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@purofilion   We have never met but in a different time, at the same place, our echoes have touched!

What a lovely, Whovian thought.   🙂

Oh, the garden, lovely. I’ve got lettuces, arugula, and peas going in this week. I’m a little behind time, but like most years, when the sun shines, I can’t get into the garden, and when I have the time, it rains! But I do love to watch it all grow, and grumble about the cool spring and the slugs and so forth. In the spring it tends to be fairly wet and cold until quite late, and then suddenly it turns warm and dry, and my garden faces south, so it becomes a Mediterranean kind of situation. It creates interesting dilemmas some years. But I keep at it, connecting with my farmer ancestors.

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@whisht @purofilion

Well, now that we’ve moved into “space jazz”, I’m not sure that I have anything to offer. Will have to give it some thought. I’m thoroughly enjoying your contributions, though!

 

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@janetteb

Well, in fact it is bigger on the inside in a way, because the artist is opening up an object to a variety of points of view, thus taking up more space. Or maybe this is actually bigger on the outside?   🙂

I’m with @whisht on preferring cubism to surrealism. Partly because I find the aesthetic more visually interesting, with its bold planes and textures. Like @purofilion, I tend to experience art in a purely visceral way, so the intellectual philosophy behind the work doesn’t really hold my attention. (I did slog through an art history survey years ago as part of my degree, and did very badly, although in the long term, I still find myself remembering things I heard in that class when I encounter art and architecture in my travels today. So grades aren’t everything, right?  🙂 )

Puro, you remind me of the time, some years ago, that we took our six-year-old son through the Picasso museum in Paris. His preferred viewing style at the time was to charge through a place without much time wasting, absorbing things very quickly and then coming out at the end and saying, “That was great!” However, we came to one room which contained a bench in front of a large collage, a massive and very complex piece. It literally stopped him in his tracks. He sat down on that bench and stared at it for ages. It was the longest time he had ever spent looking at a single work of art (it may still hold the record!).

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Finally grabbed half an hour to watch this, great stuff. I really love the way that the second Doctor shuttles back and forth between hand-wringing anxiety when he’s not in control of the situation, and serious gravitas when his intellect is engaged. That says a great deal about this doctor’s character, I think. He is at his most confident, elevated, and in control, when he can put his mind to work on something. (Unlike the Third, who greeted any situation with the same air of authority, and the Fourth, who would casually shrug off any uncertainty as though nothing really mattered!)

No surprise now to find a minotaur in the maze! But I wonder how many kids of the day got a little older, reached classical lit in school, and went, “Oh yes, the minotaur in the maze! I remember that from Doctor Who!” Kind of like me recognizing Beowulf from having read Lord of the Rings.  🙂

@scaryb  Yes, Jamie climbing the wall was good fun. Nice to have a bit for those of us who admire the male anatomy! I also thought that Jamie was very clever to figure out how the soldier was “seeing”. I didn’t think it would have been immediately obvious, but the penny just dropped for him.

Interesting, @janetteb. I too have never watched “the British way” until now. When I used to watch on TV, it was shown in syndication, once a week, late on Saturday night, but a complete serial each week. This is fun! (Of course, I didn’t get to go on forums afterward and talk about it, either. Even more fun.)

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@fatmaninabox   Haha. I missed your mentioned of the Orbison duet when I posted that yesterday. Great minds!

Very much in the style of @whisht’s Dr. John version, my introduction to the world of Stagger Lee was by the Canadian blues band Downchild. These guys were a fixture here in the seventies and are purported to have been the inspiration for the Blues Brothers, with Dan Ackroyd being the Toronto connection. (They also had a great female pianist, very inspirational as there weren’t many here in those days!)

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@purofilion   There was nothing “snotty” about your words, they were beautiful! I’m sure kd would agree, and be flattered that her voice conjured up such poetry for you. Off to bed now after dealing with a pile of wet laundry, that I hung on the line hours ago when the sun was shining and the wind was whipping through the yard. Then (because it’s still early in the season and I’m not in the habit of it yet) I promptly forgot all about it, until the hubby said a short while ago, “Wow, it’s really pouring.” Then the penny dropped. Agh. It really is pouring. Oh, well, summer is coming.

Sweet dreams!

