@Apopheniac

I am flattered, but I can’t claim anything like the extensive knowledge of Doctor Who history and lore that many others here possess.  I am sufficiently advanced in years to have been around since the beginning of the show and watching on and off, but during the sixties and early seventies there were quite long stretches where I did n…[Read more]

@Apopheniac – Yes, some of what we’ve seen this year brought The Mind Robber to mind. Meeting Robin Hood, for instance, and the mythic and fairytale elements that have made the season seem less real than usual. For a while I vaguely entertained the idea that ‘Missy’ might be short for ‘Mistress of the Land of Fiction’, but then decided that Moffat…[Read more]

@purofilion    Well, yes. That is how I generally watch. My first viewing is very much an emotional one (which is probably why I rarely dislike an episode!). On rewatch I can see more twists/possibilities/flaws, and if I am formulating theories, it’s usually then that I do it.

@glenisterm @Apopheniac    Aside from giving me the strong sense t…[Read more]

@Apopheniac That really did make me LOL. In my defence that was taken at a  festival that had a Circus theme. I went as a bearded lady.

But really, any excuse to get in a dress and I’m there.

@Whoville    You’d think that by now he’d be relieved it’s just the Master again       No kidding!

@TheKrynoidMan   To me it just doesn’t seem like something any of the other incarnations of The Master would ever do.   I disagree, I think the Simm Master would have done it. In fact, even as a man, I can imagine his Master having done it!  :-)…[Read more]

@Apopheniac– yes, ‘twas me and thank you- after being so very wrong about Missy (although she could still, in theory, be the papal mainframe, I’m stepping back from that theory) I’d love it if this hunch was true. The post it notes, her attitude seemed so important, I just think it has to mean something more than ‘what she was doing when he died…[Read more]

@Apopheniac …but wasnt the point of the dark water that it contained/only showed actual organic material?  The bones, bodies – but not souls.  So I agree with people who think that Danny isnt dead, and that the Nethersphere contains people who arent actually dead.

A good point. Hopefully we will have some sort of explanation as to how the Mist…[Read more]

Now that I have had time for a second watch and to gather my thoughts a bit more …

To return, first of all, to the theme of Orpheus and Eurydice which I mentioned yesterday evening; apart from the very powerful and realistic portrayal of numbed grief, this was the thing that struck me most forcibly during the opening sequences.  Even the…[Read more]

Random thoughts about random comments:

@Juniperfish     Yes, I loved the moment where the president is revealed to be a “she”, and then a moment later, the Doctor refers to “womankind”.   🙂

@Apopheniac   Was is just me who saw them slo-mo running and thought, sigh?   No, I had exactly the same thought. That felt contrived and unnecessary to me…[Read more]

@Apopheniac– both do work, don’t they…

@PhaseShift– I don’t know if you’ve read ‘The Neverending Story’, especially the second half, the seeming miracle o the resurrection of a world and the price that is always paid for it…

the more I think about it, the fact that Missy is at least calling her wherever the afterlife etc, and the doctor has…[Read more]

@nick1235    The slow-mo of when they’re getting in to the bank is VERY VERY SEXY.     I completely agree, I loved this bit, it was pretty stylish!

@BadWulf    The guy who got “souped” was a bystander, but clearly not innocent (except of trying to break into the bank!).

@Bluesqueakpip    Interesting point about Clara’s guilt. I wonder if i…[Read more]

@ScaryB   I like your thoughts about Clara’s relationships with the two new men in her life.  ☺  Definitely no more turkey cooking for this Doctor! And I too can completely understand her reluctance to be more open with either of them just yet.

@Apopheniac    I agree that the really scary moments in this didn’t lead to the same kind of climactic…[Read more]

@Whisht and @Apopheniac

re Promised Land = Gallifrey

I’m with you. I’m sticking with the fact that Arcadia is a Greek name for Utopia = Arcadia on Gallifrey didn’t fall, but rather was “saved”.

P.S. I am totally in awe of and jealous of those who caught the missing coat “continuity error”.

@Apopheniac
That prostate is ‘a terrible idea for a proctologist’…..

Hi @Apopheniac – yes, I think PL = Gallifrey too (at least it is currently for the Doctor, though as with all quests, it may be that he finds that its something else he’s to discover).

Weirdly that garbled rambling incoherent post last night, actually had no bonkers in it!

I know – what does this say about the state of my brain!!!

😐

@Apopheniac

Thats another example though where it can plausibly be said that Claras not mind-reading

I think it more likely that being a teacher who has had to learn to control a roomful of teenagers, spot troubled pupils etc, AND who knocks around with an eccentric,  she has simply become rather good at reading people.

Shes looking directly into…

[Read more]

Hi @FiveFaces – ype as @Apopheniac says ‘Robot’ is from ‘worker’.

I have heard of Carel Kapek but never read anything by him – it was he (or his brother) who first used the word as the name of sentient automatons (R.U.R – Rossum’s Universal Robots stageplay – the robits of which are a bit closer to being part-organic-part-mechanical;…[Read more]

@Apopheniac – 5 minutes to edit…

Cloudwatching is cool…

Hi @Apopheniac – he he – ‘seemingly random’ – if you asked anyone on this forum they’d give you staggeringly good answers if you showed them some Rorshach blots!

😉

And I’m with you on not even looking at the ‘Coming next week’ to avoid spoilery stuff!

Hello @Apopheniac (your’s isn’t so easy to type either! Hope I’ve got it right.)

Thanks for the info on the etymology of robot. Still fits, I think, with a general oppressed working class idea, since we have had an awful lot of robots — and self-improving assertive robots too, heading for the ‘promised land’ — in the show. I’m not saying it’s…[Read more]