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9 May 2017 at 20:46 #57316
I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
I don’t know, @craig. That was one the most brilliant endings ever (I see Rutger Hauer’s death as the real ending of the story). I too, have high hopes, but I wonder if we really need a sequel, if you know what I mean.
8 May 2017 at 21:34 #57284OK, I am will to assume @jimthefish and @pedant are correct and the whole focus on the vault is a distraction. If so, then it will probably be Missy in the vault, if she appears in episode 6. (But, @jimthefish, has it actually been established that we will learn what’s inside the vault in episode 6?)
If the vault is a distraction, what is he distracting us from? I can only assume that Moffat has already seeded something else which we haven’t noticed because we have focussed (as he intended) on the vault. Following this line of reasoning, I would assume it is something to do with the regeneration. In this episode, for instance, he mentions regeneration to Bill, but cuts the conversation short, as if he did not want to talk about it in detail. But I cannot remember what the exact dialogue was. Nor am I sure if there was anything said in the previous episodes this series that alludes to regeneration. If Moffat has indeed seeded something else and it is not regeneration, then I can only assume it concerns Susan, who has been alluded to. And actually, that’s what I am really hoping for.
8 May 2017 at 15:31 #572668 May 2017 at 03:00 #57245I could speculate beyond that, but
Oh, go on, you’re among friends!
I am trying to link it to anyone we know from Who history, but I am stymied by the piano playing. I cannot link that to anyone.
Unless it’s Stevie Wonder, who found out about performing under London Bridge for River and the Doctor…
7 May 2017 at 17:22 #57220Mrs Blenkinsop’s morning reflection on the episode: “The two things you don’t want in your house–borers or boarders.”
7 May 2017 at 16:56 #57219@pedant
True, but they were still children when we saw them. They had not grown into, what appeared to be, an educated and cultured 76 year old. But it is no big deal, as one gets swept along by the story.More on the vault. The fact that I thought of Eurus perhaps implies the Master, but in a way that seems too simple for Moffat. When the reveal comes it is going to be something nobody has thought of. Moffat is a master at pulling off that trick. So…perhaps caffeine will help.
7 May 2017 at 16:43 #57217Still not had my morning coffee, so these thoughts might change post-caffeine, but how did a six-year old survive on his own, while caring for his mother? Oh, probably not supposed to ask that.
The vault. In a way, the sound of the piano playing coming from inside the vault (particularly the fact that music, rather a voice, forms the sole mode of communication) reminded me of Eurus and her violin in Sherlock.
7 May 2017 at 03:48 #57188David Suchet, was, as usual, brilliant. The story….well, at the moment I am leaning towards Puro’s response. Maybe that will change on a second viewing. The dominant theme seemed to be about parent/child relations. Not just with the Landlord and his daughter/mother but the dynamic of the Doctor and Bill as well. It was if he was acting all parental by refusing to leave Bill in the house, when she is trying to make it clear to him that this is the part of her life where she is independent. The reminder of her mother in the photo. The way she pretends to her friends that the Doctor is her grandfather. In other words, lots of parent/child references.
To what end? Not sure. Linked to the occupant of the vault? Still not sure.
5 May 2017 at 20:20 #571315 May 2017 at 18:42 #57128@janetteb Funnily enough, I went to university when I was 24 as well. Having tried design college, and then worked for a couple of years where the world of ideas never entered the workplace, I loved those undergraduate years. In some respect, the most enjoyable time of my life (until, decades later, I met Mrs Blenkinsop). Those undergraduate years were the Whitlam years, and I survived on my meagre savings from the previous years of working, and you could survive on the smell of an oil rag back in the 70s. And, of course, tuition was free, thanks to Gough. I would never have had the opportunity to go to university if it hadn’t been for that. Halcyon days.
4 May 2017 at 06:00 #57079Just read that Moray Watson, the wonderful actor who played Sir Robert Muir in the Peter Davison Doctor Who two parter “Black Orchid” died today. True, “Black Orchid” wasn’t the finest Who, more Agatha Christie, perhaps, than Who, but Moray Watson was as dependable as ever. For me, he will always be George Frobisher from “Rumpole”.
