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@whisht     If @puroandson can give you The Walking Dead (loved the song, btw, Puro), I guess I can give you this from Fiddler on the Roof (because I saw a production last week and can’t get the songs out of my head now!). So here it is, complete with lots of glasses raised and noisy dancing (suitable birthday celebration, no?). Mazel tov!

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@missy @janetteb     Ha. I found both Rose and Martha irritating, and only came to my happy place with the arrival of Donna! (That’s a bit unfair, actually, as I didn’t find either of them irritating all the time. Certain elements of their characters as written bugged me, but between times I enjoyed them both.)

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@winston   @puroandson     Yes! My laptop (4 years and counting) is called “Salento” (after a part of Italy which I love). I was encouraged to give it a name by Mr. Arbutus, who was formerly the IT leader at a startup company where he named all the servers after composers. It was great when he would get messages from his team, saying that this or that had to be done to Josquin, or Monteverdi, or Perotinus (Mr. Arbutus has a doctorate in music and never felt obliged to stick with composer names that most people had actually heard of!).

But like you both, I hate replacing my tech before it’s absolutely necessary (i.e. crossing your fingers every time you go to boot it up). Salento is getting a bit dicey, I actually can’t watch video on it for more than a couple of minutes without the fan starting up. Fortunately, I have a tablet for Netflix and so on.

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@ichabod      Take care of yourself. Look forward to seeing you back after a speedy recovery!  🙂

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@kharis    I’ve finally had a listen to the music at the spot you mentioned, and I agree. The use of electronic sound at that point and the rather angular melodic shape definitely sounds like early eighties DW. They used to be fond of a kind of synthesized sound that sounded to me like recorders, and a sort of triadic melody line, and this bit reminds me of that. Great spot!

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@missy @puroandson @kharis         Replying here rather than Before the Flood so as not to get modded (although I think the Mods must have all popped off to warmer climates as it is so quiet around here lately!).

I couldn’t agree more with the love for Murray Gold’s work on the show, it has been stellar. While there have been occasions when I felt things went a bit over the top, for the most part I have loved it. On my recent rewatching of the “Last of the Time Lords” two-parter, an episode which in my view let a solid series down to a great degree, I did notice that one of the things that actually worked really well was the music. I was struck by the theme that plays as Martha, after taking one last look at her loved ones, escapes back to earth, where she watches the destruction and begins her battle– a lovely, emotive tune, beautifully orchestrated. And then yesterday, I watched Partners in Crime, and admired the frothy, Avengeresque soundtrack during the first third or so of the story, as Donna and the Doctor are playing at spies. I have always admired the music of that episode, so cheeky!

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@missy     It wasn’t that I didn’t like Martha as a character, but the fact that RTD chose to write her as having “fallen in love” with the Doctor, based on nothing very deep as far as I could see, even after he made it specifically clear that he didn’t feel that way. Then she moped around for the rest of the series because he didn’t recognize her feelings, after she told him before their first trip together that she didn’t have those feelings for him. This drove me nuts, because she was in other respects a great character: smart, adventurous, and determined. I loved the scene at the end of Gridlock where she forced him to come clean about Gallifrey; after two trips in the TARDIS, she was drawing a line in the sand. This was a great, strong character that was really cheapened by the whole “unrequited love” story line that was imposed upon her by the showrunner.

I also didn’t like the way Rose kept being shoehorned in, with the Doctor constantly wishing she was there. I get that in RTD’s mind, they were a great love story, but frankly, I never saw it, and in my mind, once she was gone, he should have moved on a lot sooner than he did. He could have missed her as a companion and friend, without this sort of obsession that was written in. For one thing, it made his treatment of Martha seem pretty cheap, not the kind of thing I expect from the Doctor.

For me, the Doctor/Donna relationship was the best of the Tennant era, because all of this artificially romantic stuff was left out of it, and they were allowed to be friends. Donna could be loyal to the Doctor, learn from him, and teach him, in the best Companion tradition; and he could be attached to her in a believable way.

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@allonsy    So sorry to hear about your mensis horribilis. Those do come along from time to time, don’t they? I hope things are looking up, that your family is rebounding. (And that expressions like “Eh bien” and “c’est la vie” are effective in a southern accent?  🙂 )

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Well, I finally finished my rewatch of Series 3. Very interesting to see what I had remembered and what I had forgotten. My memory of it was clouded by a couple of things that I strongly disliked, namely the Doctor/Martha relationship and the finale. But leaving that aside, I now realize that I actually enjoyed almost the whole series very much indeed. I thought that The Lazarus Experiment was a bit of a weak point, and there were parts of The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords that I hugely disliked (although on rewatch I found that even that was about 60 percent quite enjoyable).

