[Arbutus @replies]

@jimthefish      But your attitude seems to be to treat this is the pinnacle of Who achievement, with everything before leading up to it and everything after a corruption of this alleged golden age. In reality, it was not just the coming together of a creative team that worked well, it was cultural flashpoint whose success lies in lots of other external factors. It worked brilliantly at the time (and some of it still stands up really well today — and some of it, frankly, doesn’t) but it can’t be used as a template for everything that comes after it is pointless and self-defeating.

This is really well said, and from an arts criticism point of view, stands up really well. Any program that lasts 50 years has to be viewed in the same way as a broader art form, with individual eras that were interconnected to the cultural and practical realities of the times. In musicology, there has often been a similar tendency to cluster history around certain specific flash points, to treat it as developmental rather than simply something that flows and changes over time. But just because certain gifted composers meshed with their times and their audiences in a successful way, that doesn’t mean we dismiss everything that came later when those times and cultures had changed. If so, we would all still be singing Gregorian chant and there would be no saxophones. Even being a medievalist by training, I would be spiritually the poorer without the existence of polyphonic music and the modern blues band!

[Arbutus @replies]

Oh, look, a new pub! And in Scotland, home of (half of) my forebears, with lots of surrounding humidity to remind me of home.  🙂

@pufferfish   Oh, I’m envious of your grocery store. Years ago when we were in the south of France, we first encountered the locals walking in with their big plastic jugs, and a wall lined with taps for the plonk of your choice. We thought it was a great idea.

Happy birthday, @mudlark! Forever Young, as we say nowadays around my place.  🙂  It sounds as if you’ve been having a lovely time. Cotes du Rhone is definitely a desert island variety of mine, it never fails to make me happy (along with a nice strong piece of blue cheese and any kind of music that includes a horn section!). Did you chat with King Raedwald in Old English? 🙂 I took a course in that at uni, from a rather odd prof who seemed to think we were all taking linguistics degrees, when of course we were mainly lit or history students, and he was always taking us to task for not knowing the etymology of things. It was all rather hilarious.

[Arbutus @replies]

The question of the Doctor as romantic lead is interesting too. I think that the Doctor in all his incarnations is fundamentally a very attractive character. A lot of the qualities that seem to be basic to him are qualities which I think are generally appealing. So it seems perfectly believable to me that when he appears in a physical guise that also appeals to a person, then that attraction might turn to a romantic attachment. We humans are inclined that way, we are told!  🙂

@ichabod    Yes, thanks for that point! Although I think that @jimthefish probably meant that Twelve is not being written as a romantic lead. But from an audience perspective, he gets my middle-aged heart beating a tad faster– not something that I could say about Matt Smith, the dear boy, excellent Doctor though he was!  🙂

@denvaldron   Watching paint dry might be a highly meditative activity. And in fact, if the Doctor were doing it, it might be fairly analytical as well!

@purofilion    Well, if he could sonic people’s phones, why not a tennis racket?

[Arbutus @replies]

What a fascinating conversation I’ve been missing here!  🙂  I loved @nerys’s rundown of the AG Doctors and pretty much agree with all of it. The “Doctor Dances” two-parter was the absolute highlight of Series 1 for me, and that scene was Nine at his best. On the whole, Eccelston never really gelled as the Doctor for me, but there were a few moments when he absolutely nailed it, and this was the best of them.

I also agree with a lot of @PlainOldDave’s rundown of the earlier Doctors. Four was “my” Doctor, although I also have fond memories of Pertwee and UNIT, and like @bluesqueakpip, I enjoyed McCoy. I even found the goofy Seven of McCoy’s first series worked better for me than either Davison or C. Baker, although they both brought elements that I enjoyed. But McCoy was at his best when he could hint at hidden depths. I’ve heard some of his Big Finish stories and there, too, he is terrific when he is being darker and more secretive!

My problem with the farewell scene between Ten and Rose was not so much how it was played, because I thought it was actually rather understated. My dislike was more fundamental, because it played to an interpretation of their relationship that I simply couldn’t get on board with! Rose in love with the Doctor? Probably inevitable, given everything. The Doctor in love with Rose? I just couldn’t see it, and inasmuch as we saw Ten apparently fall to a massive crush on Madame Pompadour, I’m not sure that Russell T. Davies was really convinced either. But the Doctor’s words in that scene strongly suggested that he was in love with her, and so it felt hugely out of place to me.

Emotion in general, I’m okay with. I loved Ten’s unhappiness after losing Donna, and Eleven’s after losing Amy. As @bluesqueakpip suggests, many of us wrote at length around the time of Day of the Doctor, thoughts about fallout from the Time War that made Ten and Eleven behave the way they did. And the fact of change is fundamental to the nature of regeneration: he is the same Doctor, but also a new Doctor. This, too, we have discussed at times– it’s endlessly fascinating!

[Arbutus @replies]

@jimthefish     Oh, that would be really fun. It wouldn’t surprise me if Moffat were saving them especially for that fate!

[Arbutus @replies]

@blenkinsopthebrave      Personally, I would love this. I was always sorry that they didn’t explore this a little bit more after Eleven lost Amy. Ten travelled alone for awhile after the Donna fiasco, and although I didn’t love everything about those specials, I did enjoy the flexibility that came from the lack of a permanent companion. I try to avoid too many spoilers, but I’m pretty sure I would have heard if any permanent new companion had been announced, so I’m a bit hopeful that the radio silence means that Moffat and Co. might actually be considering this.