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@purofilion, I’m still awake!  🙂  Spent much of the day on my computer trying to figure out some blogging software– argh! And come back on here to find your all-too-kind words, and more kd/cohen. Now you’ve done it, @whisht! kd lang gives me goosebumps simply by opening her mouth. She is absolutely incredible. We had some Roy Orbison the other day, so here she is with him. I’ve always adored this song anyway, and the two of them together are dynamite.

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@thekrynoidman   Rhapsody in Blue and Ballroom Blitz. In one post. Are you trying to make me dizzy?   🙂  (That’s actually quite awesome.)

@fatmaninabox   I love the John Cale Hallelujah as well!

And kudos to everyone else posting all the fabulous Morricone music!

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@whisht   The Ship Song was actually ScaryB’s contribution. I love those performances that are so hushed, have so much silence, that you almost hold your breath listening. What a riveting performer. Nice voice, but it’s what she does with it. (And I must say, it almost seems unfair that someone so talented is also so gorgeous!)

But yes, Nick Cave. It’s always refreshing to hear such a lovely deep voice in the midst of all these tenors. Whether ballads or edgier stuff, I love a baritone. And @fatmaninabox, that Stagger Lee is something else. I’m familiar with some of the more bluesy versions, not heard that one before. I liked it best in the early verses, where there’s an amazing sense of building tension. I found that the language actually distracted from that tension in the later versions.

Yes, that Rod Stewart Pinball Wizard is timed a little oddly, isn’t it? My first introduction to the song was actually the Elton John version, as the Who version just slightly predated my rock-listening years. I actually have a great fondness for Sir Elton. In the midst of the guitar-filled seventies, he was a beam of piano light!

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@thekrynoidman    That arrangement of “Yesterday” is beautiful all on its own, but used as it is in that scene is particularly evocative. It relies on the assumption that the viewer will know the song, and our minds will fill in the missing lyrics. I think that it gets us into the mind of the character much more effectively that way!

@whisht    What is it about a western? I suppose that it’s something about the amazing sweep of western North America, and the metaphor it contains for so many elements of the human spirit– indomitability, loneliness, aspiration, and despair all seem to be so well expressed by the geology of the American West. And its history provides the seeds for stories that go perfectly in hand with these themes, and just seem to inspire composers to amazing heights.

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Okay. Since we have talking about covers. I was just out for an Easter Monday coffee and doughnut, and in the cafe, they were playing this, that somehow, I had never heard before (naturally, many of you will be better informed than I was). So of course, as soon as I got back, I had to find it and post it here!

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@purofilion   Oh dear. Yes, I know that feeling. I was talking to a younger person once a number of years ago, and I mentioned “The Band”. I got a blank look and “What band?”

By the way, isn’t YouTube just a massive timesucker? Like reading Wikipedia. It’s amazing how you can get from here to there to … somewhere completely different. And then an hour has gone by. 🙂

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@whisht  Yes, it is the same Langley. When the LSMP was done, it was a small town surrounded by agriculture, about an hour from Vancouver. Now, of course, it is part of the suburban area the fills the Fraser Valley east of Vancouver. It’s still fairly rural once you get off the highway.

Isn’t it amazing? There is something about the sound of children’s voices singing that regularly reduces me to tears.

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@faegrl  @purofilion @scaryb

I’m pretty sure there are at least a thousand Hallelujah’s, as a couple of years ago they must have played them all on the CBC. I actually got fairly tired of the song after about a week of it. But like @scaryb, my favourite version is kd lang’s, and my favourite version of her version is the one she did at the Vancouver Olympics. Breathtaking!

 

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@purofilion   “wearing large collared browny-grey shirts, orange cords, narrow pink ties and delicate comb-overs”

Now that is an image for the ages!  Hee hee hee!

No singing for us this Easter (except in the kitchen). We will spend the morning watching the teenager’s baseball game (between April and June, baseball stops for nothing!) and then home to start an exciting listening project. My husband extravagantly purchased a complete box set of Bach cantatas, beautifully ordered according to the liturgical year, and starting tomorrow, we are going to spend a year of Sundays listening to every single one. (I know that no one on here will find anything strange in that!).

Happy Easter to everyone, I hope that the chocolate is only of the highest quality, and that spring uplifts us all!

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@blenkinsopthebrave     My favourite bit was “Why is the cord of the vacuum cleaner too short… just like summer.” Now that is existential angst at it’s best!