So to return to the listing of favourites that was going on awhile back, my top hits from Series 3 are The Shakespeare Code, Gridlock, and Blink. But I found almost every episode to be really quite good, when I ignored the frequent shoehorning-in of little “Martha’s unrequited love” or “the Doctor can’t forget Rose” moments. (It affirms for me the rightness of Moffat’s decision to make sure that the Doctor has to forget Clara, because it’s frankly a path that I would prefer never to walk again!)

And now on to the wonderful Donna Noble, my favourite of Ten’s companions!

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@nerys     Yes, I imagine that the contract runs out at some future date and then we will lose it as well. I hope it will continue to be available on iTunes or I will really be in trouble. I find the current attempts by certain parties to hang on to the 20th century pretty frustrating. Personally, I have embraced streaming and digital downloads as a way to keep from finally being crushed under the weight of my stuff (I live in a pretty small house). We still buy physical copies of films from time to time, but I will not buy DVD sets of TV series as I just wouldn’t have room for everything I might want to watch.

We had some angst in the house yesterday on realizing that the Canadian network carrying the Superbowl was only allowing internet streaming if you were a cable subscriber. Not sure what the point was, as if I had cable I wouldn’t need to stream the game, would I? There was no way to watch it in Canada without cable, unless we had set up vpn ahead of time, which we hadn’t done as we didn’t realize that Arbutus Jr. still wanted to watch (despite the presence of either Patriots or Seahawks in the game this year! 🙂 ). So we spent a fair bit of time fuming about the stupidity of cable companies that refuse to accept the new reality, and networks too stupid to realize that it doesn’t matter to them how people watch their broadcasts as long as they do.

Off topic rant over now. Gung hay fat choy.

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@kharis  @thedentistofdavros     Oh. I’ve just reread your post and you said “classical Who music”, not “classical music”.   Red face.  I don’t know about the other. I wouldn’t have thought so as my memory of the AG soundtracks is of a very different type of sound. But there was a lot buried in there, so who nose? Plus music is made up of repeated sounds and ideas so often that even inadvertently, bits can show up that recall other music. I’ve had that happen often, when I’ve heard a bit of music that I was sure I knew, and then on looking into it, I realize that there’s some little hook or motif that is poking at my memory.

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@kharis  @thedentistofdavros     Definitely, there was Beethoven. I forget now exactly what it was as I haven’t seen it in awhile, but it was hugely affecting. I remember being stunned in general by the soundtrack of that episode, it was so unusual for DW and just gorgeous!

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@kharis        You make an interesting point. I myself am a bit less than enthusiastic about a female Doctor, but I accept that it may happen sooner than later, and I’m certainly not going to freak out or abandon the show (unless I just don’t enjoy the person chosen, I suppose, but that could equally apply to a male choice). But what I like about your remarks is that you outline a clear and (to me) interesting reason for why this particularly Time Lord should, in your view, stay male. If only everyone that had an objection about the choices of showrunners could be so articulate! What we usually get is “The Doctor is male. End of discussion.”    🙂

Personally, I hope that whoever is chosen (male or female), it isn’t someone who is so strongly associated with another role that it is hard to get past. (Hypocritical, I suppose, as that was some people’s objection to Peter Capaldi, but not being British, I never saw The Thick of It, so to me, he was an actor I had seen in a few roles here and there, rather than one major one.) But as @janetteb says, we have no way of knowing for sure whether we are getting Capaldi for one or two more series anyway, so I refuse to worry about that issue until I have to!

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@thedentistofdavros     As far as BG episodes go, it’s been a very long time for some of them and there are many that I remember very fondly. But for top favourites I would probably go with some from the Tom Baker era: Pyramids of Mars, The Seeds of Doom, City of Death.

@missy     That’s a very detailed list! 🙂  I’m working my way through a full AG rewatch and have just finished Series 2. Some of these episodes I hadn’t seen in years! For me, the Empty Child/Doctor Dances duo was definitely the highlight of the first series. Dalek and The Unquiet Dead came next. There were none that I strongly disliked, although there were elements in a few that really didn’t work for me. I didn’t love Bad Wolf.

