurs and doing some apertivi or some digestivi. We came at it from this angle of it being a little more challenging to get into a bar program if they’re already going to be able to get Aperol and the customers know Aperol. Our strategy was a little bit more of, “Let’s come at this in a place where they’re not already the dominant player,” which is this RTD space, which I think is not a fad that’s going to go away quickly. I think this thing is very much here to stay.

A: I 100 percent agree.

J: And being a wine base allows us to be in certain places that some of the liquor producers can’t be or won’t be. It’s just not necessarily worth their time. That being said, we’re in lots of places that have full-on liquor programs, and they just like our product because it’s a really good product. We spent a lot of time making it taste good, for lack of a better word. And it’s very different. It’s weird because you come from the wine world, and so much of it is about respecting the grapes and working with what you have in terms of land. And I’m very straight about this, this is about developing a product that we think people are going to like the taste of.

A: Let’s talk about product development a little bit. You said it’s wine-based, so to dispel what people might think, does that mean it’s just Aperol-flavored wine? Is it going to taste like wine when you taste it? What do you mean when you say it’s wine-based? And how did you go about developing the product?

J: Yeah, absolutely. When I say it’s wine-based, that means two things. One, wine is the predominant ingredient in it, as it is in most spritzes. Most spritzes are going to be at least 50 percent Prosecco or whatever sparkling wine they’re using. We use a white wine from Italy and the grape is called Garganega. Most people, if they know a wine called Soave, which is one of the DOCG wines, it actually turns out to make a really great sparkling wine. It has this nice, crisp base, has a little bit of weight to it, which is important obviously when crafting a cocktail. You’ve got to take into consideration all these things, not just flavor profile, but the actual sensations that it’s going to have on the palate.

A: So, wait, are you actually buying wine in Italy?

J: Yeah, that’s right. We are, and this is something we probably could do more to promote. I was listening to one of your podcasts recently, and I think you were talking about gin and tonic. You were talking about how the tonic is as important as the gin.

A: Yeah.

J: And the wine that we use is very crucial to getting this product right. The wines of the Old World of Europe tend to be a little bit drier, a little bit less fruit-forward, and they tend to have lower alcohol. It’s a very different taste experience in blending this cocktail. That’s a key component of getting it right. We bring in our wine in bulk, and we bring it into a winery in the Finger Lakes, and then we do our final blending with our botanicals and other ingredients there.

A: So you add botanicals to the wine?

J: Yeah, we do.

A: So it’s almost like a vermouth?

J: The process is very much like a vermouth.

A: Interesting.

J: I like to bring that up for two reasons. One, obviously, I think the provenance of the Italian wine is important. Can I go a little bit into the history of the spritz?

A: Please.

J: The history actually goes beyond Aperol. Actually, the first mainstream main market aperitivo that people know in the industry today was Select. I think they were a year before Aperol, but that might be flipped around, so don’t take my word on that. But that was in 1919-1920. The spritz goes back almost 100 years before that, before the unification of Italy. Italy, as we know it today, is the country shaped like a boot. That country literally didn’t exist until 1865. It’s been a while since I checked the history of that, but I’m sure it was sometime in the ‘60s. About 30 years before that, this northeast region of Italy which is now Lombardy-Piedmont was a kingdom that was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. At the time you had a bunch of government officials, administrators, military merchants, etc. who had come over from Austria, from Germany into this area of what is now northeast Italy. Anyone who is an oenophile or just a wine geek knows the wines of Germany and Austria tend to be a bit lower in alcohol than those you get in Italy. So you had all these foreign people stationed over in this part of Italy, and they weren’t quite used to these lines, which they perceived to be very high in alcohol. They would often order them with spritzen which is the German word for splash. A spritzen of water, if you will.

A: Interesting.

J: That is how the spritz got started. Then, it was over time that people started adding carbonation, adding different bitters, and basically starting to create what was this Italian incarnation of the cocktail. Then, of course, you get these aperitivi liqueurs and add a lot more layers and get more bang for your buck. That’s how this modern incarnation of the spritz came about. Again, this is stuff that came up in our research over the year-and-a-half-plus process of creating this beverage. We thought that was a cool story. Again, this goes back to me having this realization that food is so much more than food. Food is history, right? There are so many things that go into it, so we just thought it was an interesting story to tell on top of making what happens to be a pretty delicious drink.

A: OK, so you bring the wine into Finger Lakes, you’re bittering it, and you’re adding botanicals, so you’re basically making vermouth. You sent me the product. I’ve tried it, and it tastes like a spritz. It doesn’t taste like I’m drinking vermouth or even carbonated vermouth. What is your process? Are you allowed to add any actual spirit to it?

J: That’s a tricky question. I think we talked about this a little bit, but yes and no. I have to be careful here, because the TTB is very, very strict about how they allow you to advertise your product. What I can say is that in the United States, in the winemaking process, you are allowed to use a portion of neutral — and I’m totally going to screw this up. It’s not fortification because fortification you would use in port or Madeira, which is generally done to arrest the fermentation process and also add preservation. Basically, what you’re allowed to do in winemaking is you can use a small amount of spirit, if the spirit comes from the same fruit. If you’re making cider, you can actually use a portion of neutral apple brandy to adjust the alcohol level of your final product. It’s really just to attain consistency. In the same realm, you can do this for grape wine as well. Use a neutral grape distillate. That’s not the majority of what’s in there in any wine that does this, but long story short, I can say that the TTB allows you to do this to a certain level. We’re doing that very much within the legal limits of that, which is important. It’s one of the things that we’re not necessarily legally supposed to “advertise it,” so I will say this is not an advertisement that we have spirits in our product, but it is an educational component. Just as it’s key for some producers to be able to have a very consistent alcohol level, this is key to being able to have the level of the flavor profile that we want while still keeping it as a wine. Again, wine is by far the largest ingredient that proportionally goes into this product, and it’s good wine. I had a rule from day one. I said, “I’m not putting any wine in this product where we’re just trying to mask some bad wine.” This had to be wine that I would drink as a table wine at a meal and enjoy. And that was harder to find than I thought. When I first was reaching out to different producers and explaining what I do, some of the samples that I got where it was astonishing that people would take this and say, “Oh, yeah, I’ll put that in a can.” That was rule No. 1. I have a culinary degree. I’m a chef in spirit and by training. I’m a big believer that you have to start with good ingredients. There’s no way of taking a bad ingredient and masking it with stuff to make it better. That’s going to stand out, so that wine is so important in what we do, again, having the right acidity, having the right mouthfeel, and then we like to think that we’re building upon that. To answer your original question, does this taste like wine? Well, I think it depends who you ask. As you said, does it taste like a Sauvignon Blanc that’s super fresh and citrusy? No. Would I say it tastes more like a vermouth? Absolutely. Another side note, too: In terms of aperitivo, we all think of the Aperol, the Camparis of the world, as these liqueurs. But traditionally, there are plenty of apertivi that are 100 percent wine-based. It really depends on the tradition of the area that they’re coming from. Again, depending on how you look at it, this is very much a wine product.