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@faegrl   Yes, I think we overloaded its circuits! Not the volume but the sheer variety probably did it!  🙂

I should say regarding “I Just Called…” that I have nothing against the song, more its overuse in the years following, on sentimental TV ads.

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@faegrl   That is certainly a transformed “Dust in the Wind”. That song takes me right back to high school. I like the cover version, it’s another great example of the way people can make a song their own, as opposed to the band in @purofilion’s example, who clearly want to be a Kansas tribute band! It can take some imagination to do this, as I was telling my son the other day. He has worked on different favourite songs in his voice lessons, and struggled with the fact that they never “sound like the recordings”. I told him that no matter how much he might love a recording, he should never try to sound like one.

@whisht    I would actually not have made a connection between Devo and the Stones, and yet now, I have no idea why not. That’s awesome. But I always had a fondness for Devo. And the Mercury Rev is also both really great and extremely hilarious (it is possible to be both!).

@craig, I probably shouldn’t be laughing at that track, but it’s pretty funny in a squirmy gross sort of way. And regarding “Superstition”, I have occasionally thought that Stevie Wonder had a lot to answer for after “I Just Called To Say I Love You”. But there was so much brilliance in other places that more than makes up for it.

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@everyone, you’ve been coming up with so many great covers. Really fun, and fascinating to see how different performers can channel the essence of a song in very different ways, or re-imagine a song into a completely different genre. Something like Senior Coconut’s “Beat It” should just be silly, but it isn’t, because it’s so tightly performed that you have to take it seriously.

@craig, I like the cover of the Gloria Estefan song, actually prefer it to the original as I have always found her to be pretty bland. @whisht is right that it is almost a new composition based on the old one, more than simply a cover.

@thekrynoidman    Brilliant. I love it when a group like this takes on a song that is entirely unlike what you might expect to hear. The ukuleles are great. There is a wonderful youth group in my part of the world, the Langley Ukulele Ensemble, that have been performing at home and abroad for a generation now. Here is a sample:

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@purofilion
Wow, interesting connection with The Draughtsman’s Contract. You’re right about the musical structure being similar in a way, but sets a completely different tone. But that’s exactly what makes music so wonderful, and the “snotty music people” who have an issue with choice of harmonic structure are completely missing the point. I love ground bass compositions exactly because they are so endlessly interesting despite the really basic structure. Nyman was obviously channelling 17th century England for that piece. Listen to this track, starting from about 7:35.

I’m reminded of the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice, and Carl Davis’s wonderful Beethovenesque soundtrack. He must have had great fun composing in that elegant, evocative 19th-century style.

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@faegrl   I had heard that Johnny Cash cover, but I had never seen the video. What an amazing piece of film-making! I was in tears by the end of it. Johnny Cash was a rare example of someone who really transcended his genre and generation. In his later years, he was fully engaged with the younger generation of musicians, and they in turn really admired him. Another great example of that is Tony Bennett. He takes such a positive view of contemporary pop musicians, and they in turn can’t say enough nice things about him. I wanted to include a track, and ended up with three,
one with Lady Gaga, one with Michael Bublé, and one with kd lang.

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@fatmaninabox  — How do you not love a band that writes songs about medieval history? I know that you have a great tradition in the UK of folk-rock bands delving into history, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard one that mined as far back as the War of the Roses! Especially when it leans way more to the rock side than the folk. The closest equivalent I can think of in Canada is the Newfoundland group Great Big Sea, who started out as a trad-Newfie-pub rock band, and have absorbed a lot of pop/rock sound over the years. They do straight up pop songs, traditional east coast stuff, and lots of their own songs that tell old stories. Here’s a sample:

And as added value for our British friends, this Slade cover that was an early hit for them. (In fact, it was my introduction to GBS, when I heard it in a CD store and had to ask, “Who the heck is that?)

 

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One more stab at getting caught up on this string of great music!

@purofilion, I just love the Byrds. Enough said there.

@TheKrynoidMan–  Geoffrey Burgon, yes! There’s an example of a composer who can be musically literate and still fully engage the emotions of the listener. (We’ve had this conversation before, I believe!) And thanks, @purofilion, for the Brideshead Revisited theme. I had forgotten that little gem: a brief, simple structure with a lovely emotional arc to it. The solo trumpet is as evocative as the countertenor in the Tinker, Tailor theme, both achingly pure and soaring.

