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23 October 2015 at 14:10 #45340
Birthday greetings!
I raise a glass to you. Well, given that it is 9am in my part of the world, I raise an espresso to you!
And, yes, I fully agree that Doctor Who really does have the capacity to speak to us personally in ways that other popular culture doesn’t.
Cheers.
21 October 2015 at 17:30 #45263@purofilion
“Oh Canada”
Yes, indeed. The champagne has been flowing freely over here in Ontario.
It’s funny, I fell in love with Canada during all those visits while I was living in Australia, only to discover when I moved here that Harper was doing his best to dismantle all that I associated with being “Canadian” and replace it with a type of social, cultural, political and economic conservatism that would have warmed the cockles of Tony Abbott’s heart (assuming he had one).
On the last day of the campaign, Harper even drew on the support of the crack-cocaine smoking ex mayor of Toronto and his appalling bover-boy brother, who is alleged to have run a drug ring in his youth–the horrible Ford brothers. The fact that Harper opposed marijuana as “infinitely worse than tobacco” didn’t seem to bother him from associating with the Ford brothers, of course.
Anyway, with any luck, and under new leadership, hopefully the Canada I fell in love with will start to re-emerge.
21 October 2015 at 01:46 #45231On the question of the Doctor giving Ashildr a spare chip, I am wondering if that chip actually works. I seem to remember him working on the first chip as Ashildr lays dead then immediately placing it on her. When did he get the opportunity to convert the second chip for humans before he leaves it for her?
But, if so, why would he give her a chip that would not work?
No answers, just musing.
20 October 2015 at 22:35 #45220Your trip to Pompeii sounds brilliant.
Now go lie down and enjoy your jet-lag while you’ve still got it . . . !
Jet-lag? From Italy to the UK? Back in my working days when the Qantas Club Lounge was a second home (halcyon days…) I used to travel regularly from Australia to the UK and back. Now we are talking real jet-lag!
staying in Wookey Hole but very disappointing, no Wookies or Jedi anywhere!!!!
Not sure how far down the caves you are, but you might keep a lookout for Silurians.
20 October 2015 at 00:31 #45165Yes! One of the recurring themes of Moffat is that we are all stories in the end. That is how Moffat breaks the 4th wall without actually breaking it, if that makes sense.
I have the feeling that the departure of Clara will be linked to that theme in some way.
20 October 2015 at 00:27 #45164I think that is a really lovely and insightful reflection on Clara. I agree entirely, and I wish I had expressed it that way myself.
19 October 2015 at 20:19 #45152Just re-watched the episode. At the point at which the Doctor realises why he has the face he has (to save people, just as he did at Pompeii) and decides to save Ashildr, he shouts into the air that if anybody is listening and objects, “to hell with you”. It occurred to me, not just that he was shouting at the Time Lords, but that he was alluding to The War Games, when the Time Lords punish him (by giving him a new face) for interfering in the life and death of others too much.
So, I went and watched the end of The War Games again, and sure enough, Troughton’s trousers (yes, this post really is about trousers) do match Capaldi’s.
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…)
19 October 2015 at 18:28 #45145To follow-up the point on the Doctor’s trousers (which I believe are supposed to be Troughton era trousers-see below the bit from the Radio Times in August), Peter Capaldi has directed us to “specific trouser things that happen for specific reasons” in the series (unless he’s joking!?). Why, then, point us at the Troughton era for this story?? Is it just a little bit of homage, or more?
Personally, I think the Radio Times got it wrong. Let’s compare trousers:
If anything, Capaldi’s trousers seem to be closer to Hartnell’s–to my eye, anyway.
If we assume Capaldi wasn’t joking, and we should think about the trousers, is there something in the Hartnell era that we should be thinking about?
18 October 2015 at 18:44 #45045Lots of great reflections on the board (of course). And not everyone agrees with each other—sorry, @cumquat!
Agree with @countscarlioni that this was a very deep episode lying beneath a seemingly-lighthearted romp. And it is for this reason that I liked this episode so much more than last week, when I felt that Whithouse was saying: “Look at how clever this writing is”, but, for me at least, it was all strangely hollow, because it was too obviously “clever”.