A: Interesting. But you are adding the flavor profiles that do make it similar to a Campari, correct? Or giving the aspect that it is similar to what someone is used to if they have had Campari Spritzes, Aperol Spritzes, etc.

J: Yeah, definitely. As far as a general category, having that bittering agent as well as a number of different herbal components and sugar. I want to be very clear that there is sugar in our product, just as there is sugar added to liqueur. That’s a portion of what we do. Again, this dominant citrus. And one of the things where I think we differentiate ourselves is that we’re a little bit more in the citrus camp than some of the other products out there. Also, I want to be clear that we use extracts, and we’re not masquerading an orange peel into what we do for several reasons. One, that tends to be a pretty inconsistent process and harder to control. It’s also a lot harder to extract the flavor profile that you want into an alcohol product without applying some form of heat to it. As you well know, heat is a huge enemy of wine. Again, that was a technical engineering challenge of, “How are we going to make this?” It’s how we make this product without applying heat. Using some of these very high-quality extracts that come from orange peels, the government makes us call it natural flavor, and that’s fine. But at the end of the day, this citrus that you’re tasting in there comes from these Valencia orange peels that are essentially steam-distilled to a very, very high concentration. Finding that flavor, I must have bought nearly 100 different orange flavor products on the market, just so I could say, “OK, here’s the one that we want to hone in on. How do we then go about and find it?”

A: Interesting. When you pour the liquid, and you sent it to me last summer, so I forget: Does it pour it with a color, or is it clear?

J: It is a color.

A: Is it pinkish-red?

J: Yeah. Again, this is a very traditional thing in Italy. These apertivi, bitter liqueurs across the board tend to have, by tradition, a red color. There’s a history there. I don’t know if I actually know specifically, but I do know that, psychologically, red can stimulate the appetite. I think that’s how it got in there as to why they use that color. We could have made it clear. I think we really wanted to respect the tradition of what this product has been and also to obviously, to an extent what the consumer already associates with these products.

A: OK, so we’ve talked a bunch about how you made it, but now it’s out in the market. How have you gotten it out in the market, and what are your plans for it?

J: Sure. We are in distribution in the Mid-Atlantic right now. Again, that’s a lot of research and meetings and finding the right distributors. I’m old school and believe that if you want a brand to last, you have to be on-premise in bars and restaurants as much as you are in retail. First of all, restaurants are going to make sure that you’re getting it at the right temperature and that you’re having an enjoyable experience with it. And we want to embrace that as much as we can. Covid has been a b*tch. I don’t like to complain about it because, at the end of the day, I have a ton of friends and business associates. Most of them are in the restaurant industry, and it’s been a far worse year for a lot of them than me. That being said, that has certainly affected our ability to get in front of consumers in the ways that we like to both off- and on-premise and certainly to be in bar programs to be featured. There hasn’t been a lot of marketing going on in restaurants for wine and spirits brands in the last year. And off-premise, too. At the end of the day, products need to be tasted. Beverages need to be tasted. That being said, we’ve had some really great success with certain restaurants that have really embraced the to-go cocktails and are looking for something that is easy and that’s up to their standards. This was a big thing for us. Coming from restaurants, I wanted something that a restaurant would serve with no problem. Luckily, that strategy has come to fruition. We’ve had some really great restaurant partners, particularly in the D.C. area. Fiola uses this as the main spritz that they’re serving on their cocktail menu.

A: That’s awesome.

J: That’s a huge honor for us. Fabio Trabocchi is an Italian chef, a James Beard Award-winning chef. To be able to be featured in their program is an incredible honor.

A: That’s cool that you’re their spritz. That’s really cool. They must see some benefits there, too, right? Obviously, it’s a quality that they don’t have to worry about who’s behind the bar in terms of ensuring that it’s always going to be a quality spritz, which is something we’ve talked about a bunch on the podcast in terms of this explosion of our RTDs. Will you see more of them go into bar programs because of that consistency? I think you’re helping to reinforce that, thinking that is probably going to happen.

J: Yeah, it’s definitely the consistency factor. It’s definitely a balance of having a bar program that they’re not necessarily super overwhelmed all the time. But really, I think it’s just a testament to our product because they’re the type of place that has that luxury that if they need to spend a minute and a half on every cocktail, they can and they will. But they like our product and sell it. This is another thing — and again, I don’t want to say anything about any other product. One of the things that I was very intentional about in crafting the flavor profile is that I wanted something that also goes with food. In Italy, food and wine go together. Yes, we think of the aperitivo as something you have before a meal, but that’s not even generally something that you’re going to have alone. Most times, if you have an aperitivo cocktail, you’re having some food with it, too. A lot of these cocktails, while they’re great, I think sometimes they can be almost too cloying and too overwhelming. We were all about balancing this so that it’s a super- tasty product that people are familiar with when they taste it to an extent. Also, you’re going to be able to sit there and have a meal with this and not feel like it’s overpowering your food — or even worse, maybe you don’t even think about it, but it is overpowering your food and making it not taste as good. We really wanted to be cognizant of that and make sure that whatever the applications are that a consumer or restaurateur wants with our product, they’re going to be comfortable using it.

A: Very cool. Well, this has been a really, really interesting conversation, Justin. I think that what you’re up to is really cool. The liquid is delicious. People often ask the question, “Where do you see yourself in five years?’ I think with Covid, we’ve realized that no one knows what is going to happen in five years. What about in the next two years or so? Where would you like to see the brand? What are your plans?

J: Certainly expand distribution. We’ve consciously held back on that during Covid. I won’t say it’s easy to get into other markets, but if you push enough, you can find a distributor anywhere. That’s really not the name of the game, though. Just because you can be sold anywhere, it doesn’t mean you’re going to be. Certainly that’s something that we want to start to ramp up again. I would definitely like to see us, again, be this alternative on-premise and be something that is sold in a wine store or within a restaurant or a store that has a beer-and-wine-only license. Are we going to be a household name in two years? Wow, that would be great. I like to be realistic in my expectations. But yeah, there’s that. And people often ask me if we are going to expand the line. That’s definitely in the plans for the future, but not immediately. Again, we have this niche category here that I really want to continue to be a strong player in. As you said, with Covid, you never know. We’re all having to pivot constantly these days, and you have no idea. So we keep an open mind, that’s for sure.