[Arbutus @replies]

@pedant    Thanks for the Ashildr/Arya meta pointers.  🙂

@drben     You make a lot of really good points, particularly the one regarding Maisie Williams. I hadn’t thought of it, but you’re absolutely right, that she is really deliberately playing two different characters in this, and in that respect, she pulls it off. I agree that I also found the notion of forgetting so much of one’s life to be quite haunting.

I’m fully onside about the guitar. I’m not sure why some people seem to be quite powerfully irritated by it. I see no reason why this incarnation wouldn’t turn to a bit of music as an outlet for whatever he’s feeling. As to the sonic sunglasses, my guess at this point is that they will be a thing for the Twelfth Doctor. Some may like them, others may not. I didn’t initially that they would last long, but the fact that they returned this week after being broken last week suggests that they will be around for awhile. And, kitschy as they are, I actually think they suit Twelve’s style better than the screwdriver!

@jimthefish     Yes, I could easily watch that for half the day and still find it funny.  🙂

[Arbutus @replies]

@cathannabel      I’m not sure. I think she must age at least a bit, because the gizmo that’s keeping her alive is “healing” her. Unless it’s healing her literally every second? It’s kind of hard to imagine how that could work, actually. But hard luck for her having been essentially frozen at such a young age, because the lack of visible aging will be much harder to hide than at, say, thirty or so. In any case, I agree with you and others who don’t think she could actually have been Clara’s Mom, but I also think that the imitation is too exact to be a coincidence.

@janetteb    Baker showed less emotion, but I always enjoyed the lovely moment at the very end of The Invasion of Time, after he leaves Leela behind. She says, clearly feeling sad and hoping for something back, that she will miss him. He only gives her a little wave and that rather clueless smile he sometimes wore, and steps into the TARDIS (I don’t remember if he actually said anything in response, although he might have). But then, safely inside the TARDIS and away from prying eyes, he says, with huge sadness, “I’ll miss you too, savage.” He may not have shown the depth of his feelings for his companions, but he felt it, all right!

@mirime   The word “cocktail” rather jumped out at me as well, although my 17th century costume knowledge is general enough that the hats seemed fine to me. (I didn’t get that far on the Guardian board this time, as it all became rather predictable rather quickly!   🙂

[Arbutus @replies]

@jphamlore      Good points about the shared point of view between Missy and Ashildr.

@ichabod    I had not noticed Sam Swift and the hangman at the end. I agree, though, that it is a rather charming notion. Sam clearly doesn’t hold anything against a guy just “doing his job”! And I guess the hangman’s view is, if God (as I would imagine him to think) saw fit to bring this guy back from the dead, who am I to complain?   🙂

@missy     As to Maisie Williams’ performance, I was neither appalled nor blown away. Not being a Game of Thrones viewer, I had never heard of her and found all the fuss about her during the pre-season vaguely irritating, like they had cast Dame Judi Dench for Pete’s sake. 🙂 I thought she was okay. As you and Ichi say, she was given more interesting work to do in the second part, so was correspondingly more interesting to watch. But I didn’t think she was particularly bad in the first, either, just kind of a non event from my point of view. But then I googled her and learned how really young she is! She’s only 18, for crying out loud. I guess I will cut her some slack. If people love her in GoT, maybe she’s going places? I’ll check back in about ten years.  ☺

[Arbutus @replies]

@fatmaninabox      Oh, great. More things for me to spend my money on.  🙂

I suppose once they broke through the copyright wall to the AG series, this was going to happen sooner or later. BF seems to have no problem reeling people in to their world. Apparently, it’s the lunches.  🙂

[Arbutus @replies]

@seeoswald    As to the three shows that you have referred to as having “Canadian influence”, well, okay, they were all filmed in Vancouver. I live there and know people in the film industry there, and I can say with certainty that the only Canadian thing about those shoes was that they used local crew and extras, they filmed in our streets, and we all got to complain every time their mobile dressing rooms started occupying street parking in our neighbourhoods. The creators, writers, directors, and lead actors were all American. We’ve had some decent Canadian TV over the years, but it didn’t feel anything like “Mad Men”.

Thus if the Scots here on the Forum say that they aren’t seeing any inherent “Scottishness” in the current DW, I’m inclined to take them at their word. I’m no longer a huge TV watcher, but my son is, and is an intelligent young man with pretty good taste, and he has found lots to love in shows like Breaking Bad, Suits, White Collar, The Family Guy, and so on. Just sayin’.

@cumquat   🙂 🙂 🙂

[Arbutus @replies]

@spider     Oh dear, I’m so sorry. I send hugs right back, in a much more Clara way as I am pretty good at them! My sweet Cima had nineteen good years, only becoming a bit wobbly and nearsighted in the last few; and he left us in the best possible way, after one difficult day and evening, falling asleep in his favourite place (on my son’s bed, against his legs) and not waking up. I suppose that having loved a small living thing and made him happy counts for something in the karmic circle.

@pedant    And hugs to you, too. We always wish for one more treat for our small friends, don’t we, one more experience that we know they would have loved. In another month, when the cold and rain comes, we will be turning on the electric fire in the evenings, and I will miss him anew when he isn’t there to share it with us.