But this episode was chock full of stuff to ponder on (the future of Clara, the morality of “giving” immortality, the anguish of the Doctor, particularly in relation to Clara, but also to all his companions) while we were swept along by a silly Viking setting and slightly silly warlord.
Great observation from @oldmangeorge about the allusion to the Captain in The Pirate Planet.
And along the same lines, I agree wholeheartedly with @janetteb that this had the feel of an old BG Who story. And that was one of the things I liked about it! Capaldi was even wearing Hartnell’s pants!
18 October 2015 at 18:23 #45042A really interesting idea!
18 October 2015 at 16:31 #45034An enjoyable episode. Have not read any posts yet, but my first thought was a comic take on “The Seven Samurai” where the villagers have to be defended (and trained to defend themselves) by the wandering samurai.
The call back to The Fires of Pompei was well done, and the creation of the immortal hybrid (with the possibility of some (or even many) returns to the show for Maisie Williams) was cleverly connected to the question of why he chose that face.
The allusion to the music from GoT at the end a bit cheeky!
Now off to read the posts.
14 October 2015 at 12:04 #44777@craig, just realised that I am perfectly capable of looking at the activity page myself, so please ignore my earlier message.
14 October 2015 at 02:27 #44744W@craig
Just following up on @pedant‘s query. I realise, from your explanation to @pedant, that you are restricted by how much space you can use (at least, I think that is what you are saying) but the tendency when you log on is to simply look at the most recent posts that are highlighted, and only later do you realise there are posts on other threads (or you miss them entirely).
Would a solution be to structure the home page so it highlighted/began with the Activity thread? That way, it might be easier to instantly see the posts beyond the four or five most recent.
But perhaps this would result in more activity, which has resource implications…?
14 October 2015 at 00:00 #44735Reading your posts on confronting a new Doctor, I think back to my first experience. I was 11 when I saw the very first episode of Doctor Who in 1964 ( it was a bit late in arriving in Australia). It was a life-changing experience. Then the Doctor (not simply my Doctor, but, as far as I, or anyone watching then was concerned, the Doctor), changed into the Troughton Doctor, my response was: “But that’s not right”.
As a result, I only watched the second Doctor intermittently, but when I watched “The War Games”, and the whole idea of the Doctor regenerating was adressed explicitly, I embraced it wholeheartedly. By the time the new season started and the third Doctor staggered out of the TARDIS, I wanted to wear a velvet smoking jacket with ruffled shirt, as I had reached the amazingly sophisticated age of 17. And it was 1970, after all.
Fortunately, in 2015, the Doctor does not wear carpet slippers, but really cool boots, which continues to help me keep me young!
13 October 2015 at 19:11 #44710My favorite rubbish monster was in my favorite story “The Dalek Invasion of Earth” (1965). It was, of course:
Yes, the Slyther! It was like a like an overgrown garden plant with a growl that expressed indigestion more than anything else.
12 October 2015 at 22:56 #44636When I posted on this episode after a first viewing I revealed my disappointment. I felt it was primarily Toby Whithouse demonstrating his cleverness by creating a puzzle, which he had to: a) direct our attention to at the beginning of the episode in a rather didactic way, and b) have the Doctor explain to us (rather than show us) how the puzzle worked at the end of the episode.
But at the end of my post, I held out hopes that subsequent viewings might change my impression. Well, I just finished watching again, and if anything, I felt its flaws were more acute on a second viewing. I recall that after last week’s episode there was a huge amount of discussion on the Fisher King in Arthurian legend and on the meaning of the mural on the wall of the rec room on the base.
In light of this week’s episode, what did either have to do with the story? My understanding of the Fisher King (TS Eliot and Arthurian legend) is that he is not an evil character, but that his infertility is representive of the infertility of the land and so I am struggling to understand why Whithouse gave the alien warlord that name. And the mural. As far as I could see, it played no role in the story that unfolded. Could it be that these things were dropped in by Whithouse to make the story seem more complex than it was? (which is my suspicion) Or is there a longer game at play here that will only be revealed later?
12 October 2015 at 20:21 #44624Incidentally, I wonder, if Clara is indeed a Bootstrap Paradox, where does that leave Dad and Grandma? Unless it is Clara’s mother who is actually the paradox? Or am I just confusing things?
Well, perhaps just a little bit!
