@barnable – yeah, not a good year on all sorts of levels.

But I’ll play something I’ve played here before and that I know raises a smile with a few, because its christmastime and we really should try and feel….. christmassy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hM2dV0vtOd0

And always happy to hear more from this awesome album, so I’ll do it if…[Read more]

oops – I’ve not replied to a bunch of people!

@bluesqueakpip – always liked that Jules cover and REM is one I’ve always tried every few years to think “do I really like them?”
@barnable – cheers, not heard in a long time and actually bothered myself to listen all the way through and raised a smile when it was sorely needed!
🙂
@Arbutus – thanks…[Read more]

@Barnable: If the Doctor preserved the time line which I believe he did, then old Davros is shown before the Doctor even arrives with the sonic screwdriver stays the same.

@Kharis: I speculate this episode is not parenting, it’s office politics.

Think of Clara as a new temp hire who has no shot at ever becoming permanent staff. The Doctor and…[Read more]

@purofilion Teachers are modern day martyrs for sure.  We tend to use the teacher’s love for their students by treating them like crap and overworking them.  Why?  Because most people know that the teacher’s heart bleeds for their students so it is known that they will sacrifice their own life, time and health.   Very Clara.  I don’t know why peop…[Read more]

@lisa to be honest, I thought Moffat intended as a joke and that’s how I took it. 🙂

@ichabod darn, I thought it was the Doctor who said it. Never mind, I still think there’s the possibility that there are two disks, or, as you say, Missy has tampered with it. I wonder how Ohila managed to get it to Missy? Maybe that’s just irrelevant, we jus…[Read more]

@bluesqueakpip  If you insert a living being into a time-stream, someone who should never have existed, how long will they live?  Possibly, like all those Claricles, precisely as long as they’re needed.

Whoo, that is *cold*.  But yes, I can see it.  It could work, and be quite horrible — if Clara has never *been* anything other than a pawn in a…[Read more]

@Purofilion  @Barnable   Thanks!  Good, good stuff . . .

My sister’s doing well.  The hospital is only a few blocks away, and I spent the afternoon there with her, cracking up each other and the nurses.  I think she’ll be going home in a day or two; then we start the re-orientation of her eating habits etc., and probably mine too since we two…[Read more]

@Bluesqueakpip  Thanks for the diagram — it works, until I look away from it . . . told you, I have trouble with time travel stories.  So I’ll stick with the simplest explanation I can find, until The Big Reveal — whenever that comes (and it better be in S9, or there’s gonna be trouble).

@Barnable  Well, the Doctor is supposed to use brains, no…[Read more]

@Kharis — I’ve taken the liberty of slightly amending your post as it teetered dangerously close to spoiler territory. Although these are very old stories, we take the approach on these rewatches that there might be some seeing them for the first time so we avoid discussing anything that didn’t actually feature in the episode in question.

Hope…[Read more]

@Barnable and @JimtheFish, I think the explanation of the androids is simple: the makers of the show wanted to save up the surprise of the Cybermen for the end of the show. Remember, the Cybermen had not been seen on Who for 7 years (in Revenge of the Cybermen with Tom Baker). Having them come back after such a long time was really big news, and…[Read more]

@barnable, @purofilion et al-

OMWF is incredibly layered. Look at Giles’s ‘Standing in the Way’ sequence. It’s not just the lyrics telling you the place Giles is in at that moment and foreshadowing his departure in the following episode, but the staging tells us lots about where Buffy is, reinforcing her denial. And on top of that you get ASH…[Read more]