@phaseshift  I seem to have heard of Arctic Monkeys, although I’m not sure where or when. That’s a great song.

 

 

 

 

 

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@janetteb  I agree that I don’t suppose RTD intended to convey a message that his audience’s lives are meaningless. And I think that his portrayal of Rose was a perfectly believable, realistic one. Where he went wrong, I think, was in not having the Doctor call her on her behaviour. Personally, I would like to think that the Doctor would have zero tolerance for selfishness or the belittling of others. This kind of thing is a long way from the Doctor’s attitude in “Planet of the Dead”, where he talks to the people in the bus about how important their lives are. He is, most of the time, a very unselfish person, who looks for the best in everyone (except Daleks, of course!).

But the Doctor made it clear almost from start to finish that in his eyes, Rose was perfect. Of course, this leads right back into the old debate about “was he in love with her, or wasn’t he”? It’s pretty clear that in RTD’s book, he was. So of course he would not see her flaws. But those of us who find the “one true love” theme hard to swallow, can take the view that the Doctor put Rose up on a pedestal because she had done so much for him, to help him recover from the Time War. Either way, it is clear that Rose was the Doctor’s blind spot, which means that he did nothing to contribute to her growth as a person. In a sense, he failed her. @blenkinsopthebrave is correct that her attitude after being returned home shows that she essentially views all her experiences and travels with the Doctor as being all about her, rather than showing her that she is one person in a very large universe.

 

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I just want to second @blenkinsopthebrave’s comment about the RTD legacy. There are things I liked about his run, things I definitely did not, and things about which I have mixed feelings. I’m not sure that this is the proper place to go into all of them. However. When I used to watch AG Who in the 80’s, and it was this weird underground thing that no one I knew had ever heard of, it would have been impossible to imagine that Doctor Who (and make no mistake, I think that in its essentials, it is the same Doctor Who that it has always been) would be something that generated 21st century “water cooler” chat. People watch it now. Lots of people. And since I don’t think I’ve ever watched anything on TV that I was happy with from start to finish, all the time, it just doesn’t bother me that I haven’t always liked everything about the show. This is normal for TV.

RTD did it the way he did to engage a new audience, to allow the show to survive. And so it has. And thus we were able to celebrate 50 years with a big splashy TV special, in 3D, rather than just a few under-the-radar fan-made mini-specials. This is great! We should all be so happy about this!

Okay. I’m done now.  😳

 

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So much great music on here right now, thanks everyone! Just a few quick cheers as I work my way through it all:

@fatmaninabox, I really liked the Suede track, and @craig, the Frank Turner song is wonderful, and the video even more so. It pushes all my buttons: roots music fan, former music teacher, zero interest in acting my (relatively advanced) age, and so on.

@faegrl   The Ten Second Songs video is just brilliant. I didn’t know all of the artists represented, but most of them, and what I recognized was just about flawless. The only one that didn’t ring true for me was the Pavarotti, because I think it’s pretty hard to imitate a tenor when you aren’t one! But really, a great explanation for why we listen to cover tunes, and how different artists can pull something completely different out of the same song. (Hey, I think there’s a Doctor metaphor in there somewhere!)

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@whisht    Do you think of me as someone with a thirst?   Well, aren’t we all?  🙂

Yes, that is the same song. The video plays up the physical aspect of the ninja/bullying thing, but I tend to view the song generally as more about inner strength, which is a great message for kids. Our son is 14, and we have luckily not had to deal with much in the way of bullying, but the whole business of being true to yourself is just so hard for kids. (I’m guessing that most of us on here can relate to that!)

I do find myself mostly ignoring categorization of music, since I no longer know what most of them actually mean! I do think of “indie” in the eighties sense of “independent”, but that of course has less meaning in these internet days, when more and more groups are going their own way quite successfully. My son (who is my window to the world of pop music) likes a lot of songs by hip-hop artists, that, like “Inner Ninja”, also contain some great tunes. (My son isn’t big on pure rap music, because he doesn’t like it if he can’t sing it, a view I share!)

Your Wedding Present link is a great example of this categorical confusion. I would have called it punk (not knowing any better! 🙂 ).

