@jimthefish  On which note, I for one am very glad that she didn’t turn out to be Susan, or Jenny, or Romana or whoever.

Me too.  Too much backstory, better to move on to something new, IMO.  @denvaldron  Thanks for the Viking overview — densely packed and concise; only what, exactly, does kaput mean in this context?  A swift and somewhat catast…[Read more]

@blenkinsopthebrave

Consequently, I take back what I said in my previous post about the trousers.  (I should have known–how can one disagree with the Radio Times…)

And also clearly a Buffy allusion. Who can forget the Red Leather Pants of Moral Ambiguity?

@blenkinsopthebrave  Good god, *more* activity?  It’s 8 pm here, and I still haven’t had my dinner!  Too busy catching up and noodling about . . .

To paraphrase what the Doctor said in this episode, he’s talking to Clara when he’s seen her dead on a slab. He’s seeing her as a ghost. That actually ties in with Hide, when Clara points out that everyone is a ghost to the Doctor, because he’s time-travelled past all their lifetimes.

@bluesqueakpip and with The Magicians Apprentice where despite…[Read more]

@arbutus   Does anyone know why the groups of black birds might be given such interesting names (Conspiracy of Ravens, Murder of Crows)? There must be a reason, historically, presumably something to do with the negative image of those birds. But it would be interesting to know more about how it came about.

Ravens and crows are carrion birds, f…[Read more]

@supernumerary   I think the rock theme more came down to “wouldn’t this be cool, guys!”, and having Capaldi’s guitar right before the theme provided a nice excuse.

Sounds good enough to me!

@jimthefish  . . . despite the comprehensive embracing of the BG show in these episodes, the troll-brigade on t’other place are still baying for cancella…[Read more]

@lisa

(this is in response to your post on the Before the Flood thread, though you were responding to @blenkinsopthebrave above)

Who doesn’t wish Clara an ending in which everything works out

Only up to a point as far as I am concerned, because I am not too keen on the taste of saccharine. I would more happily settle for a…[Read more]

@Blenkinsopthebrave Well if you are an appallingly rank sentimentalist then I think
that holds for most of the rest of us as well! Who doesn’t wish Clara an ending
in which everything works out ( and also everything that we have been bonkerizing
also adds up 😉 )

@lisa  @GothamCelt   Does anyone know why the groups of black birds might be given such interesting names (Conspiracy of Ravens, Murder of Crows)? There must be a reason, historically, presumably something to do with the negative image of those birds. But it would be interesting to know more about how it came about.

@Mirime     Yes, same here…[Read more]

This series has so far struck me as one of the strongest of the AG run. Second in my book to s5 and if it keeps up like this then it’ll probably surpass it by the end. It’s very much been taking its cues from BG series in a way that the show has shied away from before. Apprentice/Familiar was very much an unofficial sequel to Genesis of the Daleks…[Read more]

@denvaldron  I think that the Tivoli dressing as a Victorian undertaker is a bad, weak choice.

In terms of sense, yes; in terms of the visual effect, wonderful, particularly the sly suggestion of that sort of Dickensian hypocrisy and general deceptiveness in the interests of genteel appearances.  Loved it!

@blenkinsopthebrave  the Doctor was wi…[Read more]

@Juniperfish   Yes, sorry! I was nit-picking and should have made it clear that, apart from that quibble, I agreed with your point.  I am still puzzled by the decision to call the alien the Fisher King though, given that the name has such resonance.  I kept looking for something definite that might tie it in to the grail legend, but failed.  If y…[Read more]

@blenkinsopthebrave

Just on the Borg thing, I’d agree that people get hung up on the cyborg comparison with the Cybermen.

I do think that there is a precursor to the Borg in Who though.

Consider, the Borg infect you with nanobots, which invade and change the body to become one of them. In doing so the network or hive mind gains access to your…[Read more]

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A delayed response to say the least, but…

@ichabod

Yes, it’s challenging to keep up, now that we have the new series.  Nice Goethe shoehorn, by the way; do keep ’em coming!

Thanks for the encouragement. I haven’t done a great job of keeping up with recent episodes, let alone staying up to date with comments and forcing foreign literatu…[Read more]

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