In Series 2, The Girl in the Fireplace and School Reunion topped the list, but I liked a lot of others as well. @puroandson, I had forgotten how good the Impossible Planet/Satan Pit two-parter was! Tooth and Claw was spoiled for me a bit because I found the Doctor/Rose interactions hugely irritating at times. Throughout the series, they had a tendency to get very giggly and cute, and it really grated. Love & Monsters was the weak point, but interestingly I realized after watching it earlier this week that it was mostly the last 15 minutes or so that I really disliked; a lot of it was fine. Similarly, I actually quite liked Fear Her, but found the last 5 minutes annoying. The final two-parter was definitely my favourite of the RTD finales (despite the very weepy ending not really hitting the right note for me).

It is no big surprise to me that, like @missy, my very favourite episodes so far have been Moffat-penned!

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I’ve now watched this with a lot more attention to detail than I ever did the first time around, and I still like it. I’m not sure what problem people would have with it as it feels like classic action Who to me, a straightforward but imaginative scenario that creates some excellent suspense.

Like @bluesqueakpip, I thought the scene with the Doctor going into stasis was a highlight. Not only did it give some insight into the Doctor, but I felt it showed us the Companion that Martha could have been, had RTD not made the (to me) inexplicable decision to include the whole “unrequited love” scenario. She was so calm as she manipulated the controls, seemingly impervious to the Doctor’s horrible screams- she is a would-be medical doctor and clearly has the temperament for it!

The scene in the jettisoned pod was great as well, in fact, Martha’s whole brief relationship with the crew member (I forget his name) was nicely done. I liked her phone interactions with her mother, and also liked the decision of the captain to die with her husband, to atone for her mistake and to repair some of the result.

@puroandson    “Don’t they teach recreational mathematics anymore?” I loved that line, too.  🙂

@ichabod   You’re certainly right about the screaming, but it bothered me less than the music, which I felt could have been toned down a bit. It was a problem for me throughout the Tennant era, that I felt they sometimes tried to ramp up the tension with an extra bombastic soundtrack. Unfortunately (for me), the arc-related ending served to remind me of where the series is ultimately headed, the final two-parter which I disliked about as much as I ever dislike DW!

But all in all, I think this episode worked pretty well, and certainly from the perspective of the writing, I had no problem with it.

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@puroandson       Hello, dear Puro. I’ve been lurking. I brought popcorn, as my son likes to say when watching fireworks that don’t involve him.  🙂  And learning about things like “Pastoral Care” class! Yes, soccer, only three more weeks thank goodness. The boys played yesterday in what had to be the coldest rain ever that wasn’t actually snow, but at least we fielded 11 players for once. I’m feeling seriously fed up with it. Basketball, on the other hand, takes place in a warm gym, and all I have to do is show up and shout “Go, Griffins!” every so often. I’m preferring that, at the moment.

And Son of Puro is back at school, and if I’m not mistaken, it’s a new year for him? I hope that is going well. It has been a pleasure reading his thoughts on the Forum, he is articulate and personable. I’m glad to hear that you’re back home.

Left Hand of Darkness– isn’t that a great book? Well ahead of its time, probably. I am a big fan of LeGuin.

Tomorrow I will have a chance to watch “42” again, and join in the discussion there. It’s a bit of a jump ahead as my current rewatch has only gotten into the early part of Series 2. I’m looking forward to it!

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Welcome, @thedentistofdavros! I love your user name. If I had it to do over again, I would probably go with something like TheHarpsichordOfRassilon. (Actually, that’s pretty cool, except that I would never get any replies because it would be so much work to type!)

And welcome also to @moondragon007. Yours is an interesting perspective. I have always had the view that marriage-type relationships among Time Lords would not necessarily have survived a regeneration; that marriage contracts (if there were such a thing) might even have only had force for the duration of an incarnation (until “death” do them part, in fact). Because even without the complication of a complete sexual makeover, the personalities seem to change greatly at times, and there would be a strong possibility of winding up with someone that you just couldn’t get on with on a daily basis? (Can you imagine having been married to the Fifth Doctor, for instance, and suddenly have found yourself with Six?) The fact that a potential sex change is now in the mix as well seems to make that even more likely.

