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24 August 2015 at 03:20 #42021
@purofilion
I really did mean the congratulations. Mrs Blenkinsop and I will break open a bottle of champagne in celebration on the 19th–taking account of the time difference with Canada (which may involve having champagne at breakfast.) And why not?
Of course, none of this means that you are not famous…
24 August 2015 at 02:39 #42017@purofilion
Congratulations!
your wedding anniversary will be on ABC iview??!!
does mean you are…famous…?
Wow.
24 August 2015 at 02:08 #42014@purofilion
what if the girl who was born to save the Doctor can only do it by dying to save the Doctor? Yes, she has died before (well sort of) but never really died…the way Danny died. What if she is the companion who (besides Adric) dies? But not just dies, but dies to both save the Doctor and to reconnect with Danny?
there would not be a dry eye in the house.
Think about it, death has been lingering recently. Danny. Osgood. What if Clara’s death is the “dark” that has been intimated at? In a way, it makes narrative sense. After all, she should have been dead from her first appearance.
and it would explain walking past her own gravestone. I think…
20 August 2015 at 03:33 #41923The one thing I would add to the wise advice of @purofilion is that JB sells the complete 50th collector’ edition special, which includes everything, including “An Adventure in Time and Space” and the brilliant “Five-ish Doctors…”
Come to think of it, why haven’t I purchased a copy…?
15 August 2015 at 22:33 #41850@arbutus, @Purofilion, @mudlark, @lisa, @janetteb, @ichabod
Without realizing it, I think you are slowly developing the the contents of:
The Cookbook of the Doctor Who Forum: Recipes even more insane than what’s actually cooking
Indeed, the posts above might even get me out of the Blenkinsop cellar and into the kitchen! I certainly owe it to myself to try my hand at anzacs. It has been a long time since I had the real thing.
12 August 2015 at 19:47 #41768When I was growing up Anzac biscuits were not sold in the shops, and nor should they be–the whole point of them was to come out of the oven and straight onto the table. The idea of commercialising and “packaging”them (ugh!) goes against the whole idea of the anzac. Come to think of it, I recall eating one purchased in a shop. It was terrible. Shortly after, I emigrated.
12 August 2015 at 19:17 #41765Actually, that it a rather cool theory–the idea (as I understand you) that the stories we see are being told (and interpreted/edited?) by the TARDIS.
It reminds me a bit of mythic sagas or of the type of storytelling in first nation cultures. I am still not sure I can quite get my head around it (possibly revealing my positivist tendencies).
It is also remarkable for giving a central importance to perhaps the most notorious season of Who. Any theory that can be based on The Trial of a Timelord deserves respect!
Off to think about it some more…
12 August 2015 at 15:34 #41757While I think we probably have to accept that Missy actually is the Master, I quite like your bonkers theory as a bonker theory! I remember at the beginning of the second season of Sherlock that many people did not want to believe that Mycroft wasn’t actually Moriarty, as the clues dropped in Season 1 seemed to point that way. And there were good bonkers theories doing the rounds that put up a case for Mycroft as Moriarty. I see your Missy as Romana theory along the same lines. And a theory more insane than what’s actually happening does fit the ambit of this site!
8 August 2015 at 23:55 #416608 August 2015 at 18:22 #41655@purofilion, @pedant, @mudlark
Oh, dear, cricket…
I cannot but think of the brilliant sequence in the Woody Allen-scripted “What’s New, Pussycat” (not a great film, but a pretty great script) where Peter O’Toole is talking to the crazy European psychoanalyst played by Peter Sellers:
O’Toole: “In Britain, we have a national therapy, we call it cricket. Unlike other sports, it doesn’t involve anxieties or pressures. It’s the song of willow on leather.”
Sellers: “Is there any sex in it?”
O’Toole: “Oh no. This is a game for gentlemen, played by gentlemen.”
Sellers: “It’s sick! Sick!”
7 August 2015 at 14:26 #41620Hello @tardisstowaway (great name!) and welcome.
There is a specific thread for just that on the site:
where you will find lots of thoughts about the trailer.