[Arbutus @replies]

I’m interested that so many people think that Ashildr got her info on the Doctor from Missy. What makes you all think that? Clearly it’s a possibility; but it didn’t occur to me as a stronger than any others. My first thought was that she could have met people, over the centuries, who had met the Doctor, and been rescued or helped by him, and then watched him leave. She could also have met Mixmaster in a previous form. She could even have been present on some occasion when the Doctor put in an appearance in an earlier incarnation. He would not have recognized her in that case. (I realize this is a more complicated solution than “He met Missy”!) She could even have been hanging out in the middle ages with Bors and company, couldn’t she?

[Arbutus @replies]

@PlainOldDave     Clara did warn this new incarnation from the start that she was a hugger and that his views didn’t enter into it. I also had a sense that the Doctor, in his sudden expression of feeling, was reacting to his experience with Ashildr and her immortality, and re-engaging with what it was he values about his companions (currently, Clara). And there was definitely a significant look from him at the end, that made me think “Time is ticking on Clara and the Doctor knows it!” If he could have seen his coming loss of Sarah Jane or Romana as clearly as he obviously sees Clara’s, perhaps he would have hugged them once in a while as well. He has also been through a universe of loss since those earlier days. I don’t know about any of the other “posters of a certain age” around here, but I’ve grown hugely more sentimental as I’ve gotten older. And I didn’t even have a Time War! 🙂

By the way, sorry if I’m spectacularly stupid, but I stared at your post for ages trying to understand what you meant by “PDA”. Thank goodness for google and Urban Dictionary. But I guess if I’m on record as being okay with Latin, I have no business being irritated by slang acronyms.

@ichabod    I like your thoughts about why the “damaged” Doctor of Series 8 would be so averse to physical contact, and why the more balanced Doctor we are seeing currently might be starting to loosen up a bit.

You’ve mentioned before, I think, the internet presence of Twelve/Clara “shippers”. This astounds me as there doesn’t seem to be anything in the episodes that would support it. But I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me.

[Arbutus @replies]

@ramzeppelin     Oh boy. Or, as we in liberal Canada like to say, with a slightly confused frown, “Sorry?”

[Arbutus @replies]

@jimthefish, I enjoyed the episode quite a bit, but I agree that it wasn’t a patch on the preceding episode, and it was mostly the arc-related aspects that were memorable.

@winston   It’s a good point about the notion of “pets”. We automatically take that as a belittlement, and of course it is in a sense. But having just lost a cat that lived with our family for nineteen years (longer than our son!), I agree with you that their absence leaves a giant whole. The “mayfly” comparison is kinder because it doesn’t carry the same baggage that the notion of “pet” does (to anyone who hasn’t had one, that is!).

@countscarlioni    Yes, my jury is very much out on Clara’s eventual fate. I am 50/50 on whether she will end up dead or immortal at this point!

@janetteb   I agree that I would love to see the Doctor travelling on his own for a bit!

@ichabod   Speedy Sam, or whatever he was called, was quite engaging. It was a bit of a throwaway character, but the actor made him likeable.

@kharis   That is a fabulous catch on the Clara’s mom outfit! I agree with everyone who has mentioned how helpful it is to watch this show with so many pairs of eyes (and brains!).  🙂

[Arbutus @replies]

This was fun, and interesting too. I always enjoy the Doctor sans companion; it makes a nice change in dynamic, and it’s freeing for him, in a way. I liked the easy flow of the story, characters, and dialogue. I also liked the rather quirky soundtrack.

I think we are being given a thematic arc of “Doctor’s Companion”… Missy’s remark about Clara as the puppy, Clara’s comment to the Doctor about “the next one”, and now all this fairly significant talk of all the ones the Doctor leaves behind, with Ashildr as their guardian. There is also the question of why the Doctor travels with a companion (clearly, Donna’s view that he sometimes needs to be stopped was only a part of the answer to that), and even the subject of friends and enemies that has been coming up since the prequel. I’m guessing that the end of Clara’s arc will examine not only Clara and her life but the whole, greater issue of the Doctor’s relationship with his human companions.

Cool that he made reference to Captain Jack, his other immortal friend! And I wonder who Ashildr has met by the time of the 17th century who knew the Doctor?

[Arbutus @replies]

Happy Birthday, @ichabod! A mug of tea is now being drunk in your honour, with best wishes for another year of commentary both insightful and bonkers.

@spacedmunkee     Good points all. Of course, the First Doctor was not portrayed as someone “relatable”, but someone scarier and more mysterious, with companions who were often front and centre in “saving the day”. It wasn’t all down to the Doctor in those days. But I would guess that the majority of today’s fans didn’t grow up with the First Doctor (demographics would suggest that most of today’s fans were not watching TV in 1963!). It was really only with the advent of the UNIT era that companions became “assistants” and it was the Doctor who always took the lead.

Despite Clara’s importance to the Doctor and strong, confident persona, I personally find Capaldi’s Doctor to be very much “front and centre”. His expressions of both confidence and fear are so infectious, his moments of joy so exuberant and elevating, his humour is presented with such deftness and his sombre moments with such gravitas, that it is no wonder that we have no trouble believing that he translates from Baby! There is absolutely no way, in my view, that he is ever outshone by Clara, dominant as she is. I suspect that a lesser companion would be swamped by his wake, so to speak.

[Arbutus @replies]

@pedant     That article was very interesting and extremely moving. Thanks for posting.

[Arbutus @replies]

@lisa   Beautifully put!