I can imagine the conversations: “Are you acquainted with So-and-So?” “Oh, yes, I was married to him for a few centuries. Then he was killed in an accident with a table saw, regenerated, and all hell broke loose…  short skirts, annoying pop songs, and the piercings…! It all ended in tears.”    🙂

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Regarding Chris Chibnall: I enjoyed all of his stories, although they would never make it into my personal Top Ten. However, it was interesting to look over the episode list and realize that, while I have loved the Moffat years, the episodes that I loved best, apart from arc issues long-term characterizations, were mostly not written by Moffat himself (although most of his RTD-era writing definitely makes my Top Ten). Similarly, of all the episodes RTD wrote, only one makes my list. And yet, I enjoyed most of these episodes at the time. Also, while I have preferred Moffat’s era overall, I haven’t got a great fondness for Series 6, so it’s not as if he hit it out of the park for me every time. So, while I’m assuming that the show will see some stylistic changes with a new showrunner, I expect to enjoy it, for the most part. And meanwhile, there’s still one more series of Moffat’s to enjoy, even if we have to wait awhile for it!

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@missy   Thanks! I need all the gold stars I can get!  🙂

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@puroandson      A view and internet! My son dreams of a room like that.  🙂  (He has the internet, but no view from his bedroom window. He aspires to live in a high rise apartment some day.)

@allonsy  If you post a note on the “Website Comments” section (which I think you will find at the very bottom of the home page), then a moderator should see it and hopefully create a page for the episode.

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@craig     Well, you’re right of course, and I didn’t bother with the original post for exactly that reason. I couldn’t resist with the next bit simply because it was so ridiculous. But, as you say, probably best not to feed.

@allonsy    Rose has never been my favourite, although there were things about her that I liked. I didn’t always love how her character was handled in the storyline. And as I wrote earlier in another post, I liked her much better with Nine than with Ten. Captain Jack I enjoyed very much in his first appearance, and thought he was okay throughout the first series. When he was brought back later on I liked him less, but I think by that time, the character had become more informed by Torchwood. It occurred to me recently (and I found this interesting) that his first appearance was in a story penned by Stephen Moffat, as opposed to all the others which were Russell T. Davies episodes. It may be that I just preferred the way Moffat handled the character.

I think my favourite AG character would still be Donna. I loved her sauce, and the give and take of her relationship with the Doctor.I don’t suppose she would have worked as well with either Eleven or Twelve, but with Ten I thought she was fabulous. I liked that, unlike most other companions, her boisterous attitude came from a lack of confidence rather than the opposite. I thought it was very sad that the ending of her story removed all the wonderful character development that she had been through, I found that pretty tragic.

All that being said, I don’t think I have ever really disliked a Companion!

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@lisa    Well, you never know, do you? My recollections of the first series included a dislike of several episodes. I have had a poor view of Aliens in London (except for Penelope Wilton), but on rewatch I realized that it was really only the giggling and farting that I didn’t like. Much of it was very good and there was a lot of menace. It still doesn’t stand as a favourite for me but it was solidly entertaining. The same thing with Father’s Day. I always had a problem with the pterodactyl-style monsters, since their presence as response to messing with the fixed point in time never made sense to me. But on rewatching it, I did realize that the story they were telling required a fairly straightforward, obvious menace to which the solution was simply Pete being willing to step up and do the right thing. As a narrative, this does make sense, even if I still find the monsters unsatisfying as a concept. Similarly, I was annoyed by Rose’s actions, she really wasn’t very smart here, but frankly, it wasn’t smart of the Doctor to take her there. Surely, an experienced time traveller should have said, gently, “Rose, there are some places it is just better not to go.” But watching with fresh eyes, I am willing to accept that while those issues may bug me, if I just take them as read there is a lot to like in that story. Rose getting to see her father and her parents’ marriage as they really were, rather than through Jackie’s rose-coloured glasses, was nicely done, for sure.

Maybe some day, your niece will rewatch the Zygon story and appreciate it more for the socio-political commentary, and Capaldi’s great performance, rather than looking for a good scare.   🙂  I don’t suppose anyone over the age of eight is really scared by costumed monsters these days, anyway!

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@zepyr101         Given that Doctor Who is a British program, made in the UK by the taxpayer-supported BBC using British actors, I have to say that no, it comes as no surprise that the English heard on the show is the British version. Is this meant to be a serious complaint? Because I don’t recall any complaints about the fact that in the Star Trek universe, most of the aliens spoke with American accents. Or about all the Australian accents in Farscape.

And frankly, the British character of the show is part of what even most American fans actually like about it. Calling it B-grade and claiming that if it were an American show it would be better, is standing on pretty shaky ground considering what many fans (again, including Americans here) thought of the TV movie.

