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21 January 2020 at 04:30 #69285
Like everyone else, I enjoyed this episode. In a way, it reminded me of “Vincent and the Doctor” which, for me, is high praise indeed, as I felt that episode was, perhaps, the finest episode of AG Who. Of course, there were differences. Vincent was the genius in history’s eyes, but a failure in his own eyes, While, for Tesla in this episode, it was sort of reversed. But still.
Yes, it was also an example of a good historical. But…really good historicals (and I am going back to the Verity Lambert years) did not clutter up the story with alien monsters (who we had seen versions of before!) . Really good historicals were (like “The Aztecs”) a way of illuminating and educating children (and adults). I am not sure this one will stay in anyone’s collective subconscious very long at all.
And.. Silurians are not aliens!!
Anyway, an enjoyable episode…compared to other Chibnall-era episodes.
18 January 2020 at 20:11 #69208Allow me to join @miapatrick and @juniperfish in congratulating you on the award of your doctorate! I had somehow missed that when reading the posts. Given the erudite argumentation of your posts over the years, it all makes sense. While you will, not doubt, continue to be known on these boards as @jimthefish, I will, inevitably, like @juniperfish, tend to think of you as Dr. Fish.
16 January 2020 at 18:08 #69173Maybe there should be some kind of plaque…
Perhaps there is a build-up of plaque on the teeth of Nu-Who.
<Blenkinsop furtively runs away after making terrible joke…>
16 January 2020 at 11:05 #69168I, for one, would love to read your blog developing the JNT allusion.
When I posted the comment I thought of adding the question: “Too harsh?” But on reflection , I thought it was unnecessary.
15 January 2020 at 21:01 #69125Re-watched again, just see if I had been too critical. Nope.
I think we all tried really hard during season 11. And we were initially excited about the new Master and the potential Gallifrey arc. But then we all watched the opener again…
All of which leads me to ask: are we witnessing the John Nathan-Turner years of AG Who?
14 January 2020 at 22:02 #69097That post was the best thing I have read all day! Actually, for ages. And so painfully accurate…
14 January 2020 at 03:02 #69068Just saw it. OK, I am not going to hold back on this one, but before I start, there are many regulars on this site who know how much I love this show. So, keeping that in mind:
I thought this was really bad. There was too much happening too quickly (the point being that it was near impossible to relate to or reflect on anyone’s individual story), the “message” was so outrageously obvious that it was an insult (if we are accusing it of preaching to the converted …hell, I am one of the converted, and I thought the final speech was insulting). And finally (and I have mentioned this before) but the camera work is terrible. Too much of every single episode so far is filmed so darkly that it is almost impossible to see what is happening, much less a character’s expressions or responses.
Basically, I am with @craig on this one, but more so.
p.s. @jimthefish, I love your theory about Yaz, but I suspect that on the basis of what we have seen so far, it is wish-fulfilment. I really do hope you are right, though.
p.p.s. Thumb in the mouth as a tender parting gesture…just…no.
12 January 2020 at 19:56 #68987On the question of the mindwipe, I tend to agree with @phaseshift and @jimthefish (now there’s a name we haven’t seen on the board for a while!). It does not seem right either in terms of consent, or in terms of the ways it has been used in the past (eg. Donna) or, more to the point, the countless times it hasn’t been used in the past. And as @jimthefish notes (over on the TV show thread) there is quite a lot about the Whittaker Doctor that doesn’t seem particularly noble. I am wondering, however, if there might be method in the madness. Specifically, if this Doctor, acting in this seemingly un-Doctory way, might be linked to what seems to be a new arc about “the lie” raised by the Master. Could the Whittaker Doctor be…well…not the Doctor? Or the Doctor, but playing a very long game, that will make sense as the arc unfolds?
12 January 2020 at 07:06 #68977Syzygy the elder,
Have been reading about the appalling conspiracy theories regarding the fires emanating from the Murdoch press and the dark corners of the web. Frankly, it takes my breath away. You mentioned, on another thread, the example of someone who was hounded and pilloried because of the false accusation of being an arsonist.