By the way, I’m going to listen to every one of your links, when I have a few minutes of peace. I can’t keep up with this thread at the moment!

 

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@faegrl   Welcome back and congratulations! As a writer with a variety of unfinished writings to my credit (including one novel that has been unfinished for 20 years!) I honour you.  🙂  I look forward to hearing how the publishing goes.

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Funny. I had no recollection of this serial at all, I honestly thought I hadn’t seen it before, until the moment when the Doctor realized that he had put Jamie’s face together wrong. That hit me like a thunderbolt. I remembered his horrified tone when he realized what he had done, and what was about to happen. I remember being absolutely freaked out by that moment, and then by Jamie-who-is-not-Jamie. A simple concept and a different actor, but so, so effective.

Interesting how the Second Doctor could show fear so much more readily than most of his successors, and yet, it doesn’t take away from the sense of his authority. And an interesting juxtaposition of giddiness and brilliance. It makes me start thinking about the different ways that each Doctor demonstrates his “gifted” personality. The Second Doctor is definitely the precocious child genius.

Agreed, @confusedpolarity, that was some monumental scream. I’d venture to say that it leaves later contenders (Mel, I’m looking at you) in the dust!

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Agh! I wrote the following last week and never posted it. My life has become a bit of a maelstrom lately, and when there are too many disparate things going on, I get terribly confused. I’m not ADD but you wouldn’t always know it!

Yes! I love this. Isn’t amazing what can be accomplished very simply in terms of sets and so on? There’s a great creepy atmosphere established here.

I was reminded watching this of the simple reality that not every companion would work well with every doctor. We’ve seen this in lots of cases over the years, and I was reminded of it watching Jamie (whom I love) and realizing, having been watching the First and Ninth so recently, that he would not have worked especially well with either of those. I suspect that either of them would have thrown him out of the TARDIS first chance they got! But he was the perfect companion for the Second Doctor: at times he acts with as much authority as the Doctor himself, although it doesn’t always end well. But this Doctor doesn’t always get it right, either, so there’s a great balance between them. Being of a less authoritarian nature than his earlier incarnation didn’t make the Doctor a completely new person, and he must have found frustrating his inability at times to get his companions to do as they were told!

Very interesting thoughts, @purofilion, about what frightens us. I was struck by your childhood fear of corridors and mazes. When I was young, I used to have a recurring nightmare about ending up on a department store escalator that was taking me down into a dark basement, and my horror at the bottom on finding that there was no “up” escalator! Being lost, being powerless, these are pretty basic fears, I think; which is part of what makes this story so creepy.

 

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@whisht   I’d forgotten all about Flock of Seagulls, so thanks for that. And I should add, to you and @fatmaninabox (and others on here as well) that I am always impressed by the way in which music that I remember quite well belongs to genres that I had never heard of. I don’t remember ever discussing genre until disco came along, and even then it was mostly “disco” and “not-disco”. (Gary Numan was definitely “not-disco”.) I never heard punk (although I had heard of punk) until I was out of school and listening to university radio. Nowadays, I am totally at sea regarding which bands are indie, which bands are alt, and so on and on!

@whisht, your hilarious Ninja Music video reminded me of this song. I’m not normally big on hip hop, but it has a desperately catchy refrain, and I love the message.

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Okay, for @whisht‘s welcome home, all I could come up with was this perennially popular (here, at least) party song by Spirit of the West. (I’m sure that this doesn’t apply to your holiday!  🙂 )

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Welcome back, @whisht! Glad to hear that the travels were illuminating as well as warming. I will be back later when I have thought of an appropriate piece of “welcome home” music!  🙂

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@Scouttheairedale   My heart goes out to Triton’s family. I remember that Bach is popular in your house, so here is a piece of music that always comforts me and lifts my spirits: so simple, serene, and exquisite.

 

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I rather enjoyed this, although it was never a barn burner. I enjoyed the doctor’s interactions with Annette Badland’s character, although as @phaseshift points out, it was never really a convincing moral debate. I think rather that  the really strong performances on both sides made it quite fun to watch. But my main pleasure in this episode, frankly, was watching Mickey the Idiot stop being an idiot, and finally bail on Rose. She treated him so, so terribly, it was maddening, and I was very pleased to see him finally decide that she wasn’t worth dangling after. Another step along Mickey’s path to maturity.