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@missy      In North America, there isn’t the same barrister/solicitor distinction as in the UK. In Canada at least, lawyers are qualified to do both, although not every lawyer does courtroom litigation.

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Talking of change in Doctor Who, I recently finished a rewatch of Series One, and I found it very interesting in light of what the show has become more recently. My first surprise was that a number of episodes that I had not remembered fondly were in fact better than I had recalled. I now realize that these stories contained elements that I didn’t care for, but had other things going for them which still made them enjoyable. On the other hand, the episodes that I remembered loving impressed me still– The Unquiet Dead, Dalek, and the Empty Child/The Doctor Dances. These were the ones that stood out at the time and that hasn’t changed!

I remember noting the updated tone and style of the new show, slick, pacy, and energized, but it seems to me that this has been toned back over recent years. And it was funny to see the pre-title updates, reminding viewers of previous episodes at a time when fans weren’t rewatching each episode three or four times before the next one!  🙂

As for the Doctor and his companion, I remembered Eccelston as being good at the intense moments, less so in the light-hearted ones, and not quite “doctory” enough. I now think that he was better than I remembered at the light side of the Doctor, but very alien, lacking the more obvious warmth of his successors. And I had forgotten that my irritation with Rose stemmed more from her second series than from her first. I think she was a good match for Nine. They had an easy, affectionate relationship, and his feelings for her were not being portrayed as the equal of her hero-worship of him.

I am going to continue working my way through the series, and I am looking forward to a new look at the Chibnall episodes. I don’t recall disliking any of them, so I don’t have any particular feeling of doom at this point. (I have also been meaning to watch Broadchurch as it is now on Netflix here, and now I have an extra motivation to do so!)

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@puroandson       Your mom should know that she has lots friends here who really do want to know how she is doing. It’s no imposition to keep us updated. And her comments are always missed when she’s not around! The jelly story made me smile, that sounds very Puro!  🙂

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@puroandson     All the love in the world to your mom, please! Virtual hugs.

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Hi ho.

I’m not at all surprised to hear Moffat’s leaving finally given a time frame, we had to know it was coming fairly soon. He’s been at this for an awfully long time. I must say that the show under his direction has brought me pleasure, amusement, or joy (sometimes all three at once!) far more often than not. But I enjoyed the show under Russell T. Davies, and I wouldn’t have guessed that I would come to love the Moffat version even more. Just as I enjoyed David Tennant as the Doctor, and could never have guessed that Smith Doctor would eclipse him for me. So here’s hoping that I will continue to find something to love there; I’m pretty sure that I will!

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@winston     Netflix Canada has Buffy. I have been meaning to have a look, like you based on the enthusiasm of others on this Forum. Maybe these rainy winter days will provide me the backdrop to get started!

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@puroandson    (and @anyone who likes their famous bits of classical music)

Check this out, it’s pretty cool:

http://www.gramophone.co.uk/feature/classical-music-mashup-quiz?utm_content=bufferddb6d&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

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@winston    I did a Series One rewatch over the holidays (I plan to continue on throughout the AG run as time allows). It was illuminating in many ways. I was reminded as I watched this how it took the whole experience up a level for me at the time. This episode was the one where I really felt that the show was going to be interesting. Up until now, I had been enjoying the new series for what it was, but my jury was still out on it and on the Ninth Doctor. I still feel that, in some ways, he was never quite “the Doctor” for me, but he was very much so in this. Having had an earlier history with DW, the Daleks were not new to me, but I loved the way they were made to feel like an ancient, terrifying (if long dead) threat.

 

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@mccottonthedoctorfan   @sirclockface     I have listened to a fair amount of Big Finish (not anything like comprehensively, I would have had to sell my car for that!). From what I have heard, I would say that most of it is good fun, and some of it is excellent. They have done lots of Dalek stories and lots of Eighth Doctor. I’m not sure where you’d want to start, but one possible place would be with the beginning of the Eight Doctor Adventures series (which has Daleks!). Those ones were modeled after the new series, and are shorter and snappier for the most part. As far as I can recall, you don’t need to have heard any of the earlier Eighth Doctor stories, as these were conceived for radio broadcast and assumed no knowledge of prior Big Finish. Personally, I always go with the digital download option, as I don’t care about hard copies (they just take up space I don’t have) and download is less expensive. But know that you are opening up a huge can of worms for your wallet!  🙂

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Hi, @everyone! I’ve been lurking a bit since New Year’s but engaged in keeping my head above the waters of Real Life (cleaning up the post Christmas mess, running back and forth to basketball games, and trying to ensure that enough boys show up each weekend to field a soccer team… AGGGGHHHHHHH). And every time I turn on the internet, I see more bad news. Shocked about Bowie… he wasn’t one of my life-changing artists, but he was always there, part of the sound track of my life, and you thought he would last forever. Many artists keep going but they don’t always stay relevant. Bowie never let himself become nostalgia-fodder, which I so admire.