7 August 2015 at 01:12 #41598Thanks for posting that brilliant documentary. For some reason, I had not seen it before. I agree wholeheartedly with you about the reflections of Jonathan Miller. Spike Milligan really was a talent up there with Lewis Carroll and The Goons really was far more important than simply a comedy show.
On a personal level, it, just as much as Who, shaped me as the person I am. I remember that there were two shows I watched and listened to religously as a child and as a teenager–Doctor Who and The Goons, which was broadcast every Saturday at noon in Australia. In fact, when I think about it, I was probably part of the last generation that grew up in Australia where all my cultural reference points came from the BBC. And if I wanted to get awfully deep about it, just as the peop,e who created Doctor Who and The Goons had been shaped by WWII and a childhood in the Depression, so I grew up as the child of parents who were shaped by the same events. Yet, ironically, it was I, and not my parents, who could respond to both Doctor Who and The Goons. Probably because the creators of both were talking to my generation and not my that of my parents.
5 August 2015 at 19:21 #41563Seems a bit quiet around here, so I thought I would share a Milligan moment:
4 August 2015 at 00:59 #41521@craig aka Emperor Craig (…I assume this is how we address all posts since the resolution of the @pedant problem…)
No need to apologise. Considering the marvellous magic you have performed for us, the odd cock-up is understandable. Indeed, I would love to be able to re-wind the Blenkinsop memory in a way that deleted all reference to a particular relationship back in the 1980s. But,alas, she…and Lady Macbeth..(oh, two relationships now I come to think of it) still intrude on the Blenkinsop brain. Yep, time to open another bottle of red.
29 July 2015 at 01:20 #41482@purofilion
I realise it was, in fact, you who made the brilliant observation about the limes.
My inability to recognise that obviously condems me to the ranks of those who cannot impress the sophisticates of Brisbane. And having lived there (if you can call it living) I use the phrase “sophisticates of Brisbane” loosely. Very loosely.
29 July 2015 at 01:08 #41481@purofilion
but boy, it’s fun
Yes! That is what is brilliant about this story. It is fun.
To be honest, I despair of some of the analysis that seems oblivious to that.
The best Who are those episodes where you realise you have watched the whole episode with a smile on your face.
Even if it was a scary episode.
Unless you are 8 years old. Then you should be hiding behind the sofa.
29 July 2015 at 00:54 #41480I brought home four limes from the shops today, and left them in a bowl. When Mrs Blenkinsop returned home from work she thought they were hilarious.
I feel we are getting close to the point that we, too, might be able to fool people into thinking we are sophisticates, based on our ability to position limes.
25 July 2015 at 23:04 #41436A good point, and I agree with your assessment of 60’s and 80’s Cybermen . In fact, it raises the question of when and why the Cybermen stopped speaking in their current incarnation. Or have I got that wrong? I can recall talking Cybermen in “The Next Doctor”, but do they talk under Moffat?
25 July 2015 at 18:05 #41428Another “Excellent” episode! Tegan as action hero! Cybermen in plastic bags! Beryl Reid dispensing sarcasm and karate chops! Traitors feeling the wrath of the Cybermen!
Bring on the final episode!
24 July 2015 at 18:17 #41387Brilliant link. All this might actually raise the tone of the average Blenkinsop dinner.
15 July 2015 at 15:22 #41214I have been slowly catching up with what I missed during my recent enforced absence, and got a lot out of the erudite discussion of “The Deadly Assassin”.
By and large, I tend to agree with @thekrynoidman that this story provides a welcome focus on the Doctor, as opposed to his assistants, delivers in terms of its political thriller aspects, and has a real sense of style about it.
Yes, the Matrix might have been done better, but there is much to like here. Where I think it works better than some discussants do is in its Gallifrey setting. Every generation interprets its subject through the lens of their own concerns and this is one of those cases, I would argue, where Gallifrey in this story needs to be understood in the context of the 1970s. Robert Holmes presents an alien world that his audience can interpret in light of issues and cultural understandings that they were familiar with. (In fact the same could be said of the Matrix, with its planes, trains and WWI allusions.)