A: Very cool. Well, Justin, thanks again so much for joining me. I really appreciate it. It’s been super cool to chat with you and learn more about Sera Luce, and I wish you all the best of luck.

J: Adam, thanks so much for having me.

Thanks so much for listening to “VinePair Podcast.” If you love this show as much as we love making it, then please leave us a rating or review on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever it is you get your podcasts. It really helps everyone else discover the show.

Now for the credits. “VinePair” is produced and recorded in New York City and in Seattle, Wash., by myself and Zach Geballe, who does all the editing and loves to get the credit. Also, I would love to give a special shout-out to my VinePair co-founder, Josh Malin, for helping make all this possible and also to Keith Beavers, VinePair tasting director, who is additionally a producer on the show. I also want to, of course, thank every other member of the VinePair team who is instrumental in all of the ideas that go into making the show every week. Thanks so much for listening, and we’ll see you again.

Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.

The article Next Round: Challenging the Aperol Spritz With Sera Luce’s Justin Pass appeared first on VinePair.

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[cliftonsteen]

Comparing Soft Drink And Coffee Consumption

Soft drinks (such as sodas and colas) are immensely popular all across the world. And while we know the market for coffee is similarly huge, there’s one huge question: how do the two compare?

Answering this question isn’t as simple as it seems. There are massive differences between the two markets, and growth and consumption is measured very differently in both. 

To understand more and compare consumption between the two, I spoke to market experts from across the world. Here’s what they said. 

You may also like How To Profitably Serve Cold & Sparkling Drinks In A Coffee Shop

A Brief History Of Soft Drink Consumption

While carbonated water was invented in England in the late 18th century, the earliest reference to a flavoured soft drink (ginger beer) dates back to 1809. Colas – getting their name from the African kola nut, used to flavour the drink – emerged in the late 1800s. 

Two of the most popular brands (Coca-Cola and Pepsi) were founded just before the turn of the 20th century. While Coca-Cola was founded as a response to Prohibition legislation in the US, Pepsi was originally named “Brad’s Drink” and invented as a digestive aid. 

Throughout the 20th century, both brands grew massively, and played a huge role in the mass production of soft drinks. While both companies sold their products as syrups throughout the first half of the 20th century, they also capitalised on the demand for ready-to-drink (RTD) products to create the bottles and cans we’re familiar with today. 

Their ability to manufacture at scale meant that bottles were reasonably priced, and became a huge part of Western culture incredibly quickly. In 2017, a study revealed that PepsiCo and The Coca-Cola Company made up a staggering 78% of the US soda market.

An operations manager at a Guatemalan green coffee exporter tells me that he sees soda and soft drinks as being far more popular than coffee. He says that soda is more affordable and accessible than coffee in producing countries.

He says this has created “a cultural aspect in the sense that people talk about soft drink brands, rather than coffee at the local coffee shop”.

This observation is reflected in a 2017 study conducted by the Centers for Disease Prevention & Control (CDC), which found that soft drinks became “more affordable, more rapidly” in low and middle-income countries. 

Comparing Consumption Statistics

It’s not easy to compare soft drink and coffee consumption, for a number of reasons. Firstly, there’s the issue of what qualifies as a soft drink, which varies from report to report. Secondly, because there is so much data and so many issues with collecting it, it’s impossible to be truly accurate. Finally, coffee consumption is measured in kilograms of beans (rather than litres, as soft drinks are), which are then brewed at different ratios for different beverages.

However, based on a number of different statistics, we came up with some very rough estimates. Please note that these figures are not accurate. Instead, they are intended to very roughly illustrate how big these two markets are.

On average, global soft drink consumption is about 45 litres per capita. This means that around 1 trillion cans (assuming a can is 330ml) are drunk every year. 

In comparison, in 2019, global coffee consumption worked out at just over 10 billion kilograms. According to the SCA, the “golden ratio” for brewing coffee is around 55g per litre, or about 18g per 330ml. Using this as an estimate, for a cup of the same size (330ml), this works out at around 555 billion cups of coffee consumed every year.

What Makes Soft Drinks Popular?

Despite the fact that accurate statistics are almost impossible to obtain, there is some agreement about the two markets.

Most articles and reports indicate that soft drink consumption is still generally higher than coffee consumption, but it is falling – while overall coffee consumption is growing.  

However, before we look at coffee consumption and its growth, we need to consider what makes soft drinks popular.

Accessibility & Affordability

Thanks to mass production, soft drinks are accessible and affordable across the entire world. For example, a can of cola in Guatemala or a bottle of Postobon in Colombia can easily be purchased relatively cheaply. Finding a good cup of coffee, however, can be more difficult.

Furthermore, the CDC study found that soft drinks “undermine people’s ability to resist overconsuming sugar-sweetened beverages by lowering the unit price as product size increases”. This means that buying higher volumes of soft drinks to get a “good deal” is more attractive.

RTD beverages have also been an important part of the growth of soft drinks. They offer versatility and convenience. However, while the market for RTD coffee beverages (such as cold brew and iced coffee) is growing, it is tiny in comparison to RTD soft drinks.

Promoting Consumption

Marketing in the soft drinks and coffee industries are fundamentally different. Let’s compare Coca-Cola and Starbucks.

In 2018, Coca-Cola’s revenue was US $31.8 billion, while Starbucks’ was US $24.7 billion – a difference of just over US $7 billion. However, while Starbucks spent US $245 million on marketing in 2019, Coca-Cola spent around US $4 billion – 16 times more.

Matt Swenson is the Chief Product Officer at Chameleon Cold Brew. He says that cold brew and the marketability of other RTD coffee beverages can help the industry grow.

Matt tells me that globally, consumers are becoming more health-conscious. As cold brew offers a healthier alternative to soft drink, he believes that with the right marketing, cold brew could take some of the market share from soft drinks. 

Albert Scalla is the Senior Vice President of Trading at the StoneX Group. He explains that coffee consumption and soft drink consumption are promoted in very different ways. As a result, he says that it’s difficult to compare the two.

However, Albert is concerned that the “coffee oversupply means market prices [will] suffer”. He feels that the oversupply means that the industry should “change its ways” and promote coffee consumption more heavily.

Ricardo Pereira is the COO of Ally Coffee. He says: “While there’s a tremendous growth of coffee consumption in producing countries, the flavor profile of soda is still more favourable as there’s still not a lot of good quality coffee left [over] in producing countries.” 

He applauds Brazil and Colombia as producing countries who have made great strides in promoting internal coffee consumption. However, like Albert, he says that there’s still lots of work to be done.