This seems to me way worse than what it was like in Australian political culture when I left in 2013, when there was the occasional crazy but, by and large, things seemed pretty normal. Has it really changed to that extent?
What I find amazing (and horribly frightening) is that this “dark web” is focused on an environmental catastrophe. Not “politics” as such, but an environmental catastrophe. This all sounds very different from the Australia I grew up in. I am hoping that you are going to tell me that I am wrong.
11 January 2020 at 19:53 #68957Television viewing habits confession:
We have never subscribed to cable. This means we watch very little TV. Technically, we watch no TV, only shows or movies that we have on DVD (and we are lucky enough to have one of the few remaining DVD rental shops left in Canada; one that specializes in quality stuff). Occasionally, I hear of a show I might like to watch that requires cable and is never released on DVD. Well, that’s where a good book kicks in.
Agree on early Tennant and early Clara (and would add early Capaldi). By comparison, that’s what makes Season 5 with early Matt Smith and Amy (both young and adult) feel uniformly dazzling (to me, anyway). But I have the feeling that Sacha Dwhan’s Master will change my impression of this iteration of Who considerably. For the better.
11 January 2020 at 19:04 #68955One of the ongoing problems we have in Canada is the disruption of the episode’s flow, due to commercials. That has always interfered with my enjoyment of Doctor Who, and I believe that’s probably the case with these two episodes. When I can watch them all the way through, sans interruptions, my appreciation for the work as a whole may grow.
Totally agree. The solution in the Blenkinsop household is to purchase the episodes on iTunes. A small price to pay for the opportunity to view them sans the awful commercial interruptions.
p.s. Pretty much agree with your overall response to the Chibnall era so far.
11 January 2020 at 06:26 #68949there’s a deep seated memory, hidden from successive generations, but embedded in a way…
Did I suggest that?…It’s always nice to acknowledged, but I suspect someone else deserves the credit for that one.
I have been wracking my brain searching for a reason ,a reason so bad that the Master would or could destroy Gallifrey and I am drawing a blank.
Then I am in good company, for neither can I. (Of course, I am not even convinced that he has destroyed Gallifrey.)
Also, it’s a sonic screwdriver, not Harry Potter’s wand. Stop pointing it like your expelling Snape.
I confess I have been having the same response. I know each Doctor should have their own mannerisms, but it does seem so reminiscent of Harry Potter to be a bit off-putting. For me, anyway.
I think a few people here have their reservations about the Chibnall’s writing, but the introduction (hopefully) of an arc has begun to pique my interest.
10 January 2020 at 02:36 #68940where are the people?
Yes, good point. Would the Doctor have gone to the devastated Gallifey (supposedly) and not noticed any dead bodies? No, I think the sleight of hand (is spellcheck working?) takes a different form.
9 January 2020 at 17:57 #68933Or, indeed, “sleight of hand”.
(When in doubt, always blame spell check…)
9 January 2020 at 17:11 #68932the big assumption here
Yes, for some reason I am skeptical about the Master’s claim to have destroyed Gallifrey. It seems too monumental to have happened off-screen. For a similar reason, I am skeptical that Gallifrey really has been destroyed (or even that the Doctor saw what she thinks she saw). I sense a slight of hand in all of this.
9 January 2020 at 02:31 #68916P.S. To anyone who has never seen the “Star Trek NG” episode “Ship in a Bottle”, it is absolutely brilliant–funny and outrageously clever (in other words, it has quite a lot in common with “Doctor Who”).
Highly recommended (and easy to find).
9 January 2020 at 01:33 #68915Hold on…I have it! The answer to: what is the lie? Something so terrible that the Master destroys Gallifrey, and shares his anguish with the Doctor. (Revelations like the following often come with the second glass of Shiraz…)
The Master has discovered that he, the Doctor and the entire universe are all part of a holodeck programme like the one that Moriarty and the Countess find themselves on at the end of the “Star Trek Next Generation” episode “Ship in a Bottle”, destined never to know that their reality takes place in “a little box, sitting on someone’s table”.