At the very end of episode 4, there is a final interaction between the Doctor and Cardinal Borusa, where the Doctor imitates a schoolboy as a way of sending up the pretensions of the Cardinal (and of Gallifrey for that matter) when he keeps responding to the cardinal with: “Yes Sir”. And then the Cardinal softens, and with a sly smile, admits that the Doctor has done a good job: “9 out of 10”. The doctor returns the smile and leaves. Gallifrey is being presented as an English public school for boys. It is elitist, the Doctor runs away from it because he does not want to be bound by its restrictions, but he will return to save it, as he does here, because…it is part of him, and it always will be.
The allusion to the English public school would have had great resonance to the audience in the early to mid 70s, in a way that it wouldn’t today, when the audience itself is more international, and more distant from the very English allusions in the representation of both Gallifrey and the Matrix in this story.
It was only a few years before “The Deadly Assassin” that Lindsay Anderson’s movie “If…” came out. On the one hand, that movie was a savage attack on the English class system, and the institution of the English public school, and yet, in a funny sort of way, it was almost a nostalgic celebration of the very institutions it was attacking. “The Deadly Assassin” and it representation of Gallifrey and the Matrix needs to be understood in that cultural historical context.
Oh, and there was also a nice bit of continuity by having Bernard Horsfall as Goth, for he had been the Time Lord who had forced the regeneration on Patrick Troughton’s Doctor, and banished him to Earth at the end of “The War Games”.
14 July 2015 at 14:56 #41191@purofilion
I despise the idea of humiliating people by ‘stars’ who are total dickheads and who demonstrate they ‘like a voice’ because they put their $3000 La Swank heel on the button (being too cool to use their hand, I suppose: or being Neanderthal, they don’t know what hands are for).
That was the most brilliantly funny and staggeringly accurate assessment of what passes for public culture in these desperate times that I have read in a very long time. Fabulous.
14 July 2015 at 00:26 #41175No, I tell a lie–the performance above was in 1979. She played the same character in the sequel, “Smiley’s People” in 1982–the year of “Earthshock”.
And excuse the typos above–Mrs Blenkinsop was calling me to the dinner table as I was trying to upload the video. Pathetic excuse, I know; which also reveals far too much about the Blenkinsop household.
13 July 2015 at 23:59 #41174One of the great things about Who over the years is that it has attracted an astonishing array of brilliant English actors. One of those was Beryl Reid (who plays the Captain of the freighter (“You’re beginning to bore me”).
Many people on the site might not be aware of Beryl Reid, but she was a gifted actor who did comedy and drama and everything in between. This included the central character of the 1968 Robert Aldrich-directed The Killing odf Sister George in which she played the acerbic lesbian actor involved in a fraught relationship with Susannah York’s character. And she was also played the wonderful Connie Sachs, the retired intelligence operative in the stunningly brilliant Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy with Alec Guiness. For anyone who has not seen this magisterial TV adaptation, here is Beryl Reid and Alec Guiness. It starts of slow, but bear with it, because it reveals in Beryl Reid’s performance, the very best of English acting. And…she did this in the same year that she did Doctor Who.
12 July 2015 at 20:31 #41158“Excellent…”
Another episode of Eric Saward creepiness, with, perhaps, just a touch of Alien about it (the bleak freighter, the no-nonsense gender-mixed crew (including the wonderful Beryl Reid!!) the grisly deaths…
And I never realised this before, but the Cyber-Leader and his assistant reminded me, bizarrely, of Mr Burns and Smithers from The Simpsons.
“Excellent…”
9 July 2015 at 18:41 #41079So, my question is, should I celebrate with lovely cold cans of larger that have, after all, been in the fridge for over a week, or a nice cup of tea?
Is this a trick question?