A Decrease In Soft Drink Consumption: Can Coffee Capitalise?

Market trends over the past 10 years have clearly indicated that consumers are more focused on health than ever before. According to data from IBISWorld, between 2005 and 2017, US soda revenue fell from around $27 billion to just over $15 billion.

As well as this, dozens of countries around the world, including the UK, Ireland, France, Chile, Norway, and Malaysia have imposed a “sugar tax” in recent years. This naturally affects the sales of sugary soft drinks like Coca-Cola and Pepsi. 

So how can coffee steal some of the market share?

Promote Consumption, Especially In Producing Countries

In order to mitigate oversupply issues and take market share from the soft drinks industry, the coffee industry must focus more heavily on promoting consumption. 

While advertising and wider social media campaigns will help with this in countries that already consume a lot of coffee, we must also promote internal consumption in coffee producing countries.

There are already a number of grassroots initiatives in producing countries that have been successful in promoting internal consumption. Brazil’s is the most famous, but Colombia and Guatemala have also launched their own initiatives to grow consumption.

Deliver Healthy, Traceable & Transparent Products

As consumers become more health-conscious and demand more transparency in their purchases, the coffee sector can capitalise. Specialty coffee already has a focus on traceability and transparency, and can also leverage the fact that coffee is healthier than sugary soft drinks and sodas.

For example, in the home, children often drink soda before coffee, and coffee is often seen as an “adult” beverage. If the conversation around the negative health effects of soda continues, and coffee is positioned as a “healthier” alternative, it may be able to steal some of the market share that soda loses.

Ricardo points out that transparency is a natural advantage that specialty coffee has over soft drinks. “With soda, it’s very difficult to be transparent as there are more factors and ingredients that need to be looked at,” he says.

“As consumer behaviour continues to evolve, transparency and traceability will become more and more important for consumers.” Products like wine, cacao, and coffee already have the structures in place to promote transparency, whereas soda does not.

Offering Convenience: RTD Coffee 

It’s no secret that cold brew and iced coffee have experienced unprecedented growth since entering the market. While both products are still relatively new and comparatively small, there is a good chance that RTD coffee could prove to be a viable alternative to soft drinks in the long-term – especially sugary sodas.

Cold brew has potential to steal some of the market share from brands like Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. It is a cold, refreshing beverage which still contains caffeine and is a far healthier option than sodas.

Beyond cold brew, Matt says that consumers are also starting to “embrace the idea that coffee can be an ingredient, such as in pancakes, protein shakes, and so on”. Cold brew might be a good alternative to sodas and soft drinks, but if coffee flavourings increase in popularity, that means more opportunities for everyone across the supply chain.

The nature of the data that is available makes it difficult to accurately compare soft drink and coffee consumption.

However, one thing is certain. If soft drinks face more difficulties in the market and consumption continues to decrease, RTD coffee could capitalise and present itself as a viable alternative.

Enjoyed this? Then read Exploring RTD Cold Brew’s Rising Popularity

Photo credits: Dominic Alves, Siju, David Pursehouse, Mohamed Hayibor

Perfect Daily Grind

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[willidleaway]

Doctor Who, series 12, mid-series thoughts

In short: series 12 right now is looking like a real mess, but I’m honestly not sure if in a good way or a bad way. Chibnall has been bringing back a big chunk of RTD-era elements (and seemingly destroying a few Moffat-era ones), after the decidedly continuity-nod-averse series 11. It was fun at first but is now starting to look like Chibnall could end up amplifying the worst excesses of RTD and Moffat’s tenures.

In the span of a single episode, we have gone from ‘god I hope Chibnall doesn’t mess up the space rhino police’ to ‘god I hope Chibnall doesn’t mess up the entire show forever and ever’, because the arcs that he’s set up ... well ...

Moffat may have implicitly threatened to reveal the name of the Doctor in The Name of the Doctor, but to his credit he knew not to actually show that card. Chibnall, I suspect, feels too clever to show such restraint. What he’s getting up to may well permanently ruin the character of the Doctor for me, and I don’t think I’d be alone.

Spoiler-filled further thoughts behind the Read More break.

Overall thoughts on where series 12 is going: Boy do I not know where it’s going, but I know where it needs to not go.

OK, so thinking about where series 12 is going basically requires thinking about Fugitive of the Judoon. We get two major mystery points set up:

Captain Jack (who I am not entirely sure I’m glad to see back) has this warning about the Lone Cyberman.

Jo Martin plays an incarnation of the Doctor that cannot possibly exist.

I say I’m not entirely sure I’m glad to see Captain Jack back not because I don’t think his character is delightful or because John Barrowman is older, but because of the way he seems to solely exist to pull the companions out of the interesting story and set up this mystery point.

One of my problems with Moffat-era Who was all of the Doctor worship—and perhaps in retrospect it’s really unfair when it was RTD with his series 3 finale (a key example of RTD’s mixed legacy in terms of the direction RTD took new!Who in his later years, and the ways in which I genuinely think it encouraged a lot of trait that Moffat gets so much flack for in the fandom) and all the Oncoming Storm-type stuff that really started the show on that train. But in my defence, Moffat treated Clara as a living MacGuffin for much of her tenure—with a central plot point being innumerable split existences that revolve entirely around the Doctor—in a way that RTD never treated any of his era’s companions.

With Chibnall at the helm, I had hope that perhaps we’d return to compelling, active companions—especially after Moffat gave us series 10 with Bill and Nardole—and the series 11 premiere looked quite promising in this respect. But series 11 ultimately had at best mixed success on this front, partly because Bradley Walsh is in such a different class from the other two that it doesn’t even make sense. And series 12 so far has simply reverted to a group dynamic where the Doctor has all the answers, Graham has all the quips, Ryan has none of the dyspraxia, and Yas (Yaz? never sure about that one) has nothing.

And when it feels like the companions are doing nothing or even getting in the way of the narrative rather than actively driving it—to the point where you have Captain Jack literally scooping them away from the main thrust of the story—then something’s not right with this show. Why even have a companion, then, let alone three?

All that aside, let’s talk about Ruth!Doctor, who I’m going to assume is actually an incarnation of the Doctor, rather than the Master or the Rani or the Meddling Monk or some other Time Lord simply disguised as the Doctor. Having ‘Introducing Jo Martin as the Doctor’ in the closing credits sure seems to dispel that alternate notion—but certain past show runners have definitely taken part in circulating falsities!

First off, no matter what happens: Ruth!Doctor needs her own EU material. Books. Radio plays. Overpriced cheaply-made replica props. Yes. All of it. We’ve only gotten a couple dozen minutes of this Doctor so far and yet I am already utterly convinced.