I can’t remember if “Black Orchid” was one of the BG stories we watched and commented on, back when we did that sort of thing. Actually, it would be good to revisit some BG Who again.
2 May 2017 at 19:11 #57040Well spotted. Still, I have been known to repeat jokes. I think we all have. If they work well the first time…
2 May 2017 at 04:08 #57018@thane15
I highly recommend Tardis blue. And having lived in Toowong, if it’s like the rest of the town, I can confirm that it’s not you, it’s the neighbours who really are totally nuts.
1 May 2017 at 04:09 #56966The vault. I have always wanted a genuine 4th wall wall moment on Who. Consequently, I propose that in the vault, banging three times in an ominous and demanding way, is the one person who the 13th Doctor knows will bring about his doom. Which explains why he is having as many adventures as he can before Nardole brings in the tea. Because the person behind the door of the vault, demanding to be unleashed, is…Chris Chibnall!
And I would just like to say that tonight’s bottle of shiraz is really quite excellent…
30 April 2017 at 20:39 #56947given the realtors of viewing habits
???
Honestly, I really hate the way my phone decides on my behalf what the word should be!
30 April 2017 at 20:11 #56946on the question of the one episode, one story format, sure, a 6 part story on property, theft and slavery might be great, but the reality is that viewing habits have changed over the years. They did a brilliant multiple episode story on religion and human sacrifice back in the Hartnell years–The Aztecs.
But that was the mid 60s. They would only do a 6 parter for something pitched to an adult audience these days.
given the realtors of viewing habits of kids today, I think they did a pretty good job of raising the awareness of issues like property, theft and slavery in the context of a kid’s show in 45 minutes.
30 April 2017 at 16:57 #56938“pubically”???
Drat. Note to self: always spell-check post before being called away for coffee.
30 April 2017 at 16:39 #56935@thane15
Puro, the performance of Purcell was technically very good, but was, well, rather precious in the way it came across. I know Purcell was performed pubically in the Restoration, but this performance was more like something designed for a Court audience. It had the strange feeling of something more like the musical equivalent of the sumptuary laws, designed to draw attention to the standing of the Royal patrons who had commissioned the performance. If that makes sense.
30 April 2017 at 07:42 #56906Tonight Mrs Blenkinsop and I went to a performance of Purcell at the early modern music society. It is probably a statement on my response to Purcell that I spent most of the performance thinking through my response to watching Thin Ice.
My reading of it was that it was one of the most political episodes of Who–about property, theft and slavery. Clearly, the giant creature that was chained under the Thames so that it would consume the people in order to produce the fuel was emblematic of slavery. As Lord whoever he was said, I am helping develop the Empire, the point being of course that the expansion of the British empire was built on the foundation of slavery. That is what the creature represented. When the Doctor forces Bill to make a choice, and she decides to let the creature escape, she is given the opportunity to free the slave that Lord whoever is using to help build the British empire.
And that is why we see so many black characters on the streets and on the ice–to draw our attention to the whole question of slavery, as Bill is so well aware of when she hesitates before stepping outside the Tardis in 1814. It is not supposed to be a documentary on the actual demographics of London in 1814, it is storytelling with a purpose.
And the episode is also about property and theft. It is questioning how we regard both. Slavery turns humans into property, and it keeps the creature chained up. It is also theft–the theft of the individual’s liberty. On the other hand, the urchins’ lives depend on theft. As does the fish merchant. Theft is referred to constantly. But the point the episode is making, I would argue, is that we are being asked to think about the contingency of notions like “theft” and “property”. At the end, the Doctor intervenes to bring about another kind of theft–he falsifies the will to give a future to the urchins, and deprives the rightful heir. Is it wrong? By freeing the creature Bill has taken the property of Lord whoever. Is it wrong? Or is property itself theft? This might have been one of the most political episodes of all of Who.
On a rather different level, and given that it was set in 1814, did all this happen on the day after the 12th Doctor had taken River Song ice skating on the Thames in 1814 when Stevie Wonder sings for them?