I am finding it difficult to get my head around the various, and seemingly increasingly convoluted, theories about Clara’s end. Particularly since I have never quite understood Clara’s beginning. The one theory about her end I quite like is that of @jphamlore, that she will end up back in the Nethersphere with Danny. The darkness of Danny’s death was about as dark as I think she deserves. To have her come to a dark end as well seems just a bit too cruel. But to have her “die” by going to the Nethersphere, and be reunited with Danny not only is in keeping with her many previous deaths as a Claricle, and not only goes back to her walking past her own grave, but keeps her “out there” somewhere, together with Danny again.
I know…what an appallingly rank sentimentalist I am! But there you go.
12 October 2015 at 18:57 #44612There has been a bit of discussion about the next companion over the last few weeks. It occurred to me that one factor that might have an affect on the question of the next companion(s) may well be the new spin-off show “Class” that is going to be set at Coal Hill High School. Given Moffat’s desire to increasingly connect back to BG Who, it wouldn’t surprise me if he even went for a version on Ian, Barbara and Susan. Not a direct parallel, of course, but a version in some sense.
Of course, one could argue that Clara is already that, but frankly I have always felt that Clara, as the schoolteacher at Coal Hill, was a bit clunky as a device, particularly the way she became a schoolteacher at Coal Hill after she had traveled through the Doctor’s timeline as a Claricle. Nor have the attempts to put schoolchildren into the Tardis been all that successful recently.
Hmmm…as I continue to type I am becoming less sure. But before I talk myself out of my original suggestion, I still wonder if Coal Hill might, in some capacity, give us the next companion.
11 October 2015 at 19:31 #44502I too was a bit irritated by the preamble via the fourth wall – as if, after all the looping timey=wimeyness of the last few seasons, we would be incapable of following the moebius logic of a bootstrap paradox without a big signpost to direct us.
You have captured my concerns in a far more elegant fashion that I could.
I also agree with @arbutus that it “felt cerebral rather than emotive”.
But nonetheless, there were things I quite liked, beyond the nuanced performances of the members of the crew. One was the fact that the Doctor was willing to sacrifice O’Donnell in order to test his theory, as Bennett rightly accuses him of doing. The Doctor does not deny it. This gave him a steely resolve that had echoes of Hartnell. It was something I thought worked quite well.
11 October 2015 at 16:29 #44490Well, Mrs Blenkinsop and I just finished watching, both turned to each other and tried really hard to say something spontaneously positive…and couldn’t.
Yes, it was clever, in a way that a rubrik’s cube is clever. But it was, well, too obviously clever. Moffat has a real lightness of touch as a storyteller, but with Moffat the character-driven story is always upper-most. He can do amazingly clever things with paradoxes and loops, but what is most important with Moffat at his best is that he sweeps you along with the adventure, and he is not afraid to simply leave unanswered the details of “how did that work?” on occasion.
But this story seemed to me to be drawing attention to its own cleverness too much. I have longed for a really interesting breaking the 4th wall moment during the Moffat years, but with this one it was so clearly Toby Whithouse addressing us at the beginning, not the character of the Doctor. It was almost as if we were being told to focus on this clever puzzle, rather than on the characters in the story. Then we get to the end, and we have a long verbal explanation by the Doctor/Whithouse on how the clever puzzle actually worked. Here, it was perilously close to being lectured at the beginning and end.
All the actors playing the crew were brilliant, and captured the sense of love and loss really well. But, there is one alien species that Toby Whithouse has created–the cowardly race from the planet Tivoli–who I confess to finding incredibly annoying, because they are simply ciphers rather than actual characters you can believe in.
I hope this doesn’t come across as ARSE, but I did find this story sort of disappointing.
But, who knows, perhaps I will get more out of it on subsequent viewings.
10 October 2015 at 01:59 #44393I am not sure I would agree that the Borg were an imitation of the BG Who. If anything, I think the AG Who Cybermen were, and are increasingly, an imitation of the Borg.
Your point about the new Cybermen is correct–they want to convert you; in other words, the Borg. But beyond this, I am not sure what AG Who wants to do with them–in “Nightmare in Silver” beyond there being thousands of them and they moved very fast–what was the point of them? When Missy marshalls them, they go through the motions of reminding us of their iconic look as they walk through London, but beyond the historical allusion, what is the point? The idea that the Brigadier could inhabit a Cyberman costume and do something heroic did not really gell with this viewer, who first saw them in “The Tenth Planet”. Frankly, I do not think Moffat (who I admire enormously) has figured out what to do with them. Which is a pity, given how important they are to the show.