And the reason that the Master is so upset is his discovery that it wasn’t even the result of someone with the intelligence of Data, but that it was designed by Lt. Reginald Barclay.
“Computer, End Program.”
9 January 2020 at 00:53 #68914The lie. When the Master tells the Doctor that everything is a lie, this could, of course, refer to anything. Through his/her various iterations, the Doctor has had little time or patience for the Timelords. To discover, for example, that the Timelords were the result of eugenic breeding wouldn’t necessarily be something The Doctor would be all that surprised by. It strikes me that when the Master refers to everything being a lie it seems to evoke something so terrible that it would make the Doctor question the whole purpose and point of being the Doctor. Similarly, for the Master to decimate Galifrey (still not sure about that one: a. it means the Master is surprisingly more powerful and successful that he/she has ever been in the past, and b. it seemed, well, too easy) the “lie” would have to be something that confronted the beliefs and values of the Master as well as the Doctor. That means we have to think of what they have in common that they could be equally emotionally and philosophically shattered by, to discover that “it” was all based on a lie. (Sorry, “shattered” was the best word I could think of.)
And the answer is…no, I can’t think of what it might be.
8 January 2020 at 05:09 #68889Thinking about the arc involving the Timeless Child, I just rewatched “The Ghost Monument” from the previous season. As suspected, it references “the timeless child”. It is towards the end of the episode where the Doctor is surrounded by something called “the remnants” which look like bits of floating, well…remnants…of cloth. They say to the Doctor: “We see further back. The timeless child. We see what’s hidden. Even from yourself. The outcast, abandoned and unknown.” The Doctor replies with something like:”Get out of my head!” It is not clear whether the remnants are referring to the Doctor when they talk about the outcast. And that’s it. To be honest, I was hoping for more in the way of a link between that and the most recent reference to the timeless child. Clearly, Chibnall has planted the seed of an arc early but…and I think back to the ways in which Moffat planted the seeds of an arc…well, I am sure I am missing something.
7 January 2020 at 02:44 #68875Hurrah! An arc!
I love that Gallifrey has been returned front and centre to Who. This is a Master who is tortured, who feels he is the victim, and I like that.
True, we are supposed to forget about the fact that if he was on Earth for 77 years he (presumably) managed to miss all the other Masters who were around London and the environs during the ’70s and ’80s, not to mention Prime Minister Saxon. But, as Mrs Blenkinsop wisely reminds me: “You are not supposed to ask those questions”.
Other questions linger. The Doctor managed to find the devastated Gallifrey pretty quickly. I thought it was deliberately hidden in a pocket universe?
But, at the end of the day, or episode, the introduction of the Master/Gallirey arc promises interesting things to come.
Ooh, now if they could actually allude to the 1930s Raymond Massey movie “Things to Come” that would be cool.
5 January 2020 at 03:12 #688154 January 2020 at 18:33 #68808Well, in the cold light of dawn, I am less sure about the Master as The Wizard of Oz, but I still feel that they are consciously drawing on allusions to The Wizard of Oz. To what end, I am not quite sure. If there is anything along those lines, I will have to wait until the next episode.
Still, right or wrong, it is nice to have a story again that allows us to construct “theories even more insane than what’s actually happening”.
4 January 2020 at 05:26 #68797So.. (oh, dinner is over)…if The Master is modeled on The Wizard of Oz then it tends to suggest that he is rather limited in his powers. That means…hmm.
The end of the episode: the Doctor ends up in a place that seems rather like the matrix. Not sure what to make of this either, but if it is the case, then that means we might revisit the Timelords. Maybe…
You’re right, it’s time for bed.
4 January 2020 at 03:24 #68795OK, just re-watched it. “O” is hiding out in Australia. (Important). “O” turns out to be the Master. When this is revealed and they look out the window of the plane they see his house flying along with them. O/the Master is…The Wizard of Oz.
Where this goes, nobody knows.
Time for dinner. Back later.
3 January 2020 at 04:17 #68776Curtesy of Mrs Blenkinsop (technology wizard) we finally got to watch it! So…The Master–pre-Missy or post-Missy? I say post-Missy. We don’t know yet what the Master’s plans are. Episode 2 awaits.
