I watched the two-parter in one go this time, and as with part one, I find that I don’t have much new to say about. Except that I do like Kate Stewart. I think that Jemma Redgrave must be deliberately channelling the Brigadier as she is absolutely believable as his daughter– same calm control and steady humour.

It also occurred to me, lis…[Read more]

I’m trying to remember if we have ever in 10 years of AG Doctor Who had fifteen solid minutes without so much as a flash of light, a single moment of humour. Even without the shock value of first viewing, that opening fifteen minutes is still incredibly hard to watch. Then, suddenly, we are in Seb’s office, and he is asking for coffee, “the good…[Read more]

@Mudlark    Yes, well I think there was in general a more robust view of those things back in the day. But I was actually thinking of some of the modern picture books my son had, a decade or so ago, that were just works of art. I think in the back of my mind was a book about a snake in the rain forest, with semi-gloss pages full of different sh…[Read more]

@blenkinsopthebrave     Well, a lot of us are hoping that it might be!  🙂

@ichabod    So sorry to hear about your sister, and glad that she is doing well. Here is some upbeat faux renaissance music.

I’ve enjoyed reading everyone’s more recent comments about this story, but waited until I had reached it in my rewatch before jumping in. But I loved @ichabod‘s comparison of the visual look and feel to a beautifully illustrated children’s book. I’m sure that must have been exactly what they were aiming for, those lovely pages filled with rich…[Read more]

@Australia    Wow. You can do that? Fabulous. I’d be in full on envy mode right now if it weren’t for the likelihood that we will soon be ditching, not just our PM, but the whole government as well.

Here’s hoping all suppositories go the same way.   🙂

@purofilion    Sometimes I amuse myself looking at the reader reviews on Amazon. Many of the reviewers are intensely frustrating, as their non-understanding of basic subject-predicate-object grammar, not to mention punctuation, renders them unfit in my view to criticize anyone’s writing, no matter how poor the book, that was actually coherent en…[Read more]

@mudlark    The Bone Clocks Sounds fascinating. I will have to look into it. I don’t mind a really long book as if I am loving something, I never really want it to end!

I do love The Dispossessed, it’s possibly my favourite LeGuin novel. You’re right that it expresses the same theme in a fully realized, “realistic” story, while Omelas is a…[Read more]

My guess, if I have a guess, is that this doesn’t refer in any major way to anything from Series 8. I agree with those who think it might have something to do with Rassilon. Or it might be someone entirely new (which would be great!). The whole things feels too portentous to refer to the MixMaster (IMO).

@purofilion     Oh, yes. Arbutus Jr. had t…[Read more]

@ichabod

Less erudite than Puro’s selection above, but lots of soul! And the theme of absolutely loads of music drama in a nutshell.  🙂

@purofilion @mudlark   I took Puro’s advice and moved this reply here, lest we all get modded. This same concern about critics (which of course is the problem in a nutshell with the Jones “review” of Terry Pratchett) applies equally to film and music critics. The problem is that a big part of what we enjoy is dictated by taste, and it can’t be p…[Read more]

@ichabod   People who write Utopian stories usually write them in order to dig until the find the weak point in the system, where something is deeply unfair, exploitative, or doomed by the passage of time.

You remind me of Ursula LeGuin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”: beautifully concise and poetically descriptive at the same time, s…[Read more]

@blenkinsopthebrave

Yes. This is a story that I want to see. (Raises glass.)

Thanks for the link, @JimTheFish! I was interested to read it, although I was sorry to see that they have apparently decided to disable comments, as it would have been interesting to see if any readers at least gave him credit for trying. (Although I suppose there wouldn’t have been much of that, really.) I thought that his point of view was much…[Read more]

This was a standout, wasn’t it? I was impressed at how flawlessly it flowed between humour and suspense… one minute we would be laughing at the Doctor stuck in his tiny TARDIS, the next, ripples were running across the floor and people were being sucked away. The cold opening was one of the creepiest ever, and then it was followed by the shr…[Read more]

@purofilion   This is exactly how I feel about it. There is lots to enjoy there, but for various reasons, it is low down the list for me. To be sure, since I felt that most of Series 8 was absolutely fabulous, that is not that big a strike, really!  🙂

@nerys @lisa   I’m glad that others were able to find these things convincing, and love the…[Read more]

Well, I don’t have the remotest clue what that is about, but I can’t wait to find out. Isn’t it great?   🙂

@purofilion

Interesting point about showrunners keeping everyone happy. I think that Whedon has had an easier time, in that Buffy et al were his creations. Doing Marvel, he would open himself up to the same kind of ARSE that we see with Who fans all the time. I think in some ways, Moffat has had fewer problems with Sherlock, because although that…[Read more]

@nerys   I think you are probably right about Clara. It just came off as a massively annoying moment, for me. A good example of why, despite how much I enjoy her with the Doctor, I probably wouldn’t want Clara as a friend– she would just drive me nuts. 🙂

Regarding Courtney, it wasn’t so much that I didn’t think she would want/need to be tho…[Read more]