9 October 2015 at 16:43 #44376@denvaldron Excellent analysis of both the Daleks and the Cybermen. Your point about the consistency of the Daleks (hate) compared to the changing character of the Cybermen is spot on. For me, part of the problem with the Cybermen in AG Who is that they have been turned into a variation on a type of Sci-Fi monster that emerged during the gap between BG Who and AG Who: the Borg. And as such, they don’t seem to have the unnerving creepiness that they possessed in BG Who.
8 October 2015 at 21:34 #44331Just re-watching the episode, and I need to adjust my theory (thin, thick in the middle, thin) a bit. The alien hasn’t been here since the 19th century but only since the 1980s when the dam burst. The elderly ghost isn’t from the 19th century but is, of course, a cowardly alien from the plant…Tivoli? (surely not).
Anyway, just needed to make that slight adjustment to my thin, thick, thin theory. After all, if you are going to have a theory that proves to be wrong in every detail, then it has to be based on the correct information…
8 October 2015 at 16:00 #44324A theory on what might happen, based largely on the information revealed in the “next week” clip and the trailer for next week.
The Doctor is going back in time to the village before the flood. Whatever he finds there he tells Clara by timey-wimey phone call that he cannot change, because “there are rules”.
What does he discover there? The spaceship. A military installation from the 1980s mocked up to look like a Soviet town. And a monster. We see it briefly walking down a corridor in one of the buildings the Doctor is hiding in. It has emerged from the porcelain coffin. It is probably in possession of the missing power pack. there is a brief shot of the old ghost (looking somewhat like a man of the cloth, or at least man of distinction in a nineteenth century kind of way) holding a book saying “Celestial Map” (I think).
So, theory: alien from Orion system has been stuck on earth since nineteenth century and can animate the dead to appear like ghosts in his quest for escape. Once the town (and his ship) was flooded he uses the powerpack to stay in suspended animation until the ship is retrieved from the lake, at which point he begins his campaign to take over the crew in order to achieve his desire–escape. The Doctor realises he has to “die”, or at least present a simulacrum of death in order to become one of the re-animated “ghosts” in order to foil the alien’s plan.
Thematically, the alien has assumed the status of the Vodyanoi (hi @purofilion) and the references to the soviet setting in Scotland, the spaceship and that base under attack is all part of a homage by Toby Whitehouse to Robert Holmes, Douglas Camfield and “The Nightmare Man”.
My theory. A theory that is thin at one end, thick in the middle and thin at the other end.
7 October 2015 at 16:41 #44271That is a brilliantly geeky bonkers theory. Which actually makes the Picard/Kirk movie sound better than it actually was. At this stage, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the porcelain coffin opens up to reveal William Shatner!
6 October 2015 at 23:38 #44229@lisa, @purofilion
While there are clearly many references to draw on, as the erudite @mudlark and @bluesqueakpip, among others, have drawn our attention to, I am currently, in the words of Rocky the Road Island Red in “Chicken Run”, brewing up a double yolker of a theory of what might happen in the next episode, in light of my obsession with “The Nightmare Man”.
But I do not want to be precipitous. After all, I am only on the first bottle of red…
6 October 2015 at 12:04 #44173glad you likedit. Not sure if you have only watched the first episode of The Nightmare Man, but the rest of it gets even better!
5 October 2015 at 23:12 #44146@purofilion
You did indeed, and many thanks for kind words (although I am not sure I deserve the description). Your response:
As a Czech, I recall the stories on which The Nightmare Man was built: the Vodyanoy or Vonik (Vodnici) were water spirits who collected people and stored the drowned in porcelain coffins and when the top’s removed the soul inside is free. Dvorak composed music using these water sprite themes and a character features prominently in his opera, Rusalka.
Now, in the Czech version (not in the German Wasserman stories), the Vodnici wait near ponds and fresh water lakes.
These creatures often used fire to stimulate the curiosity of their victim. We have immersion, fire, twilight, morning, evening as well as porcelain coffins and spirits.