27 April 2017 at 23:51 #56812@brewski (and long time no see)
Great bonkers theory! And like all bonkers theories, it doesn’t have to be true to be great.It made me think about what’s in the vault, and the oath/promise. When you see the photos of River and Susan on his desk in the Pilot there is a definite feeling of tenderness and loss conveyed by Capaldi. Now, there is one very important promise that the Doctor made in the show 50 years ago that he has not yet kept–perhaps the most important unkept promise of them all. It was the promise he made to Susan when he left her on Earth: “Someday, I shall come back. Yes, someday I shall come back.”
Moffat loves to revisit the BG show, and if there is anyone who would revel in revisiting that famous promise, it would be Moffat. I am not sure who, or what, is in the vault, but it would be pretty great if it did tie back to Susan and the first Doctor.
26 April 2017 at 20:59 #56766Happened to me on two occasions as well, both after initial submission.
26 April 2017 at 03:57 #56737@thane15
Really liked your take on being at your ANZAC ceremony. I remember standing in the school hall during the ANZAC ceremony in 1969. I was 16, the Vietnam War was raging, and there were a lot of us at school that thought there was something very, very wrong about that war, and the Deputy Headmaster stood up and lectured us on how the battle of 1915 was about how white, British, Christian, civilization (which, apparently, we, the 16 year-olds of Sydney, Australia, in 1969, represented) stood up to the pagan forces of evil. A good friend was standing next to me during this address. His parents were from Lebanon, and their parents had gone to Lebanon from Turkey. As the deputy headmaster was droning on, he whispered to me: “Why am I listening to this? My grandfather was on the other side at Gallipoli.”The next year the movie “If…” came out. I saw it, and I highly recommend you see it as well.
@zeyra
On the question of the French elections, I would cite my story above. Certain politicians (and deputy headmasters) talk about some people as “the other”, who are (all, apparently) somehow not like us (as if “us” are all the same). As it was with my friend in the school hall, I think life is a bit different from the way some politicians claim it is.24 April 2017 at 21:34 #56667I have a spine-prickling feeling that the dates are significant.
We know (from Hell Bent) that the Time Lords possess the power to use an extraction chamber in order to retrieve someone from the moment before their death (or regeneration?). That might explain how it could be the first Doctor in the vault at the time of the Mondasians in The Tenth Planet. If so, that implies, not simply that the first Doctor could re-appear (yah!) but so too could the Time Lords. Indeed, the “oath” that Nardole refers to may well have been given to the Time Lords.
24 April 2017 at 18:57 #5665624 April 2017 at 15:19 #56647@countscarlioni
Thanks for that. The quote is quite interesting, particularly given that use of the emojis in the context of the story and its impact on the colonists is neither funny nor touching but dark and deadly. It is a uptopia gone very, very wrong.24 April 2017 at 03:05 #56620@countscarlioni
It seems that I cannot get the current issue of the DW Magazine in my remote part of Canada. I don’t suppose you know what he says on the subject?23 April 2017 at 00:39 #56580Well, on first viewing I thought it was amusing, but slight. But the more I think about it the more I think it can be interpreted as a clever reflection on language. On the one hand you have the Doctor, who uses reason and logic and can articulate his reasoning (the episode was very heavy on dialogue). On the other hand, you have the emoji robots who operate entirely on the basis of visualizing feelings based on facial expressions, and lack any language to articulate the disjunction between a facial expression and what someone is actually thinking. (Emoji robots wouldn’t really be very good at irony.)
So I don’t think the show was making a point about humans vs machines, but I do think it might have been making a point about the value of language and the mendacity of emoji.
Or perhaps I interpreted it that way because I find messages using emoji so damned annoying!
22 April 2017 at 04:04 #56553Just back from a second viewing. OK, it is clear that the vault is not inside the Tardis, it is on university grounds. Also the Doctor clearly does not want to open the vault. And he says at some point (I know, forgotten already) that he has made a promise (to who?) that keeps him at the university. (And has for the last 50 years…?)
