Apologies if my earlier post to you sounded snarky, it wasn’t intended.

Your choice of the word “nigger” as being a word which was originally inoffensive is interesting. It might have had a […]

I completely understand that you feel strongly about this particular word. I’m not disagreeing with you but as my first reply to you pointed out, I wasn’t aware of its derogatory connotations till […]

How condescending.  But thank you for your precis of cultural references – that added so much to my comprehension of the original blog.

Sorry, but that phrasing sounds like the epitome of […]

@apopheniac

You and @PhaseShift both demanded your right to […]

re the offending term – I hadn’t come across it till I heard it in connection with RTD, when it conjured up images of Emperor Ming and his followers (cheap scifi, […]

Like @juniperfish, I think this was one of RTD’s misses. I know it was probably just a derivation of ding-dong with maybe a bit of Morlock thrown in, which he definitely […]

@TheKrynoidMan    I can’t claim a lot of love for The Phantom Menace, although I didn’t think it w…[Read more]

@Arbutus & @Apopheniac I second that award. I worked out what BTL meant but every time I see it I hear Billy Crystal’s voice in my head.

Cheers

Janette

@Apopheniac Late last night, I watched The Tenth Planet (so now I have three First Doctor stories under my belt so to speak, having also seen An Unearthly Child).  It was interesting to see the Cybermen in their original outing (please someone correct me if that wasn’t the first Cyberman story), and compare them to what we’ve recently seen in Da…

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It definitely does place The Daleks in its specific era – it is very peculiar to me to see how Barbara seems to automatically defer to Ian, and how Ian sends his fellow teacher and  a female alien away when dealing with the dying mutant inside the travel machine, just…[Read more]

@Rob

Well in the eternal triangle of Bucks, Oxon and Northamptonshire  where the winds blow, the rain cascsdes and the earth slowly liquifies into a soul sapping…

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There are a number of possible reasons why Missy et al wanted people to voluntarily delete their emotions before becoming Cybermen.  As @PhaseShift says, people have been known to resist Cyber conversion throughout the years.  Missy may h…[Read more]

I think it’s a sign of confidence and bravery to do something different with a show. You may lose a few people on the way but,…[Read more]

On a philosophical note … why was it so important that the person themself press the Delete button?  Why wasn’t that something Seb (or Missy) could just do themselves?  Since 2005, Cyberman creation hasn’t required that the person delete their own emotions – quite the opposite in fact.

Is this another one of the holes in The Master’s…

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No spoilers intended. His one season sign on has been mentioned here and there. I think the last place I read it was TV Guide Magazine. One season and one Christmas episode it said. My theory isn’t definite though. That’s all it is is a theory. As for the content of this post it all pertains to this episode. But if you want me to move…[Read more]

@Geoffers thanks for fixing me ! 🙂 🙂 I will particularly watch out for that !

always have a soft spot for certain tragic characters too]

I’d forgotten these. And I have a pretty good memory!

Hypnotic, isn’t she? 😀

Seriously, it’s quite possible that there was a line – and either time constraints meant it got left out, or they felt in editing that it made it too apparent that UNIT, throughout the episode, reacts very strangely towards Missy.

They fall into her t…[Read more]

For the many millions of DW fans who’ve joined in since 2005, The Master being good at hypnotism isn’t known.

Which is a bit weird, really, because it was sort of a major plot point in Sound of Drums.

@Apopheniac    Yes. Well, I suppose I am old school enough that it didn’t occur to me to worry about the companion needing to sustain a story arc. And in fact, even in AG Who, it hasn’t always been that way. Actually, I think it’s quite possibl…[Read more]

Otherwise – sparks!

zzzzztttc-htst!zzzzzttttttt!tttzzztzttch!!chchttzttzsttattzttttz!!

😉

@pedant      It is a fundamental of good storytelling that victory has a cost.    I could accept Danny as the cost, but not Osgood!  🙁  I will have to watch again, but I didn’t think the…[Read more]

I also noticed the fantasy theme continuing with Missy as Mary Poppins and Santa will be here for Xmas. I thought it was interesting that Santa tells the Doctor that he (the Doctor) can’t let it end like that (or words to that effect). I wonder what the Doctor will want for Xmas.

CyberDan the Good – touching…[Read more]

I don’t mind people not knowing when they haven’t watched the BG series or Delgado; it’s when they claim in one post that we should have a Master like Delgado then, in another post,…[Read more]

I said it just once on the Graun. I flatly refuse to repeat it several hundred times for idiots who claim that Moffat is ruining the memory of Delgado but who don’t know one of the Delgado Master’s most basic abilities. 🙄

P.S. Addendum: I don’t mean you. I’m…[Read more]

Yes, I wondered when the music kicked in at…[Read more]

But I will never forgive him pissing on the spoilerphobe fans by inserting the Christmas preview in the middle of the closing credits.

Oh for crying out load. Moffat has repeatedly made it clear that nothing released through official channels is a spoiler. Indeed, as this ep showed, it is more often misdirection.

I had barely recovered from almost snorting beer out my nose at @Phaseshift ‘letter to the BBC’ about trolls when I then came across the post from @Whisht and well, lets just say I wishI had some sort of respiratory bypass…[Read more]

You argue that the Heaven/afterlife in which HFM, Gretchen, the PC and Danny find themselves might be real because

We have seen Missy, Seb and PCSO all in the same place at the same time

But that argument is easily countered. Missy is an avatar projected into the virtual world, Seb is either another such avatar or a virtual const…[Read more]

That would certainly explain why Danny got Seb. He may be closely connected to the Doctor, but he didn’t sacrifice himself, so doesn’t rate that…[Read more]

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]

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

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

@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 …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]

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]

@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]

@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]