@brewski    @ichabod     Agreed, Capaldi made those lines into something pretty special.

It occurs to me to wonder how people can dismiss Doctor Who as “just a kid’s show” when it can inspire a conversation like this one! From plot points to “what is art” in a few posts. Nice.

[Arbutus @replies]

@brewski @pedant @ichabod

Fascinating ideas. I was going to post full agreement with Brewski’s original comment, and certainly from my own point of view it’s absolutely right. But @pedant is equally right on the “there is only so much that one can accept” side of things. But where that line is drawn is obviously different for all of us, which is why we get disagreement as with Kill the Moon or the excellence (or not) of companions.

@ichabod    What is and isn’t art? Can of soup, can of worms… a question that is almost impossible to answer without sounding unbearably snooty at times. But as you say, I think it is still right to ask the question. Just not to assume that there is ever only one answer!  🙂

[Arbutus @replies]

@purofilion    Personally, I don’t think that Clara is a Time Lady. But someone mentioned at some point the idea that she might eventually become one, or at least end up on Gallifrey. That thought occurred to me today as I watched, that we are possibly being set up, not for Clara to die, but for Clara not to die.

@delta    I like your avatar!

[Arbutus @replies]

@winston    Well, I did no happy dance, but my sister did cackle with glee into my phone for at least 30 seconds. It was impressive.  🙂  And the Jays won, too! Do you think they can get two more? Heady days, heady days.  🙂

[Arbutus @replies]

@blenkinsopthebrave     Was that not the most bizarre and frightening display of desperation you have ever seen? I truly couldn’t believe it, I had actually credited Harper with a bit of dignity. And it accomplished nothing, since the Liberals took suburban Toronto in the end anyway. Apparently Ford Nation is not the mighty force that we were led to believe.  🙂  Thank goodness, because that’s not the Canada I grew up with. Anyway, as you say, hopefully things are finally looking up. Salut!

Off now to watch some volleyball. Such a civilized sport, every one stays on their own side of the net, no pushing, shoving, or fouling. I think it’s the most smiley of all the sports my boy plays.  🙂

[Arbutus @replies]

@denvaldron, my sympathies. It is part of life but a very hard part. It sounds as though there is comfort to be had, but even leaving aside all the many difficult things that must be dealt with in the aftermath, we miss our loved ones after they are gone. I’m sorry for your loss.

[Arbutus @replies]

Finally had a chance to watch this again, and I still really liked it. I found it held my attention start to finish, delightfully. I loved the snappy dialogue, the way everyone delivered their lines with the funny bits beautifully understated. Clara’s little snort: “I’ve got a hobby… it’s you, by the way.” “I’m not actually the police, that’s just what it says on the box.” “What do Gods never ever do? Gods never actually show up!” And I liked the faux medieval music that popped up from time to time. This felt very Tom Baker, Douglas Adams to me. (People mentioned The Pirate Planet awhile ago, that was an Adams story, wasn’t it? I didn’t make that connection until just this moment.)

This brief exchange struck me both times, at the beginning, when they were talking about tidal waves and time travel. Clara said, “You are a tidal wave,” and the Doctor replied, “Don’t say that.” The Doctor appeared a bit disturbed here, by what seemed like a throwaway remark. I also liked the really understated way the Clara/Doctor relationship dialogue was handled, especially at the end, when he talks about immortality and meeting someone you can’t bear to lose. It really makes me wonder where we are headed with Clara. It may not be death after all.

I loved the Doctor’s course in Doctor 101- Always talk with confidence, be a moving target, act as if you know their plan and if you’re lucky, they’ll tell it to you. Also his translation from Baby, very poetic (and cool that the Doctor deciding to stay stopped the baby’s crying!). I agree with those that felt that this is Twelve at his absolute best, which is odd because really, it’s not got a plot that bears close examination, does it? But I don’t expect we’re not supposed to think very hard about it, it’s like the Robin Hood episode last year in that regard. For me, this just moved beautifully along, but I do love a good bit of dialogue and this was all about that, so it worked for me. It was pretty much pure fun until the very end, when the momentous bit sets in. Wasn’t that beautifully done, watching the ages spinning around Ashildr, watching her age not in body but in spirit? I expect we will be getting something quite different next week.

[Arbutus @replies]

@bluesqueakpip     I like the Fox Inn in principle. The surroundings are lovely and I’m sure the Scottish contingent would appreciate a shorter commute at the end of the evening.  🙂

[Arbutus @replies]

@purofilion     Why, thank you!  🙂 🙂 🙂

In our house, for no particular reason, we raised a glass of bourbon to celebrate the banishment of the Tory blue guy from our lives. Ten long years, dear Lord. Maybe now I will get my country back.

Seriously, as always, now we will see if Mr. Trudeau can walk the walk. He certainly said a lot of nice things. As for the NDP, that 44 is far more similar to their historical numbers than what they had last time. It was never really realistic for them to maintain them once the Libs got their act together. And however lefty their candidates are, Mr. Mulcair did not always present as a proper New Democrat. I would imagine that in the fullness of time, he will step down, but who knows?

And in the most startling development of all, the Guardian live-blogged our election! I don’t think such a thing has ever happened before, usually it’s more like, “Oh, you had an election? Who is your president now?” One of my son’s American friends actually didn’t think we had elections, because “aren’t you ruled by the Queen?” This from a young man who will actually be old enough to vote by the time the presidential election is held next year. Frightening.  🙂

[Arbutus @replies]

Loved all the great retro stuff that has been put up here lately, ghosts, witches, and villains. @purofilion, I loved your story about sneaking in a bit of Bowie (or trying to) and your dad lying in wait for you behind the door!

