“Kerblam!” Teasers Explained

Clint Hassell reveals the answers to last week’s hints and teasers for Series 11, episode 7 “Kerblam!.”

• 1. I was told that I could obliquely tease what’s inside the first box . . . but there’s no way I’m spoiling the best in-joke we’ve had all series!
  The Doctor receives a fez that she had ordered when she was Eleven, but which is only now intersecting with her relative place in spacetime.
• 2. “Real people need **** jobs.”
  As she explains the Kandokan mandate that 10% of a workforce must be “organics” and not machines, Kira states that “Real people need real jobs.”
• 3. Best background bit: “He was a pole dancer ‘til his hips gave out.”
  – Dan Cooper, to Yasmin, humorously referencing a Kerb!am robot he’d nicknamed Basil
• 4. The sound mix of this episode really accentuates Segun Akinola’s driving electronic score. It’s perfectly at place in this futuristic, industrial setting.
• 5. Wait, Graham is how old?!
  Graham tells Charlie that his Kerb!am robot-led training “nearly lasted half my life – – and I’m 310!”
• 6. Graham’s serious medical condition is mentioned.
  Graham tells the Doctor that his job as a maintenance worker has given him “chronic skin irritation.”
• 7. “Laters!” is the new “Who da man?!”
  Just as Eleven immediately regretted brazenly asking “Who da man?!” in “The Eleventh Hour,” Thirteen decides that she’s never saying “Laters!” again.
• 8. No, wait – – the blatant Series 4 reference may be the best in-joke of the series.
  The Doctor askes Ryan and Yasmin, “Talking of wasps, did I ever tell you about me and Agatha Christie?” directly referencing the events of Series 4’s “The Unicorn and the Wasp.”
• 9. “I should let you know, I have a *******ation problem.”
  Just before sliding down a chute to the lower, dispatch level, Ryan says to Charlie, “I should let you know, I have a coordination problem.”
• 10. Why, yes, that WAS Venusian aikido!
  When Jarva Slade points a gun at the Doctor, she uses Venusian aikido to disarm him.
• 11. Oh. My. Giddy. Aunt. The actual threat of the episode is the most twisted, darkly funny, effed up thing I’ve ever seen!
  The actual threat of the episode was deadly bubble wrap.

Hidden teasers:

• 51, 35, 1001
  This cipher translates to “fez,” referencing teaser #1.
• K-9, Kamelion, Handles
  The Doctor chastises Ryan and Graham’s “robophobic” attitudes, saying that “some of [her] best friends are robots.” Ostensibly, she is referring to robot companions K-9, Kamelion, and Handles.