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17 November 2024 at 19:44 #77007
Christmas Special – Clip
20 October 2024 at 00:41 #76946ps1l0v3y0u
Damn! I can never get it right!
20 October 2024 at 00:23 #76945Been hovering around the site for a while (life demands attention occasionally), but had to say: ps1l0v3you
That was hilarious. “oh my giddy aunt”. And as you point out, with Who, consistency and coherence is often in in abeyance, particularly when the showrunners areChibnall and RTD2.
16 October 2024 at 16:31 #76933new trailer
coming this Christmas in the UK and Jan 3 everywhere else.
13 September 2024 at 19:47 #76907Coming for Christmas!
Same trailer, but with new photos.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt17163970/?ref_=tt_mv_close
I immediately thought of you when I saw this, remembering your response when I posted the trailer a while back.
10 September 2024 at 18:24 #76900The first Who western was a 4 episode Hartnell story called “The Gunfighters” fr0m 1966. I can remember watching it as a nipper. It was cringingly bad.
The combination of The Doctor with a toothache, Steven and Dodo in laughable costumes, all ending up at the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. It was…embarrassing. And I loved the Hartnell years as a nipper.
27 July 2024 at 22:56 #76809Nicola Coughlan with a clip from the up-coming christmas special:
26 July 2024 at 23:08 #7679826 July 2024 at 06:14 #76797Have now finished watching “The Web of Fear” with the Troughton Doctor. A really brilliant story. It features the introduction of Leftbridge Stewart (as an Army Colonel, before they thought of UNIT). A riveting story, with a huge amount of both action and paranoia.
The third episode (of six) is reconstructed using stills-in a really effective way, and the acting by everyone throughout the whole six episodes, from Troughton to the minor parts is excellent. In fact, when you take into account all the soldiers, everyone shines.
I really think this is one of the great classic Who stories and encourage everyone to watch it.
24 July 2024 at 23:02 #76792Started re-watching the Troughton story “Web of Fear” last night. So far, just the first two episodes. For those who have seen it, you will recall that it is set in the London Underground, that has been closed off due to unknown malevolent forces. The Monsters are, of course, the Yeti, deployed by the Great Intelligence. The military are sent into the Underground to deal with the problem. Chaos ensues. Into this chaos, the Tardis arrives.
As I watched it again, I had this strange feeling it reminded me of something else…Military, underground tunnels, monster… And then it struck me. It felt strangely like “Aliens” with Sigourney Weaver.
I can’t imagine the writers of “Aliens” made the connection, and I know that the Doctor will not suggest, like Sigourney Weaver: “I think we should take off and nuke the planet from outer space; it’s the only way to be safe” (one of my favourite movie lines…) but it certainly added something to my re-viewing of the Troughton story.
Tonight, episode 3, with the arrival of someone very special to Who lore.
24 July 2024 at 02:29 #76787As @nerys said, thanks for asking. And as @nerys noted, western Canada has suffered quite a lot. I am off the coast, on Vancouver Island (and while I say island, it is quite large, with almost a million people). Parts of the island have also borne the brunt, but where we live, on the southern tip of the island, we have had better luck, so far.
Apparently, as I was reading today, this was the hottest day for the earth since records have been kept. But, needless to say, to even mention the term “climate change” is dismissed as “woke”.
Well, classify me as “woke, and proud of it” damn it!
19 July 2024 at 17:56 #76779That piece in Deadline was very interesting. When it comes to the long-term members of this forum, one of the things we all exhibit is loyalty to Who, and we always try and see the positive in each new show even when we feel a bit of disappointment . But an American audience with no real commitment to Who (particularly a young audience) can determine whether a show continues to warrant investment. So, yes, a bit concerning.
Even someone like myself, who eagerly looks forward to each new iteration of Who, can sometimes find myself starting to question whether the visions of Chibnall or RTD2 are really all that good. Of course, I’ll keep watching. But Disney is not really interested in whether I watch it or not.