@whisht    I am compelled to point out that Feist is not the name of a band, but a person, a Canadian singer-songwriter, Leslie Feist, who usually goes by her last name. I don’t know all her music by a long shot, but she has a lovely haunting voice, I think. I first heard her some years ago at the Folk Festival here, and she has done very well for herself since then.

And special kudos to @phaseshift for actually finding a Viking song. I’ve seen the Horrible Histories books, but never the video version. Brilliant.  🙂

[Arbutus @replies]

@winston    Cheers!  🙂

[Arbutus @replies]

@PlainOldDave      Too true about the influence of advertising. And while it hasn’t prevented American TV from producing some great stuff, I think that in the more fragmented viewing world of today, it makes it difficult at times for quality TV to survive. The need for high viewing figures right off the bat, as dictated by ad revenues, can be challenging for anything new or a bit different.

@bluesqueakpip     The structural difference can also surprise people. I introduced my son to Fawlty Towers last year, and he was shocked at how few episodes there were, coming off season runs of as many as two dozen eps on shows like Breaking Bad.

[Arbutus @replies]

Goodness, there’s a lot for me to get caught up with here! I think a long listening session for me tomorrow, going back several weeks from the look of it.  🙂

But right now, @purofilion, here’s a track for Boy Ilion. My son was inspired by it after his first round of volleyball tryouts went very poorly, and he told me that he was considering simply not coming back as he didn’t think he would make the team anyway. Then, on his run home, this song came on his iPod, and he said that he decided the song was right and he would try again and simply accept whatever the result was. (Coincidentally, it comes from the EA FIFA 2015 game; my son has a whole playlist of “FIFA music”!) Doesn’t music just make such a big difference in our lives?

 

[Arbutus @replies]

@purofilion       Arbutus Junior’s experience is more that the athletes heap poo (love that) on the musical ones. Except, interestingly, on the volleyball team, where several of the senior players sing in vocal jazz so AJ doesn’t feel so embarrassed about it there. Basketball has been a continuing problem, and this year was the first time he even admitted to his coach that the reason he is generally unavailable one day a week is actually due to an outside-of-school choir, and not sport as he has always let them believe!

And isn’t it true that some of the most popular athletes are the ones who have faced some kind of challenge, rather than coming up to their success via the direct route? The character-building struggle makes them into the kind of people who excite admiration for who they are, as well as what they can do. Boy Ilion has faced half the battle simply by having the courage to reach for something he wants, in the face of possible humiliating failure. Because it’s easier not try admit you want something, than to let it be known that you wanted it and couldn’t get it.

[Arbutus @replies]

@phaseshift   (or any available mod)    I wonder if this monster/villain conversation is deserving of a place on its own blog? I’m having a hard time keeping track of it and it is a fascinating discussion!

[Arbutus @replies]

@ichabod    I had a boyfriend for a bit in high school who was the only other person I knew into Sci Fi (this was in the late seventies), and he was definitely into the militaristic sort of thing that I personally found pretty dreary. I did read a lot of Asimov and Heinlein and enjoyed it, but tried a bit of Moorcock and Niven and didn’t find myself engaged. It was only much later that I discovered a world of female writers in the sci fi/fantasy genres. My husband introduced me to Anne McCaffrey, whose writing I used to quite enjoy. A whole different schtick, of course, but more to my taste. At that point, my interest moved away from Sci Fi and more into fantasy.

I didn’t at the time equate this with the kind of male dominated situation that I know understand was a thing in the science fiction world, because having been raised by a feminist single mom and being a bit of a dreamy, isolated sort, I had the rather naive belief that gender was no longer an issue.  🙂

[Arbutus @replies]

@PlainOldDave    I have always assumed that the use of “series” in the UK comes about because so many of the programs have had very long gaps between runs, unlike in the US, where the “seasons” are more, um, seasonal, as it were. There’s more of a sense here of the new “fall season” and so on, whereas it seems to me that in the UK, a series run begins at whatever time of year they happen to have it ready and want to show it!  🙂 Although I find that, increasingly, that regularity is changing over here as well.

I would also add that, personally, I very much distinguish between the old run and the new run, with the TV movie as a sort of bridge between. But I may not be representative of what Canadian fans think, because I don’t know any! (Except for the few on this Forum, of course.) But the new show has such a different feel to it than the old, as TV in general has changed so much, that I can’t help thinking of them as different, albeit connected, parts of the same narrative.

[Arbutus @replies]

@PlainOldDave  @purofilion  @denvaldron

In Vancouver, I starting watching DW in the mid-eighties, except that it wasn’t on PBS, but on a local indy station out of Bellingham, Washington, that used to show a lot of things in syndication. They were showing late era Tom Baker at the time I discovered the show, but they ran up as far as they had (which I think the first time took me all the way into the C. Baker era), and then they cycled back to the beginning of Pertwee, and did it all again, always getting up into the almost contemporary before running out of episodes. Once, they actually went all the way back to An Unearthly Child, which is how I was able to see the surviving First and Second Doctor episodes, but they didn’t do that again, either because the earliest shows weren’t as popular, or maybe due to all the missing episodes from that era. But I watched all the way to the end of the McCoy era that way.