Second: has post-RTD Who just completely forgotten about parallel universes? I mean, pocket universes, sure—Gallifrey was in one for a good while. But the Turn Left-style parallel worlds? The kind of parallel world seen in Rise of the Cybermen? Sure, the latter ep sets up the fact that the Time War fallout made it impossible to travel freely between parallel worlds, but with Gallifrey returned (well, before Chibnall burned it all down again), you’d think that would have changed. It doesn’t even seem to occur to 13 that Ruth!Doctor might be a parallel existence, which strikes me as astonishingly odd.

Third: if Ruth!Doctor is an actual incarnation of the Doctor in the prime timeline, then where does she fit? Pre-1 is the actual worst idea, because the TARDIS is already shaped like a police box and only like a police box, and Moffat already showed the TARDIS being stolen by 1 in capsule form. Granted, maybe the Doctor was captured by the Time Lords at some point, regenerated into 1, and stole another TARDIS that also had its chameleon circuit fried, but it seems needlessly complex.

I like the Season 6B idea a little better—the 2/3 interregnum—and maybe Ruth!Doctor is an extra regeneration granted by the Time Lords as reward for 2′s services to the CIA or whatever. One other possibility is simply that Ruth!Doctor had her memory altered—but this is possibly the least interesting idea and thus the least likely, because Chibnall clearly wants to provoke rather than catch a breath and be actually thoughtful with all of his twists this series.

Whether Ruth!Doctor fits in before Hartnell or after Troughton, it will represent a major shift in lore. Moffat was competent enough to make 8.5 work, arguably making better use of RTD’s Time War than even RTD ever did. But we are on shakier territory where Chibnall isn’t really building on anything. And if Ruth!Doctor is the Zeroth Doctor, and Chibnall really wants to provoke, well ...

Part of the fun of the Doctor, at least for me, is that at the end of the day, the Doctor really is a mad man in a box, an idiot that wants to be kind and help out along the way. They’re a Time Lord, sure, but amongst Time Lords they don’t have some overriding power that does not arise from their own initiative. For all of Moffat’s faults, I think he knew this to be at the core of the character. If he didn’t always show it, he at least always tried to tell it, even alongside all of the most egregious Doctor-worship.

And the Doctor’s origins are vague, even mysterious, but only because the Time Lords as a whole are rather mysterious. Their social psychology is eccentric, to be sure. Their control of time and space is unparalleled. But we’re not sure whence they arose and that’s fine. It’s not necessary, because the show was never about the Doctor, but about how the Doctor affects those around him. Much of Moffat-era Who had maybe a more Doctor-centric tilt to this, but nonetheless it was never quite all about the Doctor!

Meanwhile, in the Chibnall era, now we’ve got the Master talking about the Timeless Child and lies about the history of the Time Lords, and Captain Jack scooping the companions out of the way so that we can get all this new Doctor lore set up. And, well ... forget RTD’s Oncoming Storm. Forget Moffat’s literal origin of the word ‘doctor’. I think we’re about to see Chibnall elevate the Doctor to being literally the Genesis of the Time Lords, and it makes me very, very uncomfortable.

Hmm, I do wonder if we will get an episode actually titled Genesis of the Time Lords, only I want it to be about Gallifreyan prog pop-rock.

Additional thoughts, episode by episode:

OK, so I already said my bit on Spyfall and the latest ep. So that leaves two.

—Orphan 55: I think everyone’s had their curb-stomp on this one. I’d just like to say that it was particularly disappointing because Ed Hime’s previous contribution to Doctor Who was ‘It Takes You Away’, by far one of the most brilliant episodes of Series 11. It was ambitious and witty, and the characters were interesting and compelling, and basically it succeeded so well at everything that Orphan 55 fails at so badly.

Orphan 55 is like Midnight except the villain all along was man. It just feels like Ed Hime was playing a bunch of Metro games and then Chibnall told him to write a Very Special Episode about climate change, and everything suddenly clicked together. At least someone thought it did.

Was it really that bad? I’d say it was no less messier than Fugitive of the Judoon, honestly. I think with time, people will either look more kindly on it or completely forget about it, because frankly its reputation can’t get worse. The fact that Orphan 55 did not have the blockbuster Who-lore reveals and twists of Fugitive of the Judoon will be either the reason it becomes forgotten or the reason it becomes more favourably looked upon.

—Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror: My main qualm with this story is the over-romanticisation of Tesla. The show acts as if Wardenclyffe was this amazing proto-Wi-Fi apparatus that would have worked if only JP Morgan hadn’t pulled his funding, when in fact it was the epitome of this big wireless tech bubble and a folly in the most literal sense of that word. They mention the Gilded Age right near the start of the episode and somehow view Tesla as this pure-minded inventor and almost a human Doctor for the 20th century, rather than someone who basically lived off of Gilded Age capitalist money, and a shrewd man knew how to game the press and public opinion in his time.

Don’t get me wrong. Tesla was legitimately wronged very badly, both by Edison and by Marconi, and he seems to have had a real intuition for electrical engineering in ways that few in his time did. But intuition is not the same as scientific enquiry, and that seems to me to be no small part of why Tesla after Wardenclyffe never enjoyed the success and admiration that he did before, and why he was rather badly forgotten for so long.

And then Edison seemed a bit too softened??? Caring for his workers at some level, sure, but surely he would absolutely never be the sort of person to offer Tesla a job with him ... ?

That said, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better actor to cast in the role of Tesla, and generally I found the episode pretty good. I believe others have sufficiently pointed out the mild hypocrisy of the Doctor’s criticising the scorpion!Racnoss for stealing technology (still can’t be bothered to remember what they actually were, sorry), but I generally found it more amusing than problematic.

#(Doctor Who series 12 spoilers!)

[johnboothus]

Next Round: Stephanie Gallo and Bev Founder Alix Peabody on Canned Wine and Female Empowerment

On this episode of “Next Round,” host Adam Teeter chats with Stephanie Gallo, CMO of E&J Gallo Winery, and Alix Peabody, founder of canned wine company Bev. They discuss how Bev’s position as an unapologetically pink, women-owned, women-targeted brand is the crux of its success. Stephanie, an alcohol beverage industry veteran, and Alix, an industry newbie, talk about how their partnership is a learning experience for both women. Alix credits Bev’s popularity to her identity as a consumer first and a founder second. She knew next to nothing about the beverage world before diving into it, she says, and now she’s fussing over minutiae like the particular sound Bev’s cans make when they’re cracked open.

Tune in to hear about how Bev secured $21 million in investments in its infancy, and why you can expect to see more of it on shelves near you in the coming months.

