I thought there was a really unique pace to this episode. It was a series of quiet, intimate scenes and conversations, punctuated occasionally by 66 second bursts of intense excitement. And the soundtrack! Absolutely pitch perfect, classic mystery mood music. As far as I noticed, we didn’t hear the familiar heroic DW theme until the Doctor made h…[Read more]

@purofilion @janetteB

Thank you! I’m really enjoying my rewatch as it seems with distance, I am able to be a little more analytical. (I don’t know how professional reviewers do it, actually!) It’s easy to be so excited that I am watching Doctor Who, that I am not always aware of what I like or don’t like.

Puro, I don’t remember particularly…[Read more]

This was never a favourite of mine, but not for any reasons connected to dodgy science/moon is an egg issues. There were some key aspects to the story that did bother me, though.

I disliked the whole premise for taking Courtney on board the TARDIS. The Doctor told her she wasn’t special? Seriously? She hadn’t known the Doctor long enough or wel…[Read more]

@janetteB et al

Well, I did my bit to get things back on track, a few posts back, but all in vain apparently. You lot will not stay focused, will you? 🙂

Lucky for us all the mods seem to be on vacation this weekend.We could move Dickens etc. to the books thread, I suppose.

It’s a holiday weekend in North America, but I don’t think that is…[Read more]

I really enjoyed this the first time around, and did again. Lots of great moments here: the Doctor undercover, just trying to get on with saving the world; the whole Adrian thing; the Doctor and Courtney “Disruptive Influence” Woods (ah yes, there’s been a spillage). It was brought down just a bit by my feeling a little bit irritated by Clara…[Read more]

@bluesqueakpip @CathAnnabel @Miapatrick

Here’s the thing about all these characters that annoy us, with whom we wouldn’t want to have tea, want to slap, etc. They are fully realized and realistic characters, each in their own way “psychologically credible”, drawn from real life. The writers are all insightful enough to understand how people…[Read more]

This is quite possibly my favourite episode of the series (although there are a couple coming that I will have to see again before making that judgement). But I loved this from start to finish, every single moment of it. Riveting. Stylish. Funny. Suspenseful. All of the guest roles were perfectly played. The Doctor, going from strength to…[Read more]

@CathAnnabel    Ha. You’ve nailed exactly how I felt about the shift from Ten to Eleven. The problem then became one of feeling maternal about the Doctor, which is no good either!  🙂

I like your thoughts about Rose. I haven’t watched Series 1 in a very long time, and should do it at some point. Also Mickey; his personal growth trajectory was…[Read more]

@miapatrick    I meant to say in response to your comment about Citizen Kane, that I’m not above a little sentiment, but I need it to be pretty well leavened with humour. I’ll take Casablanca, where we are smiling at the end, any day! As a teenager, I read Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice both within a short time of one another, and liked them b…[Read more]

@Mudlark @Miapatrick

Obviously, people have a right to their opinions and the right to read what the want. But there is a bit of responsibility that goes with having access to a public forum like the Guardian. Literary criticism is one thing, and if he had read one of Pratchett’s books and then said, “Here are my problems with this book”, then…[Read more]

@mudlark  @ichabod

Goodness. I had bookmarked the (mercifully brief) Guardian piece by Jonathan Jones, and just finally got around to reading it. I’m sorry, but what an idiot! Firstly, how do you make such a judgement about a writer whom you admittedly have never read??? Secondly, this whole attitude, and the need to assign some kind of cu…[Read more]

@lisa   I’m not sure what the connection would have been. They are also trying to put a pipeline through there, called Northern Gateway, for the oil sands product, which might have been part of what you were reading. They’ve had much less joy with the pipeline, as most people here are against it and there’s very little in it for the BC g…[Read more]

@Whisht    I hate to think what the Arsenal fans are reading right now. (ARSEnal is probably an apt descriptor for some of them if they are anything like Canadian ice hockey fans!) Actually, I started my day by listening to a lengthy lecture from my son on various deals that had made him happy, sad, or filled with hilarity, depending on the ci…[Read more]

@ichabod @mudlark @janetteB @purofilion

Moved into the pub for ease of ranting. As we currently have a (very lengthy) federal election going on at the moment, I may be ranting a bit more than usual!  😡

Mudlark’s comment      it is difficult not to feel that we are governed by people who are intent on jettisoning pretty much everything this nat…[Read more]

Just watched this again. I’d forgotten how really good and scary and moving this episode was. Definitely a future classic. I’d also forgotten how massively irritated I was with Clara at the beginning. She just seemed so dense! So insensitive! So… Doctor-like.

@TheConsultingDoctor    Yes. Watching the scene with Clara and Orson, I remember…[Read more]

@missy @ichabod

This was the other one I watched over the weekend. Even at this late date, I still had the same big goofy grin as the first time! So much fun to see the CapDoc showing his lighthearted side, as well as the beautiful BBC work to create a storybook twelfth century– “It’s realistic, I’ll give you that.” Like the Doctor, I spent the…[Read more]

@fowl    I love WOTE!  🙂  My teenager introduced me to them and they are fabulous. I like a lot of their songs, but this one is my favourite:

I’ve finally started a proper rewatch of the last series, which hopefully will flow nicely into the start of Series Nine, and got a bit of viewing in over the weekend. This wasn’t one of my favourite episodes on first viewing, but it was interesting to come back to it. In many ways, it was our real intro to the new Doctor, now fully functional and…[Read more]

@purofilion      A pair of showrunners mentioned that there are people who run, not one, but three series at once: therefore “they have to drop the ball. I mean come on!

Isn’t that what the Moffat-haters are always on about? “He’s giving too much attention to Sherlock, so Doctor Who suffers… He should leave DW to someone who has the time to do…[Read more]

@Craig    Thanks for posting the link to the Iannucci speech. He was at times intelligent, emotional, and hilarious- in short, fantastic. If I could, I would warn the British not to underestimate what they’ve got, and cheap themselves out of a fabulous cultural resource. I have watched as the CBC here in Canada, which is funded directly thro…[Read more]