Initial commit: HPR Knowledge Base MCP Server
- MCP server with stdio transport for local use - Search episodes, transcripts, hosts, and series - 4,511 episodes with metadata and transcripts - Data loader with in-memory JSON storage 🤖 Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code) Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Episode: 4443
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Title: HPR4443: The First Doctor, Part 3
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Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4443/hpr4443.mp3
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Transcribed: 2025-10-26 00:45:15
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---
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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4443 for Wednesday the 13th of August 2025.
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Today's show is entitled The First Doctor, Part 3.
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It is hosted by Ahukah and is about 12 minutes long.
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It carries a clean flag.
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The summary is a continuing look at the first doctor who.
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Hello, this is Ahukah, welcoming you to Hacker Public Radio and another exciting episode.
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In our ongoing series on science fiction and fantasy and we're back with the good old
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doctor, Dr. Who.
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And continuing our look at the first doctor, he's the one who got all of this stuff going
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for us.
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And we're picking up where we left off in the previous episode.
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We had just done a historical story called The Crusade.
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Now you know that at this point in the development of Dr. Who, they were tended to alternate,
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not strictly, but after a historical story, there would be a science fiction story.
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Eventually they started to kind of let the historicals go away and just focus more on
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the science fiction.
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But this was still a children's educational program back then.
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So we're back in space and this is a very clever story that plays with the idea of time travel,
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you know, which oddly enough doesn't happen all that often in Dr. Who.
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But this one is the clever idea.
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The tardis has somehow jumped time tracks and the crew arrives before they arrive.
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Now, if you find that an interesting concept, yeah, they do.
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When they enter the museum, they see themselves as exhibits and figure out what must have
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happened.
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So they decide they have to stay there until time catches up with itself.
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The museum was created by an invading race, the Morrox, to glorify their conquering empire,
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though the empire is declining at this time.
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The indigenous habitants of the planet, the Xerons, want to overthrow the Morrox and take
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back their planet.
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A lovely scene is when Vicki reprograms to computer guarding the armory to allow the
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Xerons to grab the weapons they need.
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Now this story did suffer from budget problems because other stories had turned out to be more
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expensive.
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So director Mervin Pinfield tried to economize by using just a few sets.
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But William Hartnell and Morin O'Brien delivered good performances that helped to rescue
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the story.
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And that brings us to the chase.
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Now, while the Tartus crew was leaving Xeros after the revolution, someone was watching.
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The dolecs have now been able to build their own time in space machine and are out to
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get the doctor.
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This Terry Nation story has some very funny moments and each episode has a different setting.
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Just the Tartus lands on a desert planet called Aridius and the dolecs land shortly afterwards.
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They threaten the local inhabitants to get the doctor surrendered to them.
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But the doctor and the companions manage to escape.
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They know they need to find the right place to confront the dolecs who are closing in.
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They show up first on top of the Empire State Building where Peter Purvis does a comic
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bit reminiscent of Gomer Pyle.
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It is on the deck of the Mary Celeste, which is of course a famous ship that was found
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devoid of people down a haunted house featuring Frankenstein and Dracula.
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And finally the planet Meccanus where they are captured by the Meccanoids.
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They're placed in a cell and in the cell they meet a spaceship pilot who was also played
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by Peter Purvis and the pilot's name is Stephen Taylor.
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The dolecs land, they in the Meccanoids fight and the Meccanoids manage to wipe out the
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dolecs.
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The Tartus crew escape and get back to the Tartus, saddened by the fact that Stephen Taylor
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didn't make it.
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At the Tartus, Ian and Barbara tell the doctor they want to go home and leave the Tartus.
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So the doctor programs the dolec ship and sends them back.
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So now none of the original three companions are left, just the doctor.
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This story was written by Terination who owned the rights to the dolecs and he had cashed
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in big when Dolec Mania hit Britain.
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All of the Dolec toys and merchandise paid him a royalty.
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And he and the BBC were both hoping lightning would strike twice with the Meccanoids,
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the Meccanoids never caught on and disappeared after this one story.
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The dolecs though, they'd be here to stay, no doubt about it.
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This story was very expensive to make, what with all the sets and props, and explains
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why the preceding story the Space Museum had to be made cheaply.
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And that brings us to the Time Nudler.
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This is a historical story but with an interesting twist.
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To begin with, it turns out that Stephen Taylor did make it and was in the Tartus when
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they left Meccanos.
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So now the doctor has two companions, Stephen and Vicki.
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And they land in Northumbria in 1066.
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Now if you've read your history, you know that Harold, the Saxon king of England,
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had to march his army north to rebel a Viking invasion of Northumbria in which he was successful
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before turning around a marching south where he was defeated by William the Conqueror.
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So what is up here?