8 July 2015 at 18:50 #41070Was rummaging around in the basement last night for something to watch, and there was “The Persuaders” with Tony Curtis and Roger Moore. Seen originally when I was an impressionable youth, purchased when I was an ageing romantic who had forgotten that 45 years can make a difference and seen again last night. And…well, it was rubbish, I admit. Or was it just the fashions and the hairstyles that were rubbish?…Nahh, it was rubbish!
But…and this is the point…I still think of it fondly when I think of how I watched when I was 17. There…the ability to hold two contradictory opinions simultaneously and believe both of them.
And while the quality of the show might depend on when you saw it, I submit that the opening title sequence and music by John Barry still remains brilliant.
8 July 2015 at 13:13 #41069@thekrynoidman. Yes, everything you say is sadly true. In some ways, the Internet has a lot to answer for (except , of course, with providing us the opportunity to have this Forum)
While my memory of the original screening is just a memory, at least I have that memory. I suppose that is one of the few benefits of decrepitude!
And while the cliffhanger really is one of the best they ever did, there are some more recent corkers. I would probably rate the end of The Time of Angels as one of the best for its sheer bravura. But ranking cliffhangers is probably a topic for another thread.
7 July 2015 at 15:49 #41044@barnable and @jimthefish, I think the explanation of the androids is simple: the makers of the show wanted to save up the surprise of the Cybermen for the end of the show. Remember, the Cybermen had not been seen on Who for 7 years (in Revenge of the Cybermen with Tom Baker). Having them come back after such a long time was really big news, and their surprise appearance at the end of the episode was phenomenally exciting for everyone watching at the time.
And the androids were also really quite effective dramatically, because they were so creepy (as faceless killers tend to be).
5 July 2015 at 18:54 #40974What a ripping yarn! I have always loved Earthshock. There is so much in it, and so many spoilers, which makes it a trifle difficult to talk about it.
But for starters, there is James Warwick as Scott, fresh from his performance in the truly wonderful creepy mini series The Nightmare Man (1981) directed by Who alumnus Douglas Camfield. Warwick is suitably surly as the 26th century military type, and the “red shirts” who meet a grisly end are all well etched as believable characters, belying their “red shirt” status. In fact, it makes their sudden and grisly demise all the more effective.
And what can one say about the shock revelation at the end of the episode? It is simply brilliant. I know others, who, like me, grew up on early Who, have commented on their response to the end of the episode. Everybody’s recollection of the impact it made in 1982 was a version of: “Oh my god!!” followed by running around the sofa about six times, and then repeating it all in the schoolyard the next day.
In the context of 1982, and how long it had been since we last saw those villains, it has to rank as one of the best endings of an opening episode that Who has ever done.
Cannot wait for episode 2!
5 July 2015 at 15:19 #40969Hello @purofilion. Thanks for greetings. I realise now that I have been gone for 6 months. Why? When I retired (or so I thought) and emigrated from the sunny southern colonies to the wintery northern colonies, I assumed that my days would be dedicated to civilised discussion with fellow Enthusiasts. But, in the words of Michael Corleone:
But, fortunately, I have managed to escape (hurrah!), and return to the happier pursuit of Who-related viewing.So, off to watch Earthshock. Nyssa! Tegan! Adric! and…oh, yes, as our wise emperor @craig directs, no spoilers!
1 July 2015 at 21:17 #40910Hmm…what’s been happening around here? Some recognizable faces and some new ones.
Must investigate. Back soon.
9 January 2015 at 21:13 #37149“Edge of Destruction” definitely, as it gives an insight into the development of the characters when the show was in its infancy. In a way, all of s8 has been similar, given the huge change to the Doctor that Capaldi brings with him. This gets my vote.
“Gunfighters”? I love Hartnell, but for people who have seen very little Hartnell, this is not really the best place to start.
For real Hartnell and Troughton revelations, I encourage people to consider some of the episodes from the “Lost in Time” dvd. They are only surviving episodes of lost stories, but there are some real wonders in there, particularly as very few people have seen them. This gets my vote.
Who-related Capaldi is awfully fresh in the memory, but I would be interested to see “The Crow Road”.