Overall response? Sure, I liked it but…just like the previous season, why is everything filmed to be dark ? (I mean photogentically dark.) To be honest, I find that really distracting. And sort of, well, un-Who. Of course, it may have something to do with the ailing Blenkinsop eyes.
p.s. @pedant. The memory of a stewardess collecting miniature passengers sounds very Twilight Zone or maybe Out of the Unknown (or even Emma Peel period Avengers) but I have not yet been able to track it down.
31 December 2019 at 17:19 #68704Let me join in wishing everyone best wishes for the new year. I know we seem to surrounded by hubris and stupidity in the world right now, but I think this site shows that there is still a place for whimsy and hope. And especially Doctor Who.
30 December 2019 at 20:01 #68700The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, Python, The Rutles. They were my teenage through early twenties years.
To have seen him in concert…I envy you, @pedant.
29 December 2019 at 03:15 #68696Hold on. Who screened on 23 November, not December. (Damn. Another senior moment.) Well anyway, Cash on Demand was still brilliant.
29 December 2019 at 02:29 #68695Thank you @nerys for the tip about Cash on Demand.
I found it on YouTube, Mrs Blenkinsop figured out how to stream it and we just watched it. It was brilliant! And yes, it really was “Hammer does A Christmas Carol” (in a very loose and very clever way). Peter Cushing and Andre Morell were excellent, as versions of Scrooge and an inspired version of Christmas Past, Present and the threat of Future (sort of). And also Richard Vernon as the put-upon chief clerk (aka Bob Cratchit).
A bit if searching revealed that the movie was filmed in 1961, but only released in 1963, specifically 23 December 1963. Not only the day the movie is set in, but also the same day as the first episode of Doctor Who.
It’s a small world.
Thoroughly recommended.
28 December 2019 at 21:09 #68691Thanks for the reference to Cash on Demand. I looked it up, found the trailer, and it looks great! I had never heard of it. As for access, Turner Classic movies are a little hard to come by where I live, but there must be way to find it.
The black and white Alastair Sim version is wonderful. After reading your post, I went downstairs to search for our copy, only to find it missing! Major consternation in the Blenkinsop household. Another search is in order, otherwise it’s back to Amazon…
27 December 2019 at 02:19 #68684Does this mean no U.N.I.T any more? (Dominic Cummings probably sacked them.)
Oh, well, I ‘m still looking forward to it.
26 December 2019 at 19:25 #68681As the BBC was unavailable in our remote location, Christmas viewing at the Blenkinsop pile consisted of of the never-viewed-before Muppet Christmas Carol (day time viewing and actually pretty great) and the 1972 version of the M.R. James story A Warning to the Curious (twilight viewing and suitably creepy).
24 December 2019 at 02:38 #6866623 December 2019 at 02:22 #68658Despite the heat, have a wonderful Christmas.
22 December 2019 at 20:20 #68655Hello all! Well, the festive season is upon us (either Hanukkah, or Christmas, or a few days off work) and I decided to offer a present. It is a compilation of all the best insults from the perfect Christmas movie, “The Man Who Came To Dinner” (1943). Enjoy.
p.s. I decided to put it on this thread to draw attention away from, well, another thread. And since this thread is about Who, I am getting out the Jammie dodgers in expectation of the return of Who!
20 December 2019 at 02:01 #68631Yes! I love both the music and the film of Once Upon a Time in the West. Fabulous.
It would be easy to offer another bite of the score, but what you provided is the best. Instead, I offer up one of my favourite film scores of all time, by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The music is a perfect counterpoint to the movie. I cannot say more, because of…spoilers. (But anyone who has seen the movie will know how the romanticism of the music relates to the…conflicted emotions (can’t say more) of the movie. I know the clip is 7 minutes long, but it is worth it.
17 December 2019 at 21:55 #68614I know I have loaded this up before, but it always make me feel a bit better, and thinking that maybe we could all do with something to make us feel a bit better at the moment, here it is.