And from this I conclude…that I am not much clearer to an understanding…And yet, for some reason, I believe we are going to see Heather again. And I also think that the puddle that takes Heather as a pilot is not simply SM repeating himself (The Landlord) but will play out in some way over the course of the series. Maybe.
21 April 2017 at 17:35 #56525Hi @whisht All kudos for the egg whisk of Rassilon belong to @phaseshift, not me. I am still stumped on that one. I suppose my current theory is either the 13th Doctor, or the 1st Doctor, but basically I am waiting for another clue.
19 April 2017 at 04:13 #56472@janetteb I would simply love it if Ian could make an appearance, but he is now 92 years old. And yet, I am still hoping.
18 April 2017 at 17:59 #56447@craig This is probably the only time I will ever say that I feel better as a result of reading something in The Mirror. And even if it turns out not to be true, it Should be true! Apart from anything else, it is a great bonkers theory.
18 April 2017 at 02:03 #56399Hullo @theeleven Agree with you totally on the episode. Not entirely sure how to reconcile Missy running around causing chaos with The Master being locked in the vault, but there is always “timey wimey” I suppose. Come to think of it, if Missy and the Master are going to share screen time, I suppose there has to be “timey wimey” involved!
I seem to recall The Doctor saying something like “I don’t want to have to find out” when Nardole asked him about the contents of the vault. This is a hazy recollection from one viewing. Will have to watch it again, but if I am right, then, yes, such a statement might refer to The Master, or…? Rassilon, perhaps? Maybe not. But there is definitely something ominous in there.
17 April 2017 at 23:25 #56388Funny. The post I just put up seems to have disappeared…I’ll try again.
@pedant Well, now that Broadchurch is over, I just hope that Chibnall has got Thomas Hardy out of his system, before he turns his attention to Who.
On the subject of the choice of the new Doctor, I imagine that Chibnall would have presented the BBC with his take on how he wants to run with the Doctor, and I assume that, as show runner, he would, at the very least, have worked in close consultation with the suits at the BBC to get an actor who was capable of realising his vision? But others on the board might have more knowledge of how the BBC dynamics operate in regard to these issues?
17 April 2017 at 23:12 #56386@pedant Well, now that Broadchurch is over, I’m just hoping Chibnall’s got Thomas Hardy out of his system before he turns his attention to Who.
On the question of the next Doctor, I am assuming that Chris Chibnall would have presented a pitch to the BBC on the type of Doctor he wanted to run with and, at the very least, would have worked in consultation with the suits at the BBC to get an actor that could realise his vision for the 13th? But others on the board might have more knowledge of how the BBC dynamics operate.
17 April 2017 at 19:09 #56372@wolfweed Dr Poo was disgustingly funny! Particularly the response of the Daleks.
17 April 2017 at 05:48 #56333@craig and @jimthefish
It is true about what @geoffers said. Posts (and not just by @geoffers) seem to have gone missing.Oh, this is probably on the wrong thread…anyway, you get my point.
17 April 2017 at 03:19 #56325@lisa
P.S. As a retired university professor, I should also add that the grandeur of the Doctor’s office at the university also demonstrates why fiction is far more desirable than reality…17 April 2017 at 03:00 #56323@lisa
Yes, the Doctor was reflected in the photo and he had gone back in time to create the box of memories for Bill. And presumably broken into Bill’s and her foster mother’s flat to leave the box.I need to say that if an actual university professor had done anything like that…well, I probably do not need to finish the sentence!
Which, I suppose, just goes to show that life is always better when it’s fictional…
16 April 2017 at 23:17 #56311Yep, it was pretty great! I especially liked the the slow moving start, that built up tension, and the fact that it was told from Bill’s perspective. That reminded me of An Unearthly Child.
And, as everybody says, what, indeed, is in the vault?
And does the self-portrait of Rembrandt, which as @wolfweed (great to see you again!) points out, is subtly changed to make the circles appear recessed look a bit like the round nodules of the Hartnell Tardis?