We’re on fire!!
was absolutely fascinating. I did not know of the origins of the stories on which The Nightmare Man was built. But, as you point out, it is all there in the episode. What I find interesting is that the 1981 mini series (scripted by the prolific Who writer Robert Holmes) also seems to have resonances in the episode. In particular, there is Moran’s statement that the spacecraft may not be alien, but a military craft, perhaps abandoned or lost back in the 1980s. I will be interested to see how that plays out next week.
5 October 2015 at 19:52 #44126I hope you enjoy it!
5 October 2015 at 18:27 #44119In the clips of “Next Week”, at the end of “Under the Lake” we get a brief glimpse of the village prior to it’s being flooded. The spacecraft is there, standing next to the church, but…the church looks to be Russian orthodox, and on the side of an adjacent building is a Soviet era political poster featuring Lenin. This doesn’t look much like Scotland to me. So, at the beginning of the episode we are told that the flooded village is in Scotland, but in the brief preview clip it seems that the village before it is flooded seems to be somewhere in Soviet-era eastern Europe.
There is a clear connection to the 1981 miniseries “The Nightmare Man”, but unfortunately, I cannot give away too many details, for fear of spoilers for anyone who has not seen it (but must!) I will say that the Scottish/Soviet/spaceship/Vodyanoi connection is all there in both shows, but they play out differently.
I also think we should remember the way Moran does not want to accept that the spaceship is a spaceship, and that it may have been an abandoned military craft from the 1980s.
Anyway, if this episode encourages anyone to seek out “The Nightmare Man” for the first time, if will have done good!
5 October 2015 at 18:11 #44117Well, after a refreshing sleep, back for a second viewing. I still have most of my initial reservations, although this time around it does have a sort of compelling creepiness (which is a bit undercut by the Doctor’s wisecracks–not sure they are suited to a story that aspires to unnerve you) but I am more convinced than ever by my initial thought that the story is referencing “The Nightmare Man” serial from 1981, and the idea of the Vodyanoi. For those of you who have not seen it, it is set on a remote Scottish island, where a strange miniature spaceship is discovered and a beast is on the prowl murdering the members of a scientific team.
It was, as I said upstream, directed by Who alumnus Douglas Camfield, and it was brilliant. It is available on dvd and I highly recommend it.
Now, there is something else I want to say about the connections between the two shows, but it concerns what happens in the clips of “Next Week” at the end of the episode. To err on the side of caution, I am now heading over to the “BBC approved Spoilers” page…
5 October 2015 at 00:01 #44064OK, just dropping with first responses. Have not read any other posts as yet.
Well…a bit of “Prometheus” (god spare us) a bit of “Alien”, a bit of…well lots of things, and a LOT of a computer game. Actually, one of the things that came to mind as I was watching was the brilliant BBC drama from…oh way back when…1981, perhaps, called “The Nightmare Man” directed by Doctor Who alumnus Douglas Camfield. Sorry, but on first screening this episode did not compare well to that.
Yes, it’s true, I spent 5 hours driving today, so perhaps I wasn’t all fired up in expectation, so…how about I sleep on it, watch it again tomorrow and…who knows?
But before I go…”You live and then you die. That’s it.” I have always been in favour of the Doctor’s humanist position, but he speaks as if he had never experienced Danny. Still thinking about that one.
30 September 2015 at 19:48 #43854I enjoy a good conspiracy theory, not because I believe them (I would not want to be mistaken for an absolute steaming loonpants by @pedant) but because they have the appeal of the truly bonkers theory–they have a bizarre internal logic to them which part of your brain wants to accept, but the other part of your brain realises that they aren’t true precisely because the nuance and complexity of the real world has been jettisoned in favour of the “pure” internal logic of the theory.
Which brings me to Abbey Road. Clearly, the Doctor Who team have put a lot of effort into re-creating the original, even down to the VW (sorry @bluesqueakpip, the Volkswagen) license plate. But, surely, to use this as evidence that Clara is dead, sort of presupposes that the original photo was actually saying that Paul McCartney was dead. But he’s not! Rather, I think they did the recreation in a spirit of fun to make allusion to the conspiracy theory that Paul was dead, not to accept that Paul was dead. Therefore, I am not sure we can use the recreated photo to establish that Clara is dead. I think it was more about playing around with bonkers theorists like us.