I was never a part of a fandom community because I was entirely unaware that there was such a thing! Occasionally, I could pick up a copy of Doctor Who Magazine at the news stand, and once went down to Bellingham to attend a convention. But it was all pretty far off the radar around here, and as the end of the old show came somewhat simultaneously to my return to university full-time and subsequent meeting of my first husband, I left the show behind as an enjoyable part of my past. Until fairly recently, in fact!

[Arbutus @replies]

Great points and thoughts here as always. Some replies.

@juniperfish    Yes, it did seem as though the Doctor might have known or guessed what would happen to Ashildr, and I was waiting for Clara to call him out on it. As far as Clara wondering why he wouldn’t give her the chip (especially in light of their earlier conversation), he clearly doesn’t view immortality as a burden he would want to place on anyone he loved.

“Who frowned me this face?” I think it would have been necessary to remind younger viewers, who may not remember the Tenth Doctor in Pompeii, exactly what he was talking about here.

@phaseshift   Interesting breakdown of “Ashildr”!

Oh yes! Who else gave a drunken cheer at “reverse the polarity of the neutron flow”?    Me! (Except not drunken as it was about 7:30 in the morning for me!) But what I really liked was the suggestion that it didn’t actually mean anything, that really made me laugh.

@scaryb   I liked being told straight out that the Doctor is not cold to those losses, on the contrary, he hates them, and he doesn’t consider it winning when people die. And good catch on the baby’s music references, I completely missed those. I think music really is a meme.

@jimbomcmaster    Regarding the doctor “choosing his face”, I wonder if the potential return of the Time Lords, and a new regeneration cycle, would prompt some sense deep within the Doctor’s psyche that he might need to be reminded that some times, some people can be saved. I have written before of my belief that the Doctor’s regens are influenced in subtle ways by the events and circumstances of his life that precedes them.

@denvaldron    Either that, or the Monk actually did introduce Electric Eels to Scandinavia in the Doctor Who universe, because he thought it would be fun, presenting a conundrum for biologists a few thousand years later.    I rather like this thought! I didn’t catch that the Vikings actually referred to themselves that way during the episde, but if they did, good point.

@ichabod   Remember, the Doctor is translating from Baby. The baby didn’t actually think “fire in the water” in those words. However, I should also point out that my son at less than a year old, could point out the correct vehicle in a book about trucks when I said the name, long before he could speak a word other than “Da!”. He really liked trucks. That baby probably really liked the electric eels!  🙂

@jphamlore   I like your idea about why the repair chip would be a very bad thing, although I agree that it is unlikely to happen as it is very dark!

@thebrainofmoffat    I’m sure you’ve realized that there is always someone, somewhere, on this forum ready to discuss pretty much anything that comes up!   🙂

[Arbutus @replies]

Well, I’m starting to get a better sense of this series now. Something I liked about Series 8 was the way we had various memes about which to wonder– Missy, Paradise, soldiers, stories, “Am I a good man?”. Some contributed to the series arc in a specific way, some acted more as connective tissue in a sense, but they helped the series hang together for me. I’m now beginning to see that again with some of the repeated motives– hybrids, serpents, death, intervention, a “duty of care”, the cloister bell.

@django    I believe ZZ Top was mentioned this time around, so a music meme as well?  🙂

I always enjoy the light-hearted historical approach, and the BBC sets are always a delight. I liked being shown that there were non-warrior Vikings as well. But why, why did they have to have the horned helmets? Was that meant for the kids? We all know by now that they didn’t really wear those, so why not have the truth?

I enjoyed the Doctor’s changing moods in this, and his mentorship of the villagers was charming. Watching them put his plan into action was quite fun. I also enjoyed Clara more this time around, as she was back to being competent and confident without seeming quite as strung out as she did last time.

I thought the Doctor’s moment of revelation about who frowned him this face was nicely done. It was nice to see him reminded that not everyone has to die. But I guess we will see next week whether Ashildr was one of the ones who should have died, rather than one who could be saved? Or whether she was saved for something important.

The Doctor really is worried about Clara, isn’t he?

[Arbutus @replies]

@purofilion      Life does go on when these things are over. But for our children, they matter so, so much, that it tears our hearts apart watching them navigate their hopes and anxieties. And music can be just as stressful! Last spring, my boy did his audition for the elite senior vocal jazz choir at his school. Thankfully, he got on, but he felt no certainty whatsoever that he would be good enough, given the abysmal state of his sight reading. But all I could think about the whole time was “How will I ever comfort him if he fails in this?” When they care about something, they don’t want to be second best, and we wouldn’t want them to settle for that. But what if that’s what they really are? Life lessons suck, frankly, success is more fun. I feel for the Family Ilion, and hope that in this case at least, Boy Ilion’s dream can be realized. I hope the weekend isn’t too long!

As to Aussie Rules in Canada, I guess it’s because Australians came and brought it with them? Why not? We have all the other footballs. In British Columbia, there is apparently even a league. I know absolutely nothing about it or its rules, but Mr. Arbutus is familiar with it.

 

[Arbutus @replies]

@pedant @purofilion

Well, this is why it’s great to have a pedant around.  🙂  I had no idea where the term “soccer” came from. Makes perfect sense now that I’ve been told.