13 July 2024 at 18:13 #76757Yes, I feel the same way. At the moment, there seems to be more stories on the web featuring RTD2 than stories about the show itself or the actors, or writers, or, well, anybody beyond RTD2.
The latest one I came across this morning. It was about how Who and the TV version of Star Trek are collaborating for some event or other, and the piece seem to consist primarily of RTD2 talking about…RTD2!
13 July 2024 at 02:48 #76754@ps1lOv3yOu
Champion bonkerising!
Am I correct in thinking that the length of the Martian day is one earth day plus 37 minutes?
37…73?
Nah, I am sure I am wrong.11 July 2024 at 03:17 #76748I don’t think this classifies as a spoiler
https://screenrant.com/doctor-who-mrs-flood-fourth-wall-unresolved-davies-response/
I do think RTD2 is using Mrs Flood merely as a device; she is just there to make us sit up and ask…”Why?”
8 July 2024 at 23:44 #76738@nerys, @ps1lOv3yOu, @dentarthurdent,
Part of the problem with retirement, is one falls into the trap of reading far too much about current politics on one’s iPad. And what one currently reads is too depressing for words. As I read about Project 2025 it not only evokes The Handmaid’s Tale as you have noted, but, in a bizarre way, also conjures up a vision of a future that sounds like The House of the Dragon. Their vision of the future seems to have no place for old people’s care homes, specialist educational facilities for those with disabilities, the protection of children from gun violence, etc, etc. As for debate over what constitutes a good society; even to say that phrase in a Project 2025 future sounds like being placed next in line for the Gulag. And interestingly, as I read of Trump trying to distance himself (somewhat) from the insanity of Project 2025 because (presumably) he recognizes that it might bounce back at him in the coming elections, I also get the sense the those behind Project 2025 could easily turn on Trump if he tried to reign them in (even the slightest bit) were he to actually win the election. I have never read anything quite so scary about US politics as what I am reading about now.
7 July 2024 at 01:53 #76722@ps1l0v3y0u, @dentarthurdent, @mudlark, @nerys, craig,
Regarding PR, we all have different experiences, depending on the voting system we grew up with. In Australia, for instance, it operated in tandem with compulsory voting, and as such, worked quite well IMO. Would it work as well in the UK or Canada? perhaps not. Then there is the question of an Upper House. How it affects democracy is very different in Canada and Australia. As a well travelled colonial, I confess to finding the House of Lords simultaneously appalling and a great tourist attraction, perhaps best suited to the rigours of a Lord Peter Wimsey novel.
p.s. @craig, I seem to have screwed up a couple of attempts to post above. Sorry!
6 July 2024 at 22:06 #767166 July 2024 at 22:00 #767156 July 2024 at 21:36 #76714(@craig Thanks for the Jonathan Pie piece. Brilliant. Mind you, looking at the final results, it would seem that the Primord Party, led by the Primord-in Chief, Farage (who apparently wants the young men of Britain to emulate Andrew Tate) got more than 4 million votes. And remember, one of the characteristics of the Primords was not to kill, but to capture and physically hold their prey until they had turned into a Primord themselves.
4 July 2024 at 03:12 #76693@craig, @jimthefish, @ps1l0v3y0u, and everyone else on the forum from the UK,
I hope all goes well.
It just so happened that I was watching “Inferno” where the Pertwee Doctor is transported to an alternative fascist Britain. It seemed like science fiction back in the ’70s. I really hope tolerance wins the day tomorrow.
3 July 2024 at 03:20 #76686Voting is essential for a civilized society. I grew up in Australia, before moving to Canada late in life. As such, I grew up with compulsory voting and I have always been in favour of it, just as I am in favour of rules and expectations that we all are told to stop at traffic lights. Does it mean the most worthy party gets into power? Well, that depends on who you vote for. But what it does ensure (and compulsory voting has been part of Australian life for a hundred years) is that everyone abides by the umpire’s decision, unlike the United States. Of course, you could not transplant that into other societies, but I am grateful for growing up in a society that took it for granted.