4 January 2015 at 23:24 #36950A wonderful reflection on “An Unearthly Child”. I agree with everything you say–about its strengths at establishing the premise, about the obvious callback in S8 to the opening, about the links between Hartnell and Capaldi, about the dynamics of Ian, Barbara, Susan and the Doctor, hey, I even agree with your comments on the cavemen!
Like you, I first saw it as a child (it was a life-changing moment for me, as I have stated on this site elsewhere). I watch it again every now and again, and your reflections have great resonance. I haven’t watched it since Capaldi, but you have encouraged me to do just that. Thank you.
3 January 2015 at 18:02 #36887Russell T Davies and Sherlock Holmes?
Indeed.
@ebalk-kev
Then Davies left and took his beautiful, logical, lightening prose and gave it to Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes
I don’t know how to break the news to you, but RTD has nothing to do with Sherlock. It is, in fact, written by…Steven Moffat. In other words, that “beautiful, logical, lightening prose” is written by the person who..oh, why bother?
One for you, I think.
2 January 2015 at 17:33 #36841Oh, how I remember well the 45 degree heat of January (and with no nostalgia). Frankly, it was one of the reasons behind the move to Canada. Sure, there was that brief week or so in November when the blossoms came out, but it was only a week or so. Spring was gone in the blink of an eye, and then the endless summer began, as we all waited till Easter for the world to become bearable again. To be honest, I don’t miss it at all.
Hang in there, with the aid of iced tea, Doctor Who, and lovely, lovely, air conditioning.
31 December 2014 at 14:47 #36737As the year draws to a close, I thought this might be appropriate time to raise a glass in The Cloven Hoof to absent friends.
First and foremost, there is @htpbdet. Gone, but never forgotten.
Then there are those, like @wolfweed, who I hope will be with us again soon.
And then there are those, like @whohar and @chickenelly, who have been gone for far too long. Hopefully, they too will drop in sometime soon in 2015.
To absent friends…
30 December 2014 at 23:40 #36696For 2015, I wish for:
1. An appearence by William Russell (that more than anything).
2. The return of River Song.
30 December 2014 at 22:08 #3668230 December 2014 at 13:17 #36661The fragments left from the lost shows are entirely from the Hartnell and Troughton years. They usually comprise two episodes from a multi-episode story. What is left (until more are discovered) are on the DVD called “Lost in Time”.
29 December 2014 at 16:01 #36618Well, not sure about a PC marathon, actually. “Torchwood: Children of Earth” is a bit of a slog, in my humble opinion. And Day of the Doctor, Time of the Doctor, series 8 and Last Christmas are very fresh in our minds. Personally, I would love to go back and rediscover some of the lost fragments of early Who. I am thinking of the collection contained in the “Lost in Time” DVD. Surviving episodes of “The Crusade”, “The Dalek’s Master Plan”, “The Moonbase”, “The Wheel in Space”, even (dare I say it) “The Celest…Well, you know.
Not only would it be fun to re-discover some old lost Who, but lots of people have never seen those episodes, and most, if not all of us, haven’t seen them for ages. It might be a great way to connect BG and AG Who.
Not sure what others think.
29 December 2014 at 14:50 #36616On the other hand, what *are* we going to do now till after summer?
We are going to come up with completely bonkers theories about what will happen in series 9, of course!
In fact, I’m brewing up a double-yolker right now.
28 December 2014 at 20:33 #36544I tend to agree with you that Moffat could bring back a character from BG Who (after all, he brought back the Great Intelligence, and there would have very few people, aside from old ruins like myself, who would have been aware of the GI).
But I also agree with @pedant in this case, as Moffat would need an exceptionally good reason to bring back an almost forgotten BG character–a reason that would need real narrative logic. I don’t see it in this case. Having said that, I would love to see the return of an occasional character from the past. Ian Chesterton is probably at the top of my list. Maybe even a Slyther…
28 December 2014 at 17:43 #36540Just re-watched it and liked it even better the second time around. But while I love truly bonkers theories, I don’t think this story needs a bonkers theory. It was all a dream.