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Adam: From Brooklyn, New York, I’m Adam Teeter, and this is a “VinePair Podcast” “Next Round” conversation. We’re bringing you these conversations between our regular podcast episodes in order to give everyone a better picture of what’s been going on in the alcohol beverage industry this year. I’m really excited to be talking with Alix Peabody, the founder and CEO of Bev, and Stephanie Gallo, the CMO of Gallo, because they have a really interesting partnership that’s just begun. Stephanie and Alix, thank you so much for joining me. So before we jump into why you’re both on the podcast, I think everyone who listens to VinePair is probably well familiar with Gallo, but they may not be super familiar with Bev. So, Alix, if you could tell me a little bit about Bev and yourself, that would be awesome, to get us going.

Alix: Yeah, absolutely. Bev is a little bit of an enigma, I suppose. I think Stephanie would agree with me there. But it’s a crazy story — I started the company just about three and a half years ago, but honestly, it was a brand and a mission long before it was a product. I knew nothing about the alcohol beverage business whatsoever. I started the company actually out of a need to pay some medical bills because I was going through some health problems. I ended up throwing these parties that were really female-centric, female-focused. I come from a background and a history of being in very fratty places, male-dominated industries, and stuff like that. As I started throwing these events, I really loved the idea of what happens when you change the narrative a little bit around whose base that really is, and how do you make that more female-friendly and female-owned? I’ve never been an angry person by nature. I always like approaching these things with joy and unity and all that good stuff. So I started looking into different ways that I could spread this brand vision and mission before anything else. I landed in this industry by accident because I was like, “This is the lowest common denominator of any party you’ve ever been to, or any event.” I wound up making canned wine simply because I had some friends in the wine industry. I didn’t know much about it. I knew that it was going to be very hard to find some amazing supporters like Steph, given that it is such, it’s such a mysterious industry for a lot of people. I ended up picking wine because I figured that we needed to have some proof of concept and a customer base before we could really prove that there was a huge market for this. This was before canned wine was a big thing. So I cashed out my 401k at the time. I bought 300 gallons of rosé from — I don’t even know if Steph knows this — a guy I met on a dating app who just so happened to be in the wine industry, and then off we were to the races. And I got to meet Stephanie last year and it’s just been the best. I can’t say enough amazing things about Gallo and our relationship. I would call it a friendship at this point, too. It’s just been wonderful.

A: So tell me, why canned wine? So obviously, you were doing parties, but what made you see an opportunity in canned wine as opposed to bottled? I mean, now I guess it’s a little bit more obvious that RTDs are all the rage and things like that. What was it about canned wine that got you interested, and what specific brand did you want to create around canned wine?

AP: Oh, my gosh. It’s such a funny question because I get asked this a lot, like, “How did you know about the RTDs?” I knew nothing. My whole thought process behind it was, “Well, wine is the only product that I can sell direct-to-consumer. Therefore it’s the only product that I can understand who my consumer is. We can sell without distribution because I figured that was going to be really hard.” I was Googling three-tier liquor laws. That’s how little I knew at the time. I put it in a can simply because I had no money. I thought to myself it’s really hard to pour something into a glass and be able to identify what that brand is. You don’t know what it is if it’s in a glass. So I put it in the can because I was like, “If it’s cute, and if it’s marketable, and people want to take Instagram photos with it, it will start to market itself.” At the time, it was very hard to find someone who would even can wine, so I was just lucky.

A: Was the goal of the brand always direct-to-consumer?

AP: No, the goal has always been to be a mass-market product, and to be everywhere and anywhere consumers are. I just knew that we were going to need a proof of concept, and I knew that we were going to need to be able to show distributors who are looking at products in terms of scan data that there’s actually a market for this. There’s a customer, and I can tell you where that customer is. I just figured that it was going to be my only way to really prove the concept of a brand new product. I’m glad we did because it’s quite hard to launch a new product in the middle of a pandemic.

A: Did you find that also helped in fundraising?

AP: It did eventually. In the beginning, nothing really helped in fundraising. It was so much work. I mean, I’ve told Steph this, but I spoke to over 400 people just to get a few checks at the beginning, because it’s such a tough industry for people who know nothing about it. That’s something that hopefully Bev can start to make more approachable. I’m really excited that the Gallo team sees what we’re doing and values it, because trust me when I say it has been a long journey and that has not always been the case.

A: The beverage industry is really hard, and obviously Stephanie can tell you that. There’s a lot of ideas, and a lot of people trying to raise money. There have been some brands that are buzzy right now that we could talk about that are also DTC — some that I’ve had on this podcast — but a lot of them haven’t raised (and correct me if I saw different things) $7 million. Or $14 million?

AP: First 7, then 14.

A: So $21 million’s a lot of money to raise. What do you think is it about Bev, and your story, and what you were selling that caused these investors to say, “We will totally go in on this,” when a lot of other beverage companies cannot do that and have had a really hard time raising funds?

AP: That’s an awesome question. I think it was a few things. My grandfather always said luck falls on the shoulders of those prepared to receive it. There was a lot of preparation. Part of the reason that we were not able to raise capital in the beginning from traditional beverage or CPG funds is because they want to see metrics. They want to see traction. This is such a catch-22 for young brands because you have no metrics, you have no traction, and it’s a capital-intensive business, and you need the capital to to get it off the ground. I leveraged my relationships in Silicon Valley from my time working there, and we were very lucky to be the first-ever beverage and/or CPG product backed by Founders Fund. The only thing that was very difficult about it, that I think a lot of people don’t realize, is a lot of these funds that play in the fast and loose space or form of investing, they have vice clauses, so they’re not allowed to invest in an alcohol, tobacco, firearms, or sex toys. I don’t know why rosé is lumped in with firearms per se, but a lot of them just can’t even do it. So the number of people that you’re actually allowed to try to raise capital from is even smaller, which makes it even more difficult. I was lucky in that I was able to get someone who said, “I see your vision, I see your brand, I see your passion, and I’m going to invest in that,” pre-revenue. That was frankly crazy, but good on them. I am so grateful for that support. It wasn’t until we really started to show traction, metrics, and repeat rates, and get some major retailers behind the brand as well, that we were able to say, “Look, there is a real market for this,” and go to the more traditional sources of capital. I think that is one of the major issues. The major catch-22 for young beverage brands is that there’s not a lot of capital available for beverage companies without solid metrics.

A: I’m sure there’s a lot of people who are listening to this podcast right now, like you, who also have beverage brands, or who are thinking about beverage brands. We also have one of the most accomplished CMOs on this podcast with you, so I don’t want to only keep asking you questions, but I have one more before I come to Stephanie.

