Other Doctor Lives: Twenty Twelve: Series 2, Episode 4 – “The Rapper” (2012)

*Spoilers for episode 2*

Just as soon as the show gave me Karl, they took him away again! But fortunately, this is the last Joel Fry-less episode of Twenty Twelve. In it, the commission deals with a reasonable issue in a fairly ridiculous way.

An American company called Juiced gets involved in the Olympics in a big way. Because they’re primarily known for selling condoms, this sparks the idea of tying a sexual health awareness campaign to the Games. All good, until you realize that Siobhan is the brainchild steering the direction of said campaign.

Our character of the week is Daniel Stroud, Ian’s new PA—Sally and Ian had been dancing around each other for a while, but when it appeared to Sally that Ian was going back to his now ex-wife right on the cusp of them getting together, she abruptly resigned. Daniel endeavors to take care of Ian just as much as Sally did, but while Sally often blended seamlessly into the background, Daniel is so far doing it in a much more obtrusive way. He’s played by former History Boy Samuel Barnett!

Let’s just say the sexual health campaign has all the consideration of a runaway train. Siobhan brings her usual brand of “blithely enthusiastic agreement without paying much attention to what’s going on” to the proceedings, signing off on pretty much everything at first glance. A representative from Juiced is on hand, along with a spokesperson for a British sexual health campaign who warns them that the Olympics are going to be rife with sexual contact. With countless hot athletes flying in from all over the world, “they are going to have sex with each other, and they’re going to do that whenever they feel like it—all kinds of combinations.”

Ian realizes just how much the campaign is getting away from him when he’s invited to a meeting where a rapper is recording a contraceptive-themed song, the planned centerpiece for the campaign. As depicted by the show, this is painfully ill conceived, but Siobhan and her team blissfully dance along while the musician raps about lubrication and having “your girl slap it on.”

(Side note: as I said, Karl/Joel Fry isn’t in this episode, but the rest of Siobhan’s team is. I can’t decide if Siobhan is the sort of boss who’d insist on bringing her Black employee to meet the Black rapper, or if she’d be saved by her own obliviousness.)

In a subplot, we learn that Graham’s route for the Olympic torch relay is positively unhinged, and the rest of the team end up having to play cleanup for him. His initial cursed map cracks me up, and I like his later admission that he’s rearranged the locations of some British towns on the map to fit his route better.

Favorite David Tennant narration bits today:

• Fi has started taking her smoking breaks at the same time as Ian, using the time as an opportunity to push legacy’s agenda, and Kay decides she needs to get in on that, despite not smoking herself – “It’s starting to look like a busy day at the smoking area, as head of sustainability Kay Hope has arrived.”
• After explaining that “Ian has taken a difficult executive decision” regarding the haphazard sexual health campaign, I really like the addition, “And Siobhan has taken an equally executive decision not to accept that decision.”