Increasingly, a lot of teams in North America (both pro and youth) are using “FC” as part of their name. But the game is just about always referred to as “soccer”, because with the prevalence of American and Canadian football, it would otherwise be too confusing. Rugby is quite popular as well as a high school sport, and we also have Australian football at the amateur level, which is always called “Aussie rules”. The only one of these that I really understand is soccer, because the boy plays it. North American football just confuses me– although TV broadcasts now come with these great computer graphics showing the line of scrimmage and direction of play with massive arrows and lines that look like they’re painted onto the field. This is massively helpful for people like me, since I rarely see more than two games a year. 🙂

[Arbutus @replies]

@ichabod  @purofilion       The thing is that the Doctor was never especially interested in returning to Gallifrey when it was there. So his desire to find it again now suggests to me a bit of the “don’t really want to go home again, but I like knowing it’s there” thing. Also, I do wonder if the Doctor, in order to be a rebel, needs someone to rebel against. That was always the Time Lords, and then they were gone, and he was no longer a rebel, but a homeless orphan, the last of his kind.

As to knowing why he left, I’d actually rather not. Hints have been dropped here and there, but it’s such a big mystery, so much at the core of the Doctor’s mythology, that it’s hard to imagine any showrunner really wanting to take it on. For one thing, the answer would never in a million years make everyone happy.

[Arbutus @replies]

@winston    That’s exactly what I think. We had PTSD Doctor, followed by the “one who regrets” and the “one who forgets”, in the great words of The Moment. They had guilt, and loneliness, and no home in the universe other than Earth, which they tried to make their own. I have always thought that Doctors Ten and Eleven tried, in different ways, to actually become human. But now, even though he can’t find it, Gallifrey is not gone. Although he is still alone, the Doctor is no longer the last of the Time Lords. He still cares about Earth and its people, but no longer with that desperate need to belong.

@ichabod    The “am I a good man” question could almost be seen as the final step in a process that started way way back with the First Doctor. As a Time Lord, even one with better than average instincts, he might have had a very different notion than we would of what a good man is. Indeed, “good” might not even be something to aspire to. I think over long, long years wandering the universe, encountering good and evil, the Doctor has learned to aspire to it, but as with everyone, the question of what it is, might not be straightforward. And at the end of a complete cycle of regenerations, some of which were used up with remarkable speed, and unexpectedly given the gift of a whole new set, the Doctor really might take quite a while to work out some things about himself. Perhaps it was the first really authentic near-death experience he ever had!

@purofilion    I love your description of Eleven, especially the point about how low-key his moments of angst were. The sudden drop of his voice into a dark tone, and the haunted eyes, but only a few words and then back to business. That “taking care of Clara” scene in the Bells of St. John was one of my favourite Eleven moments, as was the quiet conversation with the baby in Closing Time and the mobile of stars he constructed.

[Arbutus @replies]

@purofilion    And its sequel, The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul, has Norse gods. Also pretty funny.

[Arbutus @replies]

@drben      I absolutely love that book, almost more than Hitchhiker’s Guide in many ways. It’s hugely quirky and clever. The thing about Bach there, as I recall, was that it came from the alien ship, and was saved, taken to the 18th century, and given in some way to Bach, and only after that did it exist in the future. It hadn’t actually existed before. The joke was that the time traveling professor hoped no one would notice that it was really more music than one man could actually compose in a lifetime!  🙂  @purofilion, you absolutely should read it. It has music, time travel, and quantum mechanics (sort of), and is absolutely hysterically funny.

@jphamlore   One of the interesting things (to me) about Bach was that although he was composing at a time when a lot of new ideas were in play and the seeds of the classical era were being sown, he himself stayed absolutely old school, in terms of structure, texture, and harmonic language. He pushed the baroque further than it had ever gone, but as popular style was beginning to change, his innovations didn’t lead anywhere. Not immediately, anyway (although there were those in the next generation who admired his work), but even the quintessentially classical Haydn and Mozart were inspired by his music. Beethoven held him in great regard. I suspect that on his death, his heirs probably looked at what must have been an overwhelming number of manuscripts and simply didn’t understand the worth of it.

@purofilion    Beethoven was a rock star, Bach was a workin’ man.  🙂

I played a lot of Pachelbel fugues while I was studying harpsichord, they were pretty fun, less mind-bending and cramp-inducing to learn than Bach, but satisfying.

[Arbutus @replies]

@craig   That’s a great story, and how terrific that the video survives. The seventies, weren’t those the days?

@purofilion     Nerves are flying. Moods are changing. Tempers rising.  Of course they are, there’s a teenage boy in the house, right? 🙂

Seriously, how exciting. Good luck to Boy Ilion from another soccer mom. You can assure him that height doesn’t have to hold him back. At 16, Arbutus Jr. is pushing 6’3″ (I did ban the indoor balls a couple of years ago when he got tall enough to touch the ceiling!) and plays a solid game, although not at the level that Boy Ilion aspires to. I think you’re right that a strong core makes all the difference. AJ plays several different sports involving different types of motion, which I think has helped him a lot. Like Boy Ilion, he watches highlight reels and plays the online FIFA games, and cheers for a selection of teams from various leagues. Today he is filled with dismay at the Dutch teams early exit from the Euro Championship.

However, we are all elated that the Toronto Blue Jays have won the first round of their playoff run (major league baseball, for the vast majority of you who don’t care 🙂 ). They haven’t even made the playoffs in more years than I like to remember. We only have one MLB team in Canada, so now they are carrying a nation’s hopes and dreams on their blue-clad shoulders. Cheers!