AP: She’s someone that knows all the good stuff — she’s the one to listen to.

A: Who was the market for Bev, and what did the growth look like? So when you first started going to market, what metrics were you looking for? Were you trying to go from 100 cases to 1,000 cases to 5,000 cases? Who were you targeting? I’ve read a bunch about the brand, but I don’t want to give away what I’ve read. Instead, I want you to tell the listeners who you thought the audience for the brand was, and were they the people that actually became the audience for the brand?

AP: Another fantastic question. I used to walk down a liquor aisle or a beer aisle or whatever, and you see all of these branded products that are highly emotionally branded and targeted towards the male consumer, or, in my opinion, the male consumer trying to buy drinks for the female consumer. It’s not necessarily speaking to and with the female consumer. Or you have fantastic brands that are more artisanal in nature where it’s really about the craft, it’s about the winemaking, all that kind of stuff. For me, there’s really nothing that a woman can hold in her hand in a can that’s almost like wearing a brand T-shirt that says, “This is what I stand for.” For us, it’s always been about exciting women to have not only the permission but the joy of celebrating themselves and being themselves. That’s what we hope to communicate. At the beginning, I thought given the bright packaging I’d get asked a lot like, “Well, why do you make it pink if you’re a feminist-forward brand and blah, blah.” I was like, “Because it’s my favorite color, and I don’t need to apologize for that, frankly. That’s why I did it.” Then I started putting in more of my favorite colors and stuff like that. I think the authenticity of the brand has really resonated with the consumer through and through. That said, the consumer base has been far more expansive than I expected. I was expecting us to really hit that sort of late-20s, maybe early 40s range. We’re seeing tails all the way up to women in their mid-60s pretty equally distributed, and also pretty equally distributed throughout the country, which has been very exciting. A lot of those people, they’re looking for it in stores. They’re looking on our store locator to find it. That’s where Steph comes in.

A: Thank you for that, Alix. So Stephanie — how did you first discover Bev? I understand, somewhat to your point, that there aren’t a lot of brands that are very female. But then you have other people who will say, “Isn’t that all of wine?” I’m wondering from Stephanie, who has so many brands and has been in this business for such a long time, I feel like that’s a stereotype that all wine is female-focused. That’s what I hear all the time from other winemakers: “How do I bring in men to my wine?” (I don’t know why I just did a weird Italian accent.) I hear more and more like, “How do I get men to drink Prosecco? Only women drink Prosecco.” So I’m curious if all of us are just wrong and we’ve all stereotyped wine for too long. Also, Stephanie, when did you discover it, and what attracted you to it in the first place?

Stephanie: On a personal level, I discovered Bev, believe it or not, through a mutual friend on Instagram where she actually went to go visit the Bev headquarters and talked about meeting Alix. I had been following Bev since its inception. During Covid, actually, my brother reached for it along the pitch deck and basically said, “Hey, I think this is something pretty interesting. Why don’t you follow up with Alix to see if there’s something here.” So personally, about three years ago. Professionally – Alix, what, about six months ago? Seven months ago?

AP: I didn’t know you knew us that early. I’m flattered.

S: I’ve been following Bev just as a regular consumer. To answer your question specifically, the reason why we were interested in Bev — and it goes back to what you were saying — is that from an innovation pipeline perspective, I have always wanted to develop a brand that was very not necessarily female-centric, but one that really spoke to a cultural trend that we’re seeing around women’s empowerment, around women founders and female entrepreneurship. I think that is something that is super on trend, and I think it’s here to stay. I really felt that authentically, Gallo, we didn’t have the permission to tell that story. So when we met Alix, I felt that if I were to create an organic brand, it would have been Bev. I think that what has always appealed to me about Bev is that it is extremely mission-driven. It has a very strong purpose, and I think great brands that are going to go ahead and accelerate in growth are ones with a strong purpose, combined with great mission, and with things that are culturally relevant.

A: First of all, explain to me what the partnership is, for those that aren’t aware. How did it come about?

S: So the partnership is pretty darn simple. Today’s the day actually— I texted Alix this morning at 6. Today is the day where the Gallo winery will basically be the distributor of Bev. We’re basically going into a distribution arrangement. Alex is going to continue doing what she’s doing. She’s still the owner of the brand. She’s still going to market the brand, and she’s going to continue doing what makes Bev successful, and Alix’s team will continue to run the operation.

A: OK, so you’ll be the ones getting it in-store. How will that work? Is Bev going to be able to take advantage, obviously, of Gallo’s access to great wine and things like that as well?

S: Eventually. But for right now, it’s working. When Alix and I talked about this partnership, I knew that she had a lot of opportunities and looked at many different arrangements. But I remember having a conversation with her and I said to her, “What makes Bev Bev is, quite candidly, the founder’s story and Alix’s involvement.” I think it’s critical to the success of this brand. For the health and success of what Bev stands for, we just think it’s absolutely critical that Alix and her wonderful team continue to stay involved and do what they do.

A: So what will marketing for this look like now? Alix, is that all of your team still running the message, running the Instagram, doing ad buys, things like that?

AP: Correct. One of the things that was so compelling to me about the Gallo team, and Steph in particular, is that she really believes (and I don’t mean to put words in your mouth) that us operating independently, and really being able to own that narrative and build the brand the way that’s created so much traction, is so important. When you talk to a lot of different strategics — for lack of a better word — and stuff of that nature, it tends to be like, “OK, great, you did this thing, I’m going to take it and I’m going to build it myself.” And the thing about the partnership with Gallo that’s just been so awesome is that Steph doesn’t believe that. She’s like, “What you guys are doing is working. It behooves the brand, and it would be painful for the brand to stop that.” I think partnership is the best word for what’s going on; it really is a partnership. We’re going to help every way we can in terms of having our ambassadors out there and stuff like that. But there’s no one better out there than Gallo when it comes to execution and wholesale. That’s a place that most brands falter, because it’s so expensive and it’s so difficult. Having that opportunity is just beyond… I get emotional when I talk about it.

A: So I will be honest; Stephanie is very famous for asking tough questions. So I have one for her, which is: So for the person that’s looking at this situation, is this like Casamigos? So is Gallo ultimately going to acquire Bev, and that this is sort of a middle position, where you guys can kind of see how it goes? Is this something separate? Is this a partnership that if you both don’t like it in a few years, you can walk away from? The first time I ever met Stephanie, she said to me, why haven’t you sold VinePair yet? I was like, “Because I’m not ready!” So, I mean, she asked me those questions. I have to ask her these questions.