And Alan Rickman. Oh dear, oh dear. Such a wonderful presence and such a fabulous voice. I noticed yesterday that in every photo I saw, he has the warmest expression, a lovely smile, and looks the complete antithesis of so many of his most famous roles! It’s all very sad. Here at home, we suffered a third (or first, in fact) loss, a lovely, lovely bandleader named Dal Richards, who would have been 98 this month and gigged up until almost the end. He played 79 consecutive New Year’s Eves in Vancouver, and was performing as recently as this fall. It was heartbreaking and fitting that he died on December 31st. Someone said that he had another New Year’s gig to get to, and Dal never tolerated being late for a gig.  🙁

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Having done the New Year’s Eve prosecco (also eggnog and Bailey’s, which proved to be fairly ambrosial), I’m now on to a New Year’s Day cranberry mimosa. Happy New Year, everyone! May your 2016 be liberally spiked with joy, success, and bonkers theorizing (possibly but not necessarily in that order).

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@mersey      Well, there is that.  🙂  Fortunately, we are clever enough to come up with in-story rationales for all these pragmatic decisions!

@puroandson    I didn’t take your words as meaning you didn’t like her. I have said it before, during series 8, that there were times when I found her behaviour and attitude quite seriously annoying. But I came to feel that these issues were all part of her being a human being, with flaws as we all have. And of course, as we look retrospectively at her now-completed character arc, we can see that this sometimes overconfident attitude was written deliberately, as part of her journey. She believed that she could be a human version of the Doctor. River has believed this as well, with perhaps a little more justification. We met River as a highly experienced, well-travelled archaeologist, and for me at least, I found that made it a little easier to accept that brassy self-confidence. But there are a remarkable lot of parallels in the characters and arcs of the two, aren’t there?

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@midnyt @mersey @puroandson

I still think people (and the Doctor, for that matter) underestimate the power that certain kinds of “knowledge” have over our perceptions. River “knew” with absolute certainty (as far as she was concerned) that SmithDoc was on his last regen. This single “fact” was powerful enough that it would have allowed her to overlook several otherwise obvious clues to the Doctor’s identity, until his long, significant look following immediately on her emotional outburst, capped by his gentle greeting, “Hello, sweetie.” At that moment, recognition was complete, and obviously didn’t require any more explanation than “a thing happened”. Because, once the mental block was removed, she would of course see beyond his external appearance to the Time Lord within.

Even if River can be considered a proper Time Lord (and I agree with Puro that I don’t think she can), I don’t think that the Doctor’s statement about sensing other Time Lords can be taken as fact any longer. We know he believed it to be true, but what about Missy? He spoke with her at length, she kissed him for Pete’s sake, and he never guessed that she was a Time Lord. There was also the Simm Master, who was present on Earth disguised as a politician on any number of occasions when the Doctor was also there, and the Doctor never guessed. So I’m pretty sure that his belief that he “would know” was a mistaken one.

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@pedant    Yes, @jimthefish is ours now, and we aren’t giving him back!

@midnyt @puroandson @mersey

For me, part of the difference was in the fact that River (by the time we were getting to know her) had to some degree earned the right to a little arrogance. She is closer to being the Doctor’s equal. She has lived a long life, travelled in time and space, had many adventures and fought many battles. Her self-confidence did indeed grate at times, but I was better able to excuse it (I should add that I liked Clara, but she did frequently irritate me!).

We would seem to be witnessing River and the Doctor at the one time in their relationship when they are pretty much on equal ground with one another. They both remember every single adventure they have shared (except of course River’s final one), so River’s experienced persona is for the first time truly understood by the Doctor. There is only one remaining spoiler, and it is on River’s side now, so she is more vulnerable. I think that balance is part of the reason it would be so lovely to have more of this River/Doctor pairing; but logistically it would be difficult, because the relationship is so delicately balanced on this one little point in time.

