Also, welcome @cumquat. Absolutely brilliant first post!  🙂

@purofilion   Some of those forum rules I have seen before but a few are really strange. Don’t use replies or tags? So they actually don’t want conversations at all, which I thought was the point? And don’t use Latin is just sad. I used to be better at Latin than I am today, but if s…[Read more]

I missed this recent bit of chatter as I was avoiding the Forum until seeing Before the Flood, and by then of course, my Activity page was so filled with that that I never got this far.

Welcome, @Winston and @Mirime! I too was a long time lurker, only breaking silence after the 50th anniversary, when a particularly impressive post impelled me to…[Read more]

@jphamlore    I would think that, just because those people thought they could go back and change history, doesn’t mean they actually could do it, and do it successfully. Look what happened when River tried not to kill the Doctor.   🙂

Also, I would add my caveat to @Bluesqueakpip‘s, that just because a popular film deals with an idea, does…[Read more]

@Supernumerary

Yes, I think that the manner in which they gave us the causal loop clue in the intro was meant to turn it into a sort of super clue. (I rather suspect that @Bluesqueakpip‘s theory is correct.) It also meant that we were thinking about causal loops all the time we were watching the episode. I’ll have to keep this in mind on my s…[Read more]

@lisa    That may be true. It wouldn’t surprise me if it were; equally, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear him say, “Oh, cool, I hadn’t actually thought of that. I was actually channelling …” Some other source. Myself, I don’t have a strong view either way.   🙂

@DenValdron    🙂 Yes, well, speaking as someone whose significant other is now employed by a company involved in the sausage biz, I can say that principle is sound.

Seriously, I don’t actually think that Moffat sat down and asked himself, “What thematic ideas can I mine from the Tarot?” More that those underlying themes are present in lots of…[Read more]

Going back to the episode opening: while I understood entirely the point the Doctor was making with his story, the phrase “bootstrap paradox” was new to me; so I have, as the Doctor advised, googled it. I’ve read a fairish bit of Heinlein, but not the story referenced by that phrase, so I am happy to be more informed!

But in thinking about the c…[Read more]

@ichabod    You’re right, there was an element of that with Twin Peaks, although I doubt that the theorists were ever able to out-bonkers what the actual writers of that show came up with! (Incidentally, I still remember being floored by the fabulous opening episode of that show, the layers of event and emotion and the beautiful way they were pr…[Read more]

I should also add to the above, that I have been thinking lately about how much TV has changed in recent years. This is the first show that I have regularly watched that actually requires a second viewing to get everything you can out of it. I know that there are other shows out there like that, but I don’t happen to watch them. But it seems to me…[Read more]

@sarah-jane109    Sorry you aren’t enjoying the series so far. But I’m not sure why you feel you can’t say that here. If you have been reading people’s comments you will see that there are certainly members who disagree with one another. There are definitely people here who prefer the RTD era, and there have even been comments suggesting…[Read more]

@pedant      Putting our guesses out there before we know if we are right, that’s gutsy. Bragging rights when we nail it, that’s the prize.   🙂

@Craig    Perhaps those who always threatened to never watch again have actually decided to never watch again.     This made me laugh. Would that it were true.

@PhaseShift     Yes, I forgot to incl…[Read more]

Immediate thoughts: I didn’t find this quite as engrossing as the first part, I think because this felt cerebral rather than emotive. But I did enjoy it nonetheless. I suspect that there will be some dislike of this episode out in the fandom.  🙂 But I have lots of room in my heart for clever, and I thought on first watch that this was clever.…[Read more]

Did anyone not like that? Seriously. Fabulous. So much awesome.

Had to wait till this morning to watch as I’ve been out of town, but definitely worth the wait! I like base under siege stuff, and I always find the underwater ones especially scary. The potential lack of air gets to me in an actual, physical way.

I can’t just keep repeating how muc…[Read more]

@Kharis  @purofilion

I’m pretty sure that after little Rupert falls asleep, Clara asks the Doctor if he will remember, and the Doctor says no, something about a memory wipe or perception filter. And that he’s replaced the true memory with a dream of Dan the Soldier Man. So Danny would never remember any of those events.

@DenValdron    I would have thought it was obvious. Davros keeps his beer down there.

@Mudlark    You have expressed my view exactly, and both eloquently and succinctly. This is just why I saw a  Davros/Missy parallel. When Missy tells Clara, scornfully, to try for a moment to consider friendship, that was clearly a moment of absolute sincer…[Read more]

@jphamlore   I wasn’t actually talking about Clara, but comparing Missy and Davros, both twisted geniuses, both capable of understanding the Doctor in some very deep ways.

@ichabod said these things about Davros :    these are the tiny points of light still extant in Davros — that gleam of common humanity  – and then you see Davros’s fear steam-…[Read more]

@DenValdron     Fair enough. I think what we have is some character behaviour that may not bother some people, but feels entirely wrong or out of place to others. I have felt that way about companions or other characters in the past and others have not necessarily shared my view. For example, I felt that Courtney’s hurt at the Doctor not thi…[Read more]

@ichabod    I love your description of the Davros/Doctor conversation. You’re right. Even while I watched, knowing that there was an underlying plot, it was just heartbreaking when the plot was finally revealed. Because you sensed one of those moments where something might have been changed for the better, if Davros had only been up for it. In f…[Read more]

@DenValdron   re your points about genuine emotional payoff and the revolting sewers.    I see what you’re saying, and it’s a fair point in a way. But here’s my problem with it. If the Doctor is only to be allowed victory where it is based on concepts that pre-date the episode, this is pretty limiting to the writers. I can see that it might have…[Read more]

Reading some comments on the other place (not the really stupid ones, but the ones from people who can actually articulate a bit of a reason for their dislike) has given rise to some thoughts.

Someone said that the destruction of the TARDIS made it obvious that Clara and Missy weren’t really dead. I actually agreed with that, because that was t…[Read more]