1 July 2024 at 02:54 #76673@winston Yes, it was a magical film. And for me, the most emotionally uplifting film I can imagine. When I watched again a couple of nights ago I could feel my eyes starting to water up.
@nerys Perhaps your local library might have it. It comes with a 5 star Blenkinsop recommendation. Here is the trailer:
29 June 2024 at 23:26 #76660After expressing my discomfort with the way RTD2 has moved Who into the realm of fantasy and magic, I start to think about those who have successfuly combined fantasy, magic and something very British. For me, the one movie that stands out is Powell and Pressburger’s wonderful 1946 prduction, “A Matter of Life and Death”.
Not only did I watch it again last night (for the umpteenth time) but I watched the recent Criterion version which boasts a brilliant digital restoration. The result is an intensity of the colour and of the black and white sequences that is simply breathtaking.
For those who have not seen it, I do not want to spoil it, so I can only encourage you to find some way of watching it. Believe me when I say it is simply one of the most emotionally uplifting film experiences I can think of. And for those who have seen it, the importance of the tear drop made me think of what we have been saying about the Doctor’s tears this season, and watching the movie again I was struck by how Doctor-like (in the Who sense) Roger Livesey plays his role.
For me this movie (particularly now it has been digitally restored and enhanced in this Criterion edition) is (in all senses of the term) one of the most magical films ever made.
26 June 2024 at 22:24 #76647Have had a couple of days to reflect on this–ie, on the question of how a run of pretty good stories that seeded a range of potential future resolutions crashed and burned so catastrophically with the last instalment.
The only way I can describe it is that I think it was a case of RTD2 wanting to have his cake and eat it too. I have the impression that he approached everything with the assumption that Ruby would turn out to be an ordinary girl, but that he thought it would be “clever” to seed the stories with hints and questions that captured the imagination of the viewers like us, but at the end, it would turn out to be what he had intended from the beginning: a simple tale of an ordinary girl searching for, and finding, her missing mother. If so, I doubt that the viewers (us) have ended up feeling that approach has been as successful as I suspect he feels about himself. In fact, I suspect that many of us feel that to some extent, we have been “played” and are left clutching at straws (or the one remaining straw–Mrs Flood) that next year’s will offering will give us what we believed we were being offered this year…until we got to “Empire of Death”.
Am I being too harsh?
25 June 2024 at 22:28 #76620@mudlark And here was me attempting to be ultra careful, as you had previously suggested I should have posted a news item on the Spoilers page a while back…
p.s. 6 months does seem an awfully long time to wait.
25 June 2024 at 17:05 #76616Filming the Christmas Special. Posting here as it is not a BBC clip, but no real spoilers to speak of, and Moffat rambling into the bargain!
25 June 2024 at 02:58 #76606@nerys No one should be denied the opportunity to enjoy Doctor Who. To add to the suggestion by @whohar I just checked Amazon.ca and you can get a region free DVD player for only $49.95.
Before we moved to Canada Mrs Blenkinsop and I had just such a thing and yes, we had to wait for the DVD to be released before we could see it, but we got to see them, and we loved it!
And…a little region free DVD player is the size of a dinner plate.
24 June 2024 at 22:58 #76594After reading your post, I am reminded of my initial response to the episode–that perhaps we should rebrand the subtitle of the Forum to: “Theories even more dramatically satisfying than what’s actually happening”
24 June 2024 at 22:51 #76592@nerys Sorry to hear that. Is there any chance you can convince the library to subscribe to Disney+?
24 June 2024 at 01:07 #76571An update from RTD2 about the Christmas Special.
p.s. he seems to have a very loose understanding of what a spoiler is.
23 June 2024 at 22:41 #76567I know it is highly unlikely to happen, but I do hope that RTD2 has second thoughts about all the magic malarky.
I confess that I do not really want to see fairies on Who (except, perhaps, the Cottingley Fairies). An episode where the Doctor has to break it to Conan Doyle that he was duped sounds pretty great to me.