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Finally caught up with this. Not really much to add to what’s already been said, other than it’s interesting how seriously the Doctor takes the crime of meddling in time. Seriously enough that stranding the Monk on 11th-century Earth doesn’t appear to be seen as too harsh a punishment!

I must say that this episode and others like it are a great response to remarks I’ve read over the years that more than one companion doesn’t work. I love the Doctor-plus-two dynamic, when it’s the right two. Also, in reference to our other conversation about historical stories versus stories with historical backdrops, I’d have to agree that this story comes across as much more the first than the second, despite the presence of the Monk. There is no overwhelming monster threatening life on Earth, just the Monk trying to “improve” history. And as a great demonstration of @brewski‘s point elsewhere, the natives are far from stupid, and are well able to stand up to the Time Lords in their midst!

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I hate to say how much time I wasted on this last night: addictive to say the least! I too finally got as far as Eccleston, but it took ages. I had better success on my iPad, because the swiping forced me to slow down a bit. Dangerous activity, I probably wasted half a regeneration on it!   🙂

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I have discussed elsewhere (in copious detail!) my hopes for the new Doctor’s personality, so I won’t go into that here. But I’m definitely in the camp that doesn’t expect the memory loss to be a real issue. I expect a bit of early-episode instability, followed by a more settled, “I am the Doctor” take. Clara adjusting to the reality of regeneration and a completely new Doctor would be interesting, especially if it takes place over the course of the series. At times in the past, this issue has sometimes been dealt with a little too quickly for my taste. I know it would take me awhile to get over something like that!

I must say that @wolfweed has presented the only truly bonkers speculation so far!  🙂  But I like @phaseshift‘s thoughts about Clara. And this, which is as great a view of the Doctor at the start of his second half-century as I have seen:  The Doctor is in the TARDIS. The Dalek Empire is out there, there are worlds to explore – sights to see, wrongs to right and the potential for the Doctor to “go home” is distant on the horizon. It seems right somehow. A new era to start accruing new angst, new end-points and new “might-have-beens”.

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Oh, great topic! And great comments. I would have to agree with @purofilion that Captain Jack is probably done on the show (and probably River Song as well, imho). The Doctor moves on! I’m with @janetteb on the woman in the shop. Like you, I fear that it may indeed be dropped, but that would be fairly annoying as I feel that the issue of how Clara knew to call the TARDIS is pretty key!

I also agree with everyone who would love to see an appearance by Ian. A bit of UNIT would also be great, but not too much I hope, as I too would prefer to see less attachment to contemporary Earth. Also, I fully agree with @blenkinsopthebrave, regarding the Doctor as a rebel. In non-Earth societies he is usually an agitator, so working for an Earth military organization seems a bit contradictory.

I would like to see the return of Gallifrey, eventually. But I hope that we won’t be spending much time there. I was surprised when they returned to the issue of Gallifrey so quickly in The Time of the Doctor, although I understood that they needed to do this in order to get the Doctor his regenerations. But I very much hope that Gallifrey hasn’t actually been “found” as such, and that the bringing back of it won’t actually be as simple as was implied in TotD. It took a lot of work to hide it, it should be at least as difficult to bring it back! So I hope that the whole thing takes awhile, and is not front and centre for the most part.

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That’s really too bad. I have fond memories of “The Mark of the Rani”. She was such a great counterpoint to the over-the-top Master. He rubbed his hands together and cackled, and she went coolly about her nefarious business; as far as she was concerned, the Master and the Doctor were opposite sides of the same irritating coin. Kate O’Mara played her to perfection.

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In a belated happy birthday to Emperor @craig, I had to share this song from the hilarious Arrogant Worms. When paired with Lego, what’s not to love?  🙂

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I’ve been away for two weeks and see that there is a lot of catchup to do on here! I will start with a belated happy birthday to @craig. Since time has moved on, I’m posting your happy birthday message on the music forum. Cheers!

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@fatmaninabox     Yes!! Summer is coming… or spring, at least. It’s spring break for us, and I’m off on vacation for ten days, so yay!

But meanwhile, here is my retro summer track.