16 December 2019 at 20:40 #68584If you are interested in voting and the long-term impact of slavery in the US, you should read this article, just published today:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/16/north-carolina-felony-vote-law-black-woman
16 December 2019 at 15:27 #6858016 December 2019 at 04:59 #68574Adonis something of a has-been but trustworthy and with an intact moral compass.
Well, since I admitted that it might reveal more about me than I might imagine…I can live with that!
16 December 2019 at 02:32 #68571Okay, in the spirit of people here being a bunch of (sort of) like minded people, and in a genuine request for a way of understanding recent developments in British politics, if we step back from the leaders and look at the advisors, we have Andrew Adonis (Blair), Seamus Milne (Corbyn), and Dominic Cummings (Johnson). Who should one trust? I confess (and I admit that I am not part of British political culture) that I find myself more in attune with Adonis than the others. I suspect that reveals more about me than I might imagine.
p.s. deep down, I am really looking forward to January 1, and Doctor Who!
15 December 2019 at 20:17 #68568@craig, @fatmaninabox, or any other Time Lords out there,
could we have another On the Sofa page for Christmas…?
15 December 2019 at 19:41 #68567damn! I would love to see that (but, well, the wilds of Canada and all that). I re-watched his take of The First Men in the Moon by Wells only a couple of nights ago, an interpretation I love. A Gatiss interpretation M.R. James (with Capaldi!) sounds brilliant.
15 December 2019 at 19:34 #68566I think the reason for referencing Sherlock in the trailer is not just because it is a Gatiss/Moffat collaboration, but because Sherlock did Conan Doyle with a twist (ie, set it in the present). Although their Dracula has a traditional period setting, I have heard that they may be doing Bram Stoker with a twist.
But, well….spoilers.
15 December 2019 at 00:25 #68557I would argue that there is a big difference between “grumbling” (which is healthy to democracy and part of an engaged electorate) and “rejecting the umpire’s decision” (which can lead to a breakdown of political legitimacy, insurrection and, in extreme cases, civil war). What I see in the US at the moment, for example, is a lot of grumbling and nervousness on one side, and an incumbent President, and associated political party machine, setting the stage to reject the umpire’s decision, if necessary, depending on the outcome.
I hope I am wrong, but I suspect I am not.
14 December 2019 at 16:18 #68551@thane16, @bluesqueakpip, @pedant,
Aside from the important issue of proportional representation, the other difference between the Australian and U.K. electoral systems that needs to be acknowledged is that for the best part of a century, Australia has had compulsory voting. My experience of mentioning this to friends in Canada, the US, and the UK, is that they stare at you, with a sort of “Eh? What? Are we talking about the planet Mars?” sort of way. Personally, I think it has had a profound influence on the Australian political system, and an influence for the good. There is, I would argue, a general belief in Australia that, grumble as one may at the outcome of an election, everyone “abides by the umpire’s decision”. And I think that compulsory voting plays a large part in that. Can it be grafted onto a country that has never experienced it? Probably not. But should it be introduced into the discussion of potential ways of ensuring the stability of a democratic system? I would say yes.
14 December 2019 at 03:26 #68536No, the American one I posted was a more recent trailer/teaser. But I have faith in your archival skills to locate it…
13 December 2019 at 23:16 #68534Interesting, I didn’t realise youtube was region-locked. Afraid I cannot resolve it, as my computer skills are practically zero.
The difference between the two trailers is striking as, unlike the BBC trailer, the American trailer lacks the range of characters and the dialogue (particularly so with regard to the nuns) and just focuses on creepy imagery and the one line of dialogue comes from Dracula himself (and not the humorous line in the BBC trailer).
13 December 2019 at 21:05 #68532Here is the Netflix trailer for Dracula which seems to me to be much creepier than the BBC trailer:
13 December 2019 at 20:42 #68531Hot on the heels of Who in January is the new version of Dracula by Gatiss and Moffat. I suspect that with Chibnall the tinies may hide behind the sofa, while Gatiss and Moffat will be aiming to ensure that the adults do hide behind the sofa.
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