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There is an abandoned monastery nearby and a monk seems to have moved in but something
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doesn't quite add up.
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The doctor discovers that this monk in 1066 is using a record player to play sounds of
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groups of monks chanting.
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And Stephen and Vicki discover that he has a Tartus.
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Now this character has come to be known as the Meddling Monk, although that was never
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an official name anywhere, but that's what fans call him.
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And he's a classic character, a renegade time lord we presume because he has a Tartus.
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That many fans would love to see brought back.
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Now his plan, why is he here in 1066 in Northumbria?
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Well, he wants to change the outcome so that William the Conqueror does not succeed.
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And the way he's going to do that is he's going to wipe out the Vikings before they even
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land on shore.
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And he's got a big gun and, you know, that just blow him out of the water and so Harold
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won't even have to march north.
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Now, a doctor who sometimes likes to emphasize that you shouldn't try to change history.
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Of course, other times that gets ignored, see, for instance, the fires of Pompeii.
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Now, this is an excellent story and it illustrates the importance of good writing.
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Because of the expense of the chase, this was made on a tight budget, but you don't notice
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it as you go along because the story is suspenseful and keeps you moving.
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Now this is a good time to talk about the movies.
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The Dalek Mania running rampant in Britain, it should come as no surprise that the film
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industry wanted a piece of the action.
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An option was purchased to produce three films, but while the first was modestly successful,
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the second show to drop off and the third movie was never made.
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The biggest change is that the doctor is no longer an alien, but rather an eccentric
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scientist played by Peter Cushing, the king of the B-movies.
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Now, in 1964, Dalek Mania hit England, so you know, you shouldn't be surprised.
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They took the basic story from William Hartnell's The Daleks, but recast all the roles with
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Peter Cushing as Dr. Who, Roy Castle as Ian, Jenny Lyndon as Barbara, and Roberta Tovey
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as Susan.
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In this version, however, Susan is a much younger girl, not a teenager.
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And Barbara is yet another older granddaughter of the doctor, and Ian is her boyfriend.
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The movie is oddly put together.
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The plot is different in several ways from the original TV story, but many of the specific
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scenes are retained.
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At one hour twenty-three minutes, it is shorter than the TV story, but for some reason,
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I didn't seem to think anything was missing.
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That's probably a statement of how with weakly serialized approach, they're tended to be
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more padding.
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It's not a critically regarded movie.
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It was commercially successful to a degree that the same studio made a movie out of the
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second Hartnell Dalek story.
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If you have a little over an hour and need to fill it, this might be worth looking at.
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But if you pass it by, you haven't really missed anything vital.
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But if you want the pleasure, you can get it from the Internet Archive, and I've put
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a link in the show notes.
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So the second movie, Dalek's Invasion Earth 2150 AD, came out in 1966.
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The second movie recapitulates the main plot points from the Hartnell serial.
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But as in the first movie, the casting is different.
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Peter Cushing and Roberta Tovy return as the doctor in Susan.
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But in place of Barbara, there is now a niece Louise, played by Jill Curzon.
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And in place of Ian, we now have a police constable played by Bernard Cribbins, who returns
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many years later during David Tennant's run as Wilff, the grandfather of Donna Noble,
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though he previously appeared in a small role in Voyage of the Damned as a newspaper
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seller.
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As in the first movie, many of the scenes from the TV serial are retained, but details
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are changed.
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It's interesting that Cribbins, playing a police constable, enters the Tartus thinking
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it is a police call box, which is exactly what happened with Dodo Chaplin, who will meet
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a little bit later.
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At 1 hour 24 minutes, this is scarcely longer than the first movie, and like the first cannot
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be considered essential.
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No further movies about the dollics were made after this, which may be a commentary on
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its success, as with the first movie this can be found on the Internet Archive if you wish
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to view it.
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And by the way, please allow me a brief aside at this point to suggest that if you aren't
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already supporting the Internet Archive, you should consider doing so.
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They provide an essential service to the Internet.
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I personally send them $5 a month.
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And you may not know this, but all of the audio files that Hacker Public Radio serves
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up to you are hosted on the Internet Archive.
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So they are really one of the big players behind the success of HPR and deserve to be supported.
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So with that, this is Huka for Hacker Public Radio, signing off and is always encouraging
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you to support FreeSoftware.
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Bye bye!
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You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio, and Hacker Public Radio does work.
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Today's show was contributed by a HPR listener like yourself.
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If you ever thought of recording podcasts, you click on our contribute link to find out
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how easy it really is.
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The hosting for HPR has been kindly provided by an honesthost.com, the Internet Archive
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and our sings.net.
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On the Sadois status, today's show is released under Creative Commons, Attribution 4.0 International
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License.
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