But alas, I fear I may be waiting a long time.
23 June 2024 at 18:17 #76564Perhaps this has been answered above (if so, apologies), but if Ruby’s mother points at the road sign as a way of naming her, who is aware enough of this to have it put on her birth certificate?
Watched “The Giggle” again last night and it shows that RTD2 can write an excellent episode if he wants to. Which make “Empire of Death” even more inexplicable.
23 June 2024 at 04:31 #76540The final scene with Mrs Flood: Is there anyone out there who has both better equipment and better reflexes to focus on the ring on her finger? Is it similar to one of the Doctor’s rings?
23 June 2024 at 00:33 #76528@mudlark Ha! Well, given the choice between engaging in collective and convivial bonkerizing, and the dubious charms of coming up with script ideas that would guarantee sufficient viewing numbers to satisfy the suits at Disney+, I vote in favour of doing just what we have been doing and enjoying on this wonderful site for the last decade (can it be that long?).
@krathoon Good point about the Tardis. When the Gatwa Doctor whacks Tennant’s Tardis and creates a new one, did Sutekh divide in two, or stay with Tennant’s Tardis, or conveniently (for the purpose of this episode) slide into the Gatwa Tardis, or…?
22 June 2024 at 22:57 #76522I know. I wasn’t impressed. And I am probably hoping for too much. But, nonetheless, here goes:
Mrs Flood at the end.
Was she covered in costume of…snow flakes?
Was she like an epilogue figure in a Shakespearean play? (And the one that comes to mind is “The Tempest”.)
22 June 2024 at 21:10 #76517Totally agree that it all may have worked better if it had multiple episodes to develop, as in the early days of Who. On the other hand, perhaps he did have multiple episodes, but chose to prioritize other issues in those episodes. Stuff like the snow, Ruby’s relationship to music, etc , were left strangely unfilfilled.
Love the cartoon of Sutekh as Snoopy!
And appreciate your points about how RTD2 incorporates stuff like Peter Pan.
22 June 2024 at 18:37 #76510@bunface re: the brilliant Eastenders line–no that wasn’t me. It was the incomparable @whohar.
On the question of Gatwa’s performance that you raised @bunface, when I compare him to Tennant (also not my personal favourite) Gatwa can do charm effortlessly, but I don’t feel he can do anger all that well. Yes, he can scream at the seeming death of humanity or punch the wall over his role in the death of Col. Chidozi, but they are examples of him expressing anger at himself. But if you compare him to Tennant’s anger in “The Giggle”, Gatwa cannot reach those levels.
22 June 2024 at 17:51 #76507UNIT seems horribly Fam like, saved only by Jemma.
Yes, indeed, but did you not see Kate and Col. Ibrahim reach out and hold each other’s hand after they miraculously come back to life. My heart sinks about where that might lead.
And as for everyone on Earth as well as the entire universe miraculously coming back to life, the more I think about it, the more offensive I find it. Yes, RTD2 may want to invoke magic and embrace fantasy, but the idea of the Doctor waving a magic wand, with Sutekh at the end, and everyone comes back to life seems like a cheap conjuror’s trick. When the Doctor in “Pyramids of Mars” defeated Sutekh he did it because he understood time (the 2 minute gap for radio waves travelling between Earth and Mars). His power was knowledge (and that was inspiring to a kid like me when I saw it originally).
22 June 2024 at 15:34 #76503And in the cold light of morning…still totally underwhelmed.
What was the Doctor’s line: “The death of death is life”…or some such nonsense. Come on…even at the level of fantasy, this is simply stupid. And Ruby discovers her mother’s name because the fascist Welsh Prime Minister has conveniently ordered everyone in the UK to have a DNA sample taken in the 2040s, and it is conveniently accessible for the Doctor and Ruby to find and access. Really? That’s it? That’s how we resolve the question of Ruby’s identity? Did RTD2 write that or did the Space Babies write it in a group session?