As for the Clara of the Asylum episode, the nanogenes and your projected ending for Clara, that is really intriguing. Personally, I have never really fully (even partially?) understood the whole issue of the Claricles (if the Hartnell Doctor met claricle Clara when he was stealing the TARDIS to run away with Susan, then why didn’t all the subsequent Doctors say: “Hey, you’re the same person that encouraged me to take this TARDIS”? I am sure I will find enlightenment regarding Clara at some point though. Perhaps Moffat will explain it to me in the episode where Clara leaves. Or perhaps not.
Anyway, I think yours is a really brilliant bonkers theory, but I’m not sure that it is the way the Clara story will be resolved. (But I am wrong on everything else, so why not on this as well?)
28 September 2015 at 17:12 #43707the other place
You really are a glutton for punishment, aren’t you!
One thing that occurred to me, and it has probably occurred to a host of others as well; perhaps, even, at the other place (shiver…) is that when the Doctor goes back to to save boy Davros, by shooting the hand mines, he is probably responsible for introducing the single most identifiable word associated with the Daleks: “Exterminate!”
Yes, I know, blatantly obvious <shuffles back to corner…>
27 September 2015 at 23:28 #43632Thank you for your forbearance. I appreciate it. Everything you say makes a lot of sense.
Part of the problem (or perhaps, my problem) is that given rule#1–the Doctor lies–it means one is never quite sure if his reactions (horror at the re-appearance of Skaro) or actions (willingness to give Davros some of his regeneration energy) is real or feigned.
Still, Moffat writes, not for me, but for children who instantly understand. I am reminded of the Groucho Marx line: “This thing is so simple, a six-year old child could do it. Someone run out and get me a six-year old child.”
27 September 2015 at 22:47 #43624On reflection, I think I will go back to my initial observation that he had it all planned out in advance. He knew from the time he was on Karn that Davros was dying. Not a huge leap to assume Davros wanted his regeneration energy. So everything is put in place to assume Missy will come to his aid if he needs it (and she does). But he knows about the rebuilt Skaro, he knows about the sewers of Skaro containing living Dalek tissue, he knows that his regeneration energy will make them rise up. He fakes his response to everything (except his shame about his actions with boy Davros and his concern for Clara).
This makes sense to me (although it is probably completely wrong!)
27 September 2015 at 22:19 #43613The Doctor, the whole time he is riffing with Davros about compassion, knows Davros is trying to get him to give up his regeneration energy.
The Doctor, as so often, had to react on the hoof, relying on his own sharper, or at least less blinkered and rigid intelligence and his reciprocal understanding of the flaws and blind spots in Davros’s understanding.
OK, I clearly need a bit of help here. I can understand how all the Doctor knows is that he is walking into a trap. I am less clear as to how he knows it is to gain his regeneration energy. If he does, his decision to willingly give Davros the same seems rather reckless. Once he is trapped by Sarff’s snakes and his regeneration energy is being fed to Davros, and he has to react on the hoof, it seems entirely dependent on Missy arriving at just the right point to free him from the snakes.
I realise that each time I view it I become a bit more skeptical of the resolution. In a funny sort of way, it is now starting to remind me of SM’s gag in “The Curse of the Fatal Death” about “Well, I went back even further and bribed the architect…”
27 September 2015 at 20:39 #43599I agree with your point about the Doctor and the sunglasses (hiding his face), it is more the type of person who turns up at a party (indoors, at night) and keeps their sunglass on that I was referring to. They may as well wear a big sign round their neck that says: PRAT.
I too was a bit concerned about the amount of regeneration energy being sacrificed. Even the time with River did not involve that much. I wonder if this will become a future plot point?
On a third viewing I also wondered why, if he had planned all this in advance, he told Davros about Gallifrey. Surely that is like throwing a dog a bone. Does he really want Davros out there looking for Gallifrey? Well, maybe, I suppose, if that is Moffat’s long term game plan.
27 September 2015 at 18:41 #43574I have to say I don’t like seeing dark lenses indoors.
I agree entirely! I also think it’s a “I’m so cool I’m going to be aggressive and confrontational about it” sort of look. I do hope this doesn’t encourage a wave of indoor dark glasses wearing Whovians!