Specifically, it was Clara’s dream. From the moment she “woke” to the sound of Santa’s sleigh crashing on the rooftop of her dream house, to the end where the Doctor’s Tardis materialises in front of her dream house and she realises she wants to remain with the Doctor, and they run away. The whole story was her dream. And it was Moffat’s way of showing why Clara would want to continue to travel with the Doctor. At least for a while.
But if that is too straight-forward an explanation, then you could also see Clara as the audience. In fact, all the companions, in their own way, are representitive of the audience for the show–they have their Doctor, who they travel with, until they wake up from the dream, and find other interests. Sort of like when we become too sophisticated to believe in Santa. But then we realise (perhaps because we become parents and see the wonder of Santa though the children’s eyes, or perhaps because we re-connect with the small child lurking inside of us all) that Santa (and the Doctor) is something worth believing in again. Even though we know it isn’t “real”.
I think this may be Moffat’s best Christmas special yet. He really is a brilliant writer.
28 December 2014 at 00:05 #3650827 December 2014 at 18:38 #36493Merry Christmas all, from the Blenkinsop household–which is currently littered with random tangerines (my first tangerine Christmas!) and the council pick-up has just taken away the Blenkinsop empties (it was a big truck).
First impressions of “Last Christmas” were very positive indeed. Moffatt can pull off, in a one-hour show, a wonderful play on the dream-within-the-dream trope with a lightness of touch that totally escapes the over-blown pretension of Nolan’s “Inception”, which, bizarrely, all the Moffatt naysayers think is just too, too clever. I have long felt that there is a fundamental distinction between ideas and entertainments that are either “clever” or “wise”. Something like “Inception” was “clever” but emotionally barren and, for me, totally forgettable . “Last Christmas” was “wise” in its meditation on love and memory. I know which one I would prefer any day of the week.
And as @janetteb points out, “Red Dwarf” played on the idea with the use of the despair squid brilliantly (actually my all-time favourite episode of “Red Dwarf”), long before “Inception” (as did “Dead of Night”, and Edgar Allen Poe, and Bunuel’s “Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie”, and lots more, most of which are presumably completely unknown to those who can only assume that SM imitated “Inception”). Give me strength!!
But back to the show. @kianorion88, @lisa, @milliemaerose, I think the idea that the dream never ended is a really interesting one, although I tend to feel that “Last Christmas” was probably intended as a self-contained entertainment. Everything about it was a dream, right down to the dream house that Clara was inhabiting. Of course, we are all waiting with baited breath to see how series 9 starts, but I would be surprised if there is a call-back to “Last Christmas”. So, alas, I do not think we will see Nick Frost again. Nor do I think that, since the Doctor seems to wake up on the volcano, the last two episodes of series 8 never happened. But hey, since I am almost always wrong in my predictions, who knows!
But since the line “time travel has always been possible in dreams” was also used by Madame Vastra, when we last saw River Song, I don’t think we have seen the last of Moffatt using dreams. Which is a good thing, because he does it so well!
20 December 2014 at 14:59 #36297I got 4, which I was rather surprised by. It does make you wonder what sort of answers would get you Colin Baker.
19 December 2014 at 15:13 #36283@purofilion
The Christmas movie with the Blenkinsop seal of approval
19 December 2014 at 12:13 #36281@purofilion
My assessment of the choices offered up so far was not directed at your choices, per se, but was at a reflection the offerings offered up generally–although @phaseshift‘s choice of “Too many Christmas Trees” from “The Avengers” was inspired.
I prefer my Christmas movies to have a slightly subversive dimension, and as evidence, the Christmas movie of choice each year in the Blenkinsop household is “The Man who came to Dinner” with Bette Davis, Monty Woolley and Jimmy Duarante. I cannot heap too high a level of praise on this wonderful, acerbic comedy.
19 December 2014 at 02:13 #36275Only just caught up with this. christmas movies. To be honest, most of these seem a bit…well, anyway.
I offer for your consideration “Night of the Hunter”. Not only one of the most perfect movies ever made, but one that ends with one of the most perfect Christmas resolutions.
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