And where did it all end up? With a pure soap opera conclusion of Ruby and her two mothers, all embracing as the Tardis disappears. Come back, Chibnall, all is forgiven!
22 June 2024 at 02:22 #76481Well, here are a couple of reflections.I think we should change the subtitle of our forum to:
“Theories even more dramatically satisfying than what’s actually happening.”
Don’t get me wrong, I like fantasy. But if I am looking for pure fantasy I will turn to Michael Powell’s gorgeous version of “The Thief of Baghdad”. But not, alas, to this.
21 June 2024 at 21:57 #76468@magdiragdag, Yes! as @thane16 says…well spotted! They specifically focus on the clock, so it must be deliberate. But to what end?
Back in “Pyramids of Mars” the Tom Baker Doctor defeats Sutekh with the 2 minute gap for radio waves to travel from Earth to Mars. Could it be pointing to something similar? And yet, at this point in the episode, Sutekh has not even been revealed.
OK, bring on “Empire of Death”!
21 June 2024 at 15:56 #76456Or the Doctor will transport Sutekh into the time window by the same route and then get rid of him, probably by taping over Ruby’s VHS with a episode of EastEnders.
Brilliant!
21 June 2024 at 15:29 #76455@mudlark Crikey, no offence taken at all! One of the great things about this site (beyond the accepting and generous calibre of the people who frequent it) is that any “wrong” prediction still captures the essence of the site; viz, “theories even more insane than what’s actually happening”.
And you take care of the shiny new knee and hip, my bionic compatriot.
20 June 2024 at 21:56 #76433OK, time for my last minute predictions. Ruby, rather than the Doctor, will save humanity. The key will be her sensitivity to music which Maestro was puzzled by. The Doctor, on the other hand, will defeat Sutekh, for similar reasons that the Tom Baker previously defeated Sutekh– through his understanding of time, which is beyond Sutekh.
Back to Ruby. She is from the future (hence Davina McCall not finding any genetic trace of her) and was left at the church…in order to save humanity. Mrs Flood has been watching over Ruby. Why Mrs Flood? No idea.
Who left her at the church? The “kind woman”? Just guessing at this point.
So the question is: how many things will I get wrong? Probably all.
19 June 2024 at 19:25 #76427Was just reading that Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson have filmed book-end scenes for a new Tales of the Tardis episode that revisits Pyramids of Mars, to be screened tomorrow on BBC iplayer
Here is the link.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2024/doctor-who-tales-of-the-tardis-pyramids-of-mars
For those with BBC iplayer only, it seems, not for those of us residing in the far flung outposts of empire.
18 June 2024 at 23:16 #76413Thanks for that excellent description of the Time Window sequence. I was struck by the colours you mention, particularly as they hint at Sutekh (as in P of M). I wonder if this could mean that the woman in the cloak and hood becomes possessed by or respondent to Sutekh as the events play out in the Time Window? If so, this might explain why the figure seems both alarming when pointing in the direction of the Tardis behind which Chidozie will die but at the same time crying, as observed by Carla? If so, it might imply that Sutekh is able to manifest in the Time Window. How? Well, it has already been established that UNIT has incorporated a dynamic system courtesy of Triad Technology…
18 June 2024 at 17:20 #76409@craig Everything that Puro just said. Yes.
As for the wonderful silliness of “Pyramids of Mars”, apparently it was filmed in the house and on the estate (including the vast and verdant grounds that characters are running through) owned at the time (1975) by Mick Jagger.
18 June 2024 at 02:51 #76395Mrs Flood…again. The only likely anagram I came up with was…Molsdorf.
Although I want her to be on the side of the angels, I do recall that when she came into Carla’s flat her mode of greeting to Ruby was: “…still waiting for your growth spurt”.
I ask you, who says that to a young woman except a complete and utter Molsdorf…!??
17 June 2024 at 20:05 #76383Thank you @craig! You are a benevolent Emperor.
The perfect preparation for the upcoming finale.
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