S: Alix and I have had a lot of what we’re going to call “spiritual conversations” about this topic. For us, we’re just getting started. Ultimately, I think it really depends on what Alex wants to do with the brand moving forward. Right now — I honestly mean this — we’re very happy simply with the partnership around the distribution agreement. I think we have a lot to learn from Alix, and Alix has a lot to learn from us. I think that there’s value there.

A: That totally makes sense. Very good answer. So Alix, I think it’s interesting that you didn’t have a background in wine because I’m wondering if your experience around canned wine is actually the way we see most consumers experience it. I talked to somms who started canned wine brands. Every time we talk about the wine, they talk about how the wine is still poured into a glass. I think to myself, “I don’t know anyone who drinks canned wine that drinks from a glass.”.

AP: You’re speaking my language.

A: Like, no one drinks it out of a glass — come on, it’s canned wine for a reason. I’m curious, how are you seeing your consumer drink canned wine, and what do you think the wine industry is still getting wrong about canned wine? What are the stereotypes or the misconceptions people have about canned wine that are just flat wrong?

AP: It’s funny, because we joke in the office that our favorite compliment is, “Oh, it’s actually good.” We get this all the time. It’s funny because like I said, I had no money when I started out. So the can, in a way, was going to be our biggest marketing tool. I was like, “I need people drinking this out of the can. I need it to be directly consumed from the can because I need them holding the cans so that people can identify it and see and see what that is.” For me, it was a canned product from the get-go. Steph will probably roll over in her grave one day about this, but the first time that I went to a winery knowing nothing about anything I said the word I’m looking for is “chuggable.” I’ve since learned that the word I was looking for is “sessionable.” Anyways, I didn’t know any better. I think as someone who is simply a consumer, the way that we developed the product itself was just, I went to the store, I bought every rosé, every canned wine I could find, and I blind-taste-tested them. The results probably got significantly less detailed throughout that process of the tasting. It was just like, “What do I want to drink?” For our red wine, for example, I put that thing back into R&D three or four times because I was like, this, I don’t want to drink this straight out of the can. I don’t love this straight out of the can. Red is a tough one to crack. So I was like, “I need this to be one of the things that I want to drink every day.” Or every other day — it depends if Dad’s listening. So that was something that I thought was really important: what tastes good to me. We’re not vintage. We are the consumer of the brand. I think what a lot of people tend to miss in this category in general is that the can in and of itself is approachable. There needs to be an approachability to these products that are new in a way and that is fresh and that is really from the consumer’s perspective. I think that that was actually a huge edge that we had, in a way, because I didn’t even know what the three-tier liquor law was. I was Googling it. It’s very hard to find on Google. It turns out also it’s very hard to figure out when you know people who know everything about it. The other thing, too, is we did a couple tests, for example, with still canned wine. Ours is effervescent, slightly carbonated. We call it “a lil’ fizzy.” When we were trying different things, it was like, “Well, for example, people really expect that sound when they crack it open.” Things like that, where we really wanted it to be able to drink like something that you would normally drink out of a can, even though we’re still a still wine. When you pour it into a glass, that carbonation kind of goes away. I think that that’s the thing. People oftentimes are creating their canned wine as if they’re creating a bottled wine. To me, it’s a different category. I was asked a lot, especially at the beginning when there was not much of a market for canned wine, “What’s the market cap?” My response was, “Honestly, there was no market cap for energy drinks before Red Bull. Why should it matter what that looks like for us right now?” Because at the end of the day, if you do it right with the branding, if the product is delicious, you can create that market. I think that’s something that, together, we’re really going to be able to do.

A: So, Stephanie, I’m sure you see more new products than even I see. You’ve probably seen a ton of canned wine since the first ones started exploding five years ago or so with Underwood and stuff like that. Was it for you really about the brand, too, that made this such a compelling sell for you? Something that the wine industry — a lot of the wine industry besides, actually, your brands — don’t get: the understanding of brand. We think it’s just about the liquid in the bottle, or the can, etc., and that’s all that matters. But consumers love brands. So I’m curious if that is what caused Bev to stand out?

S: I think one of the hardest things about Covid — Alix and I talk about this all the time — is that we’re an organization that loves being what I call “boots on the ground.” Let’s get out. Let’s go talk to customers about it. Let’s go sense it firsthand. There are a lot of canned wine brands, but at the end of the day, based on the due diligence that we were able to accomplish, this one had the velocity that made it interesting for us in the accounts that they were in. I think that at the end of the day, it really does come back down to: It’s all about the brand. And the work that Alix and her team are doing to drive awareness in a very focused manner with the right audience. The rest is history.

A: As of today, because we’re recording this on March 1, you are saying you are now officially the distributor of the brand. Will we be able to find it pretty easily across the country soon?

S: It’s a great question. We are starting small, believe it or not, small for Gallo. So our aim is to expand the availability of these wines right now in targeted retail accounts and on-premise accounts in the United States. We have what we call a concentrate and breakthrough rollout. As far as we’re concerned, it’s still a very young brand. I think that Alix and our organization have a very common vision, and a shared vision, to grow in a responsible manner, and to grow where consumer demand is. And we’re able to identify where the consumer demand is based on the DTC sales that she’s been able to generate.

AP: If I can add to that super quickly: Small for Steph is huge for us. That’s what’s super exciting all around. I think the DTC portion is so interesting because it’s a new model — you don’t have to go in blind to these markets. That’s something a lot of brands don’t have the luxury of. It’s really awesome to see my team and Steph’s team work together and consume all of that information and be able to say, “Hey, we know we’re going to be successful in these places. Let’s go there.” That’s been really interesting. I think we’re learning on both sides, because I sure as heck don’t know how to execute like these folks do in the markets.

A: Well, this has been really fascinating. Alix, Stephanie, thank you so much for taking the time. I wish you great success in the near future as this thing really rolls out.

AP: Thank you. Thank you. And me, too!

S: Adam, all the best from the Gallo family. We appreciate all you do.

Thanks so much for listening to the VinePair podcast. If you love this show as much as we love making it, please give us a rating on review on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or whatever it is you get. It really helps everyone else discover the show. Now for the credits. VinePair is produced and recorded in New York City, and in Seattle, Wash., by myself and Zach Geballe, who does all the editing and loves to get the credit.

Also, I would love to give a special shout-out to my VinePair co-founder, Josh Malin, for helping make all this possible, and also to Keith Beavers, VinePair’s tastings director, who is additionally a producer on the show. I also want to, of course, thank every other member of the VinePair team who are instrumental in all of the ideas that go into making the show every week. Thanks so much for listening, and we’ll see you again.

Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.

The article Next Round: Stephanie Gallo and Bev Founder Alix Peabody on Canned Wine and Female Empowerment appeared first on VinePair.

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