27 September 2015 at 14:38 #43544Intruiging, but it seems to conflict with Missy’s seemingly forcely felt lines to Clara in TMA that Times Lords, far from being motivated by the baser instincts of animals, are above that sort of thing, and that Clara needs to understand that this (ie, the relationship between Missy and the Doctor) is about friendship.
27 September 2015 at 14:31 #43543It is sometimes easy to forget that Doctor Who is has built into its DNA a long tradition of British humour that includes the Carry On movies and goes back to the Music Hall, which is something Moffat in paricular is aware of. Hence my favourite line, when the tables are turned on the Daleks, and the Doctor’s departing line: “Your sewers are revolting.”
27 September 2015 at 13:59 #43541It occurred to me over coffee that we never did get to see what was on the Doctor’s portable CD Player. So my original idea that it contains a Big Finish audio CD that he borrowed from the Galactic Library and has yet to return, in spite of the huge overdue fine, has yet to be disproved…
27 September 2015 at 13:07 #43538OK, pretty cool. Really looking forward to seeing this again as one long double episode viewing.
As is the case with Moffat, it is all simpler than our convoluted theories and yet containing more that we even considered.
@brewski, I doff my hat to you my friend, you were right about the hand mines. I shall doubt your wisdom at my peril in the future.
Now off for a proper Canadian breakfast to think about it all.
p.s. just when you think Missy isn’t so bad after all, she raises the nastiness stakes. (and did I hear reference to her daughter…?)
26 September 2015 at 00:27 #43417Well, with only a day to go, I confess to getting a trifle nervous about how SM will follow up TMA. The more I think about it, the more I wonder whether we are being set up for a massive change to everthing we know about the Doctor/Davros/Daleks.
I realise that I have nailed my colours to the mast in predicting that the Doctor will save his new friend, Davros, but what are the implications of that, I wonder?(assuming I am right in my predictions, which I never am).
I have enormous respect for Moffat as a writer, but I do think he has made mistakes in the past; and with reference to the Daleks, the worst must have been trying to kill off the classic Daleks and replace them with the United Colours of Benetton Daleks back in season 5. But he has progressively back-tracked on that, to the point where they no longer appear.
So, I do hope he doesn’t do something similar with the Doctor/Davros relationship.
But then, I wouldn’t be so nervous if I wasn’t so tremendously excited about tomorrow’s episode!
24 September 2015 at 21:00 #43379Good heavens, no need to apologise. I was thrilled that you were thinking along the same lines. And as my very many typos on these pages may suggest, an addled brain.
24 September 2015 at 20:12 #43374Yes, I was thinking the same thing back at #43162. I am convinced the friend he is going to save is Davros. And I also think what he will exterminate is Davros’s memory of being abandoned. How this will affect the older Davros, I am less clear about, but I suspect it will have the effect of affirming the Doctor’s core belief in compassion (which he is berating himself for momentarily abandoning, and which Davros wants him to reject). Davros being forced to question his own opposition to compassion is probably unlikely, but who knows with Moffat.
24 September 2015 at 19:36 #43373All this talk of the colours attendant upon the Dalek death rays–can it be explained by reference to Goethe’s theory of colour, perhaps?
(Well, no, not being entirely serious…but it does have the makings of a great bonkers theory!)
24 September 2015 at 17:30 #43356Davros as the Magician’s Apprentice. I like it!
I, for one, am looking forward to your Goethe-heavy analysis of season 9…
24 September 2015 at 03:45 #43333@purofilion
Good heavens, there is never any need for an apology.
What truly dreadful Hollywood film gave us the excrable line: “Love means never having to say you’re sorry”? Well, we both know but good taste stops us from mentioning it. And I do not want you to take that literally. Oh dear, this is not going the way I intended. I just mean that we are all compatriots on this site (this isn’t helping either, is it?)
Crikey, this post isn’t turning out the way it was intended. Obviously it’s time to retire (but I am retired)…OK, I mean time to go to bed. Oh dear, it’s still not coming out right…
24 September 2015 at 03:16 #43332Missy could have found the Doctor herself. She has always been able to follow and find
both him and Clara. So why does she really want Clara to be there? Hm?Indeed. I suspect this is a plan that has been arranged by the Doctor and Missy. Clara’s role in it? Yeah, that one stumps me too.
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