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@puroandson     I don’t think any Mercians are still up. I’m pretty sure they’re all dead. Unless you mean these guys…    🙂

 

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I expected to like River and Twelve together and was not disappointed. I always liked her best of all in her first outing with Ten, finding her dynamic with Eleven somewhat irritating at times (albeit with some very funny moments), except for the last time, in The Name of the Doctor, when arguably Matt Smith had reached his most mature take on the role. I thought that this coda on their relationship was really, really well done. I loved the twist of her not recognizing him. As others have pointed out, there were lots of callouts to Silence in the Library. Contrary motion, as @puroandson said; I had thought of a reflection, not a mirror exactly, but more the imperfect reflection we see in water.

When he gave her the Christmas present, I immediately thought, “Oh, lots of people will be happy.” It had never bothered me that we hadn’t seen the Doctor give River the sonic, but this worked very well and tied nicely into the “sonic trowel” scene which was perfectly hilarious. ( Of course, Clara wasn’t the only one in time and space trying to be the Doctor.)

@midnyt    I’ve only watched it once so far, and had missed the connection between those lines and Library, but I think you’ve nailed it. “There is a song” clearly mirrors “when the Doctor comes to call”. Nice.

@puroandson  I loved the laughter scene as well. It was wonderful seeing the Doctor reminding River not to take things so seriously. People who see CapDoc as only grim and cranky are missing the sense of humour that is always bubbling away just underneath the grumpy exterior. @sonofpuro, I did understand that Puro was talking about what others might think. My immediate thought was that if anyone found this episode overly sentimental, they must have hated last year’s!

And Puro, I now have a lovely image of a happy family sitting outside the house in front of the big screen, watching Christmas Doctor Who.

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@charmy    Confused here. When you talk about the great performances of Smith, Tennant, and Baker, I guess you mean in Day of the Doctor? Baker (much as I love him) was hardly in that, and I doubt that many people have been comparing him to Capaldi. As for “weird story lines”, this certainly wasn’t the first time the Doctor saved Davros, or tried to; he killed neither Clara nor River, and certainly not the Gallifreyan High Council (he banished them, a very Doctor-like solution, really). Everything we have been told suggests that Capaldi is very happy doing the show: he has completed two full series and is committed to a third. As most Doctors haven’t stuck much longer than that, it would be surprising if he hadn’t contemplated the when and how of his exit!

I absolutely agree, however, that this episode was well done. Lots of humour and not-too-scary danger, and exactly the right amount of emotion for a Christmas episode. Loved it!

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Loved everyone’s Christmas songs, with an especially thank you as always to @fatmaninabox for the Blyth Power. (It was a bit of an evil day the day you introduced me to that band! 🙂 )

@puroandson    I think the tritone was mentioned at one point. Isn’t that fun?

Ha! We were just talking about A Fish Called Wanda the other night. We looked up the gold fish eating scene to show Arbutus Jr. It made me want to watch it again, I haven’t seen it in years! My son being a choirboy, he fortunately enjoys the traditional carol stuff. But his favourite Christmas recording is probably still the Michael Bublé one from a few years back. Oddly (for a teenage boy), this is his favourite track:

 

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And a happy Saint Stephen’s Day to all. Wasn’t that fun? River and Twelve were predictably great together, her speech about the Doctor was beautifully done, and the recognition scene afterward even better. And so many fun bits I can’t keep track of them all. Of course, I loved the Doctor’s “bigger on the inside” moment.

Based on his words to River at the end, we now know that the Doctor has indeed learned from his Series 9 experiences. He has learned that he can’t always avoid endings, can’t always cheat death, can’t always win. His face as he shares that wisdom with River is wonderful. Interesting to remember that the next time she sees him, he is Ten, with so many lessons still to learn. No wonder she thinks he looks so young!

@tardigrade    I had the same thought at one point, “Surely she must figure it out?” But then I realized that she could have absolutely no way of knowing that the Doctor could have more than twelve regenerations, and as his wife, I’m sure she would have been well aware that SmithDoc was on his last regen. How could she have guessed that “a thing” had happened? (I loved that moment, too- typical fan, no need to know the details, just “a thing happened”!) And when we have a firmly fixed notion of any kind, it’s very hard to see around it sometimes, even for clever people.

@puroandson    I didn’t find it at all syrupy, in fact, compared to last year’s tear-fest, I thought the emotion was pretty well controlled. It felt more touching to me, bittersweet, but quite appropriate and lovely.