[Arbutus @replies]

@whofangirl-73  @janetteb   When Four regenerated into Five, I was shocked and quite unaccepting. I eventually came to appreciate Five, but he was so much “kinder and gentler” than the Doctor I was used to, that I was actually a bit relieved when C. Baker came on the scene! Watching overseas, I had no idea for years that he was so disliked. He was certainly a more difficult Doctor in some ways, but I remember thinking that I was happy to see the Doctor a bit more alien again. (I was also influenced by the fact that my one and only trip to a fan convention took place right after he had been fired by the BBC, and I had not heard this news yet in Canada pre the internet. But Mr. Baker struck me as remarkably gracious, clearly unhappy about his treatment but unwilling to make that the focus of the event for the fans that had come to see him. I’ve never forgotten that.

[Arbutus @replies]

 

@ichabod, I loved your post and agreed with every word. Agree also with @mirime that I can’t understand the people who find Capaldi’s Doctor, to varying degrees, cold or unpleasant. What I see is the emotional detachment that was almost always a part of the Doctor in BG days, and even in Nine. It was much less evident in Ten and Eleven. (As an aside, I remember that I really enjoyed Ten in the Easter special, because I had a sense that he was focused on doing what had to be done, without guilt and without the overwhelming concern for his companions that tended to dominate his run. I wonder whether I would have enjoyed Ten more had he been companionless more of the time!)

I agree with @winston that, if we had to have Rose in love with the Doctor, that giving her a Ten clone with whom to grow old was a pretty happy outcome for her. The funny thing about that relationship for me was that, I would have better understand someone like Rose falling for the Doctor, despite the obvious impediments, had it not been for the fact that she had seen him regenerate. Had I ever been tempted to think that a human/time lord relationship might be realistic, seeing that evidence of his massive non-humanity would have put me right off! I also never understood why, having just seen Rose off to the alternate dimension, it was thought a great idea to return to the romance theme with Martha. His apparent obliviousness to her feelings never worked as well for me as did Eleven’s later, when for example he thought that Amy and Rory ought to love having bunk beds! Maybe because Eleven had this massive little-boy streak through his personality, it felt more believable. Ten didn’t have that, and so his ignorance of Martha’s feelings always felt either cold or stupid, and I didn’t want to think of him as either one.

Series 4 stands out for me as the best of first four, because I loved the Ten/Donna team so much, and thought a lot of the stories were fabulous. But I realize that I really liked a lot of Series 3 as well, except in my memory I was put off by the Martha/Doctor relationship. But leaving that out, Martha was great and a lot of those stories were very good. I enjoyed the shift to Eleven. Series 5 is one of my favourites, Series 6 much less so. I found the series arc pretty unwieldy and less engaging for me, and even though Series 7 suffered from a lack of cohesion, at the time it felt like a welcome relief after a story arc that I found a bit uninteresting and a lot too dominant for my taste. I think Moffat is handling the series arcs with a much lighter hand now (witness how few episodes of Series 8 were essential viewing to following the trajectory of the story).

[Arbutus @replies]

@lisa     Lots of theories are good. It increases the odds of one of them being right. Then, as discussed yesterday, you get bragging rights.  🙂

@jphamlore    @scaryb    The question of the ghosts and when they showed up is a good one. I’m adding it my list of things to think about as I watch through both episodes with fresh eyes. There’s a lot to keep track of here.

@purofilion     Your exposition of Beethoven’s music is wonderful. There’s a good reason that so much of it has become synonymous with the deepest and strongest emotions of humanity. Bernstein conducted Beethoven to celebrate the destruction of the Berlin Wall. Daniel Barenboim’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, combined of Arab and Jewish musicians, played Beethoven in their inaugural performance. Some of the piano sonatas, such as the Moonlight or the Pathétique, have been used and reused to express poignancy and sorrow. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that those first four notes of the 5th have come to represent a sort of momentous punctuation mark (my son and his friends used to hum them, in ominous tones, when reaching the climactic moment of a story). Perfectly suited, in fact, to their use here. Bootstrap… paradox… ba ba ba BUM!!!!   🙂

[Arbutus @replies]

@purofilion  @thebrainofmoffat      Here’s the thing. When someone new joins the Forum, they most often start out by saying something like, “Hi, new poster here. Looking forward to lots of cool DW discussion!” Sometimes they show up on the Sofa to tell us a little about themselves. They almost always mention how long they’ve been a fan. What they do not generally do is announce themselves by saying, “Hi, I just signed up to express my disappointment, but I can already see that you don’t want to hear that.” Even if they are particularly unhappy with the current show, as you point out, it can still be expressed in a reasonable manner. As in, “I’ve been watching the show all through the current run, and consider myself a fan, although unfortunately I find I’m really not warming up to the new Doctor.” Or whatever.

As far as taking up debate with dissenting viewpoints, I think that happens here. We certainly have enough members with strong views that don’t mind a good argument. I will do it a bit, but it’s not really my nature to spend a lot of time trying to convince someone to change their opinion, because by and large I don’t find that I am successful at it! I am more inclined to respond to those views and ideas that either appeal to me or give me ideas of my own. But as we’ve had plenty of people sign on during the recent hiatus that seem to have had no trouble jumping in, my conclusion would be that this particular band of brothers and sisters just isn’t for everyone. Which is okay. The Universe is a big place.

[Author]

Posts