14 April 2017 at 20:59 #56156@mersey, @whisht
There was a point in The Five(ish) Doctors Rebooted, where Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy are trying to break into the BBC Cardiff Studios, and Colin Baker, in exasperation, asks, “Why are we doing this?” Peter Davison thinks about it for a minute, and replies, “We’re doing it for the fans!” Colin Baker smiles and replies, “Of course. For the fans.” Then it cuts to Sylvester McCoy, who looks up, and says, somewhat wistfully, “For the fan.”I thought that was perhaps the funniest and most endearing gag in the whole show. Because it was so self-deprecating.
10 April 2017 at 05:12 #56056For an expatriate Australian, really sad news that John Clarke died today. One of the best satirists Australia (or New Zealand, his home country) has ever produced. There are a million clips that could capture his brilliance. Here is one of them.
6 April 2017 at 20:38 #55997Well, when I saw the post above, I wasn’t sure if this was BBC approved or not, but:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/39513437/john-simm-is-returning-as-the-master-in-doctor-who
by golly, it is.
We have had The Five Doctors, and lots of multiple Doctors, so The Two Masters actually sounds pretty cool. Of course, the multiple Doctors always managed to collaborate. Am trying to imagine John Simm’s Master and Michelle Gomez’s Missy collaborating. There is only so much completely insane ego the universe can contain…
Sounds like fun!
5 April 2017 at 17:25 #55975@jimthefish
Ah, yes, Time and the Rani. But wait, that could work! It could be call-back to Who history, and a challenge for Chibnall to do it better. Well, maybe not that much of a challenge, when you think back to Time and the Rani.I also like the flashback idea and the Trial of a Timelord reference. Who knows, perhaps Chibnall is going to channel the John Nathan Turner years!
Hmm, on second thoughts, let’s hope not…
5 April 2017 at 15:48 #55972@jimthefish
I like the idea of an off-screen regeneration, but agree that it is unlikely. What I would like even more would be for the new Doctor to be kept a secret until the regeneration. Difficult in these days of social media but not impossible. After all, if they can keep the end of Broadchurch under wraps it should be possible on Doctor Who as well.Another difference may depend on whether Bill is a continuing companion or if the slate is wiped completely clean for Chibnall. One potentially cool idea would be to have Missy witness the regeneration, and the new Doctor would begin with a battle of wills with his (her?) oldest friend from the moment of regeneration.
5 April 2017 at 05:38 #55970OK, I give up…unconventional in what way?
Cybermen do, indeed, look great. Nardole, not so sure about.
19 March 2017 at 02:45 #55827@pedant. When I think back, there were (at least) three musical memories I have of the mid-sixties as a 12 year-old. One was the Doctor Who theme, one was the Mouseketeers song, and one was Johnny be Good. How I went on to develop an interest in early modern music remains a mystery.
But Chuck Berry… this really is the passing of a legend.
6 March 2017 at 19:24 #55751@jimthefish
If my last post was too spoilery, please feel free to delete it.6 March 2017 at 19:14 #55750@jimthefish
Yes, indeed, they have captured the look really well. And I can always turn the colour down on the TV when I watch it!Given that Hartnell’s last adventure, The Tenth Planet, also featured the Mondasian Cybermen is it just me, or is there something Hartnell-esque about the way Capaldi is dressed?
6 March 2017 at 18:39 #55748@jimthefish
This is the best news I have heard about series 10 so far! If only they could be truly radical and film it in black and white!27 February 2017 at 18:32 #55664@ichabod
I was re-watching “Vincent and the Doctor” a couple of days ago. It is a brilliant example of a historical story told in the same spirit of very early Hartnell Who, such as “The Aztecs”, where both stories deal with the inability to change the past, and how one must sometimes accept that things just don’t turn out the way you would like them to. I think the Vincent episode demonstrates that you can still do historical stories in a way that captures the spirit of the Sydney Newman/Verity Lambert years. And when you look at an episode like “Vincent”, you can also do it quite cheaply.Of course fantasy is fun and humour is fun, but part of the enduring legacy and importance of Who surely lies in its early educational brief, and the way it made education fun and exciting for children. And in a world of alternative facts, where we are told that “we have had enough of experts”, that seems more necessary than ever.
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