Oh, and- Stephen Fry?   🙂

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@pedant @mersey @blenkinsopthebrave

We have one store in Vancouver that sells all kinds of homemade Ukrainian goodies. My mother lives in Alberta, and she can get all kinds of things there, where they have a greater number of Ukrainians both buying and selling. I used to make perogies (we actually call them “pedehey”, as my family is Ukrainian), but it’s way too much work nowadays and my kitchen doesn’t really lend itself to massive sheets of dough the way my Nanna’s did! The grocery store ones are just not the same when you’ve grown up eating them homemade, but now as I say, we have this one great store, so I can get my hit. We like to have them on Christmas Eve.

@mersey    That map is great. I love reading about Christmas traditions from many places, it’s so interesting. Apparently in Italy there is also a witch that comes around, I think on Saint Nicholas’ Day, and leaves gifts as well. I suppose it is inherited from some pre-Christian tradition, as so many of these things are. Merry Christmas to you in Poland, enjoy your pierogi-making tomorrow! I will be making cabbage rolls and braided bread for Christmas Day.

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@pedant    I have to admit that I wept my way through that video the first time I watched it (while in my car, waiting for the perogy store to open). It was beautifully done, and the songs worked surprisingly well together. Good for Bieber for those tweets. I’ve never been a fan, but I have always tried to remember that he was far too young for the massive success that came his way. He has behaved as stupidly as many young people do, but with the money and fame to do it on a bigger stage, as it were. Hopefully he is growing up! And as @blenkinsopthebrave says, it’s a shock when you have taken universal healthcare for granted to be made aware of the reality that many Americans have faced.

On another note, I too am looking forward to the Christmas special. I don’t mind an arc-light episode, especially at Christmas. But I somehow don’t fear that we won’t get a hefty dollop of sentiment from Mr. Moffat and Co., mixed in with the frivolity. Isn’t that what Christmas is for?     🙂

Off to try and finish the baking now. Cheers!

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@lisa   Fabulous! I haven’t heard anything of Brian Setzer in a long time, that’s a great video.

@puroandson       My new favourite Christmas song!  🙂  (Brought to my attention via the Twitter account of the massively gifted and really lovely pianist Marc-André Hamelin.)

 

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@craig      Hand raised in support of a Face of Evil discussion.

@puroandson  @janetteb

We do chilled eggnog too, spiked with rum for grownups and with freshly grated nutmeg for everyone. Arbutus Jr. has been allowed a little rum in his this year, to his great delight. We also do a mulled apple cider that is non alky and very tasty. But last night was carol night, and there was a table loaded with gorgeous French cheeses and wine, and more wine, and then pastries and sweet wine, and it was oh so fabulous. We ate and drank and sang for almost five hours. It doesn’t get better.  🙂

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@cathannabel   Congratulations on your imminent retirement! I’m sure you have lots of exhilarating plans for spending your time. I look forward to reading the blog.  🙂

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@juniperfish      I believe that the show has become much more about metaphor during Moffat’s tenure. This has come up repeatedly in discussions here that have referred to myth, story, and extra textual references that might be similar to what in nineteenth-century music was called “programmatic”. The Tarot narrative that was discovered running through this series was fascinating in its implication of a thematic narrative that is universal- unless we think that Moffat was purposely referencing the Tarot, which might indeed be some people’s view, but isn’t mine. I am more inclined to view the connection as something similar to the Hero’s Journey idea (which has also come up here). But as a result, there is more room for speculation and diversity of viewpoint regarding the stories, which I think is interesting and fun.

But it is this, I think, that the fans who have not enjoyed Moffat’s Who object to. They would prefer a more direct set of stories, without the meta content. They interpret this as “RTD was better at human emotions” and similar statements. Certainly the two showrunners are very different kinds of storyteller. I have been thinking for awhile that in the new year, I want to attempt a rewatch of the entire series from Rose onward, partly to revisit old episodes that I enjoyed and partly to get a look at the older in relation to the newer, and see what I think about it all and how it has changed.

I want to say how much I appreciate all the different views I read here, and everyone’s erudition and broad range of knowledge regarding the arts and sciences generally. It’s never boring reading people’s thoughts here, whether I agree with them or not! Thanks again to @craig and everyone for making it such a great place. 🙂

I love the “Christmas Doctor” on the welcome page, I wonder what he’s got in the box?   🙂

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Thanks to @pedant‘s timely reminder, here is my favourite “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town”.  Ho, ho, ho.

 

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@pedant    I absolutely love your fascist take on Santa Claus. Brilliant!

And now thanks to your reminder, I must get me to the Music Thread and post a little Springsteen.  🙂

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