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I agree with @bluesqueakpip that, while Rose is not my favourite companion for a number of reasons, it isn’t fair to blame her for leaving Jacquie to go with the Doctor. That is what our children do: they grow up and leave. It’s hard on the parents, but probably better than the alternative (we do their laundry until they’re 35, and so on!)   🙂

I also agree that the Doctor redeemed himself in his treatment of Mickey in this episode. And while I felt badly for Mickey here, it had become so obvious that he was the wrong person for Rose that I really just wanted to buy him a beer and advise him to move on. (I’ll save most of my thoughts on that score for discussion during “Boom Town”!)

This wasn’t my favourite episode, but I think that was more down to my taste than anything inherently bad in it. There were some good bits: the opening scenes with Mickey and Jacquie, the spaceship crashing scene, the Doctor’s amazement at humanity’s ability to ignore history being made around them, all stand out for me. It also had Harriet Jones, the member for Flydale North, a lovely character who received her best treatment in her first appearance, I thought. And I do love Penelope Wilton!

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Such nice music for @purofilion’s brave leap! @fatmaninabox, thanks for that Sean Lennon, great song and what a cool video!

@scaryb, I love Free Fallin’, and k.d. lang, but although I was aware of John Mayer, I don’t know if I’d ever heard him. What a voice, and absolutely soul-piercing guitar playing. I may have to go looking for some more. 🙂

And @faegrl, I know that one! (she says proudly from the rocking chair) It’s on my son’s playlist. He has a couple by her, actually. She has a nice voice, and I like that it’s a bit distinctive. I’ve had a bit of a complaint about the women in pop music over the past twenty years, that too many of them sound the same to me!

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@thekrynoidman   Can’t argue with that!  🙂
@faegrl   That’s a lovely, evocative song. I like the lyrics as much as the singing.
@Purofilion   Sorry to hear about your hospital visit. But I’m glad the dive went well. How brave of you! The view sounds magical, but my stomach is turning flops thinking about the up and down part. I don’t do amusement park rides at all, I’m so averse to that feeling. The last time was several years ago in Disneyland, when I went on the waterfall ride with the family members and just about screamed my lungs out going over!

Hm, we need a song about flying… or falling! (I keep thinking about Woody’s line from Toy Story, about “falling with style”!)

 

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Well, we’ve come pretty far along in madness when I can’t get the screwcap open on a $10 bottle of cheap Italian. Does anyone have a half cup of red they can spare?  🙄

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@faegrl  Regarding nerdiness and the new cool: of course, the advent of the hipsters has played a part as well. But I don’t think it has trickled down into the high school age yet; at least, not at my son’s high school. He says that the “cool” boys are still the athletic ones. He has a foot in that camp due to his love of sport, but interestingly, most of his friends now come from the geek side.

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@faegrl  It’s quite okay; as I said, I don’t think that most people agree with me here. I think the general consensus is that he loved her. It’s just not my view. I will say, though, that I see the metacrisis Doctor in quite a different light. I think that he was able to love Rose, exactly the way she wanted to be loved, precisely because he was not a pure Time Lord. And yes, the Doctor cried. Because in his own way, he did love her. He hated to let her go. I actually think that Ten, in particular, would have liked to experience that kind of relationship. In Human Nature, he actually tried to convince himself that he could love Joan. But she knew that he couldn’t.

River Song is another matter, and I deliberately hadn’t mentioned her because I felt the post was getting a little overlong. I think that the Doctor did love River. But just as Metacrisis Ten was a little less than Time Lord, River was a little more than human.

And I fully agree that any discussion of the Doctor loving Rose must definitely be limited to Ten. He may or may not have loved her, but whatever he felt for her, it was over and done for Eleven. That was kind of my point in talking about the regeneration. Clearly if, when the Doctor regenerates, he undergoes a big personality shift, then feelings toward people would presumably be quite different. (Another reason, actually, why I think that long term relationships between Time Lords and humans would be unlikely.) I don’t think that we have ever been told anything about Time Lord relationships, but they would have to be different. Maybe they only last the lifetime of one incarnation? River Song didn’t really seem in love with Ten when they met, more amazed at the differences in him.

We’re completely agreed on the excellence of this forum. It’s the first and only forum I have joined. One obvious reason why: when I said “I don’t think the Doctor was in love with Rose,” you did not reply, “How can u be so dumb? Of course they luv each other!!!!”   😀

 

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And yes, @monochromedimension, love that fabulous theme. There was some discussion about it earlier in the thread, as I recall. Really magical.

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