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@craig and everybody

Happy birthday!

I wonder if the anniversay of our little home should be celebrated by a slight change to the language? I propose that “bonker” be reclassified as a verb; as in describing the act of coming up with theories more insane than what’s actually happening as…”to bonker”.

In that spirit, let’s all bonker on into 2014!

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@phaseshift

Love the photo! It certainly gets my vote for the image to celebrate for out first birthday.

Wow. A year…

I can think of someone who really deserves a birthday present for that date… @craig, without whom none of us would have had a year of bonkers theorising in this wonderfully warm bath.

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@craig, @phaseshift, @jimthefish, @fatmaninabox

Dear Time Lords, I know you are out there, behind the crack in the universe.

I wonder if it would be possible to change the image of Matt Smith, now that he has gone?

Since it may be too early to feature Capaldi, and since the show (and our discussion) is about all the Doctors, would there be a great image out there of all the Doctors?

Just a thought (from this side of the crack in the universe).

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@miapatrick

Both the scene with Clara coping with her relatives at Christmas dinner, and your story of watching it with the mother-in-law are both perfect examples of why, if given the choice between spending Christmas Day with the family or Christmas Day with the Doctor, one should always choose the Doctor!

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A day late, but just finished watching it on the iPad. Watery eyes from both Mrs Blenkinsop and me.

It was lovely.

I think a big reason why it wasn’t as appreciated by some, is that, unlike so much that had gone before with Matt’s Doctor, this was a very adult and mature reflection on aging, death and dying, and what it means to lose a loved one.

Moffat also managed to tie up so much from the start of Matt’s tenure, and the granting of the new regenerations was done brilliantly, precisely because it was done so economically. You did not need to see the Time Lords. It was enough to know they were there.

Loved it.

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The holiday season preparations at the Blenkinsop household proceed. Suitable viewing material for the coming days has been arranged, and the Blenkinsop cellar will be replenished later today. My principal concern is not whether Matt Smith is Doctor 11, 12, or 13, but whether the Tardis-themed Christmas present for Mrs Blenkinsop arrives in the mail in time.

Merry Christmas, all my fellow Enthusiasts (including those absent, but still missed).

 

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@arbutus

I don’t see how the Time Lords can grant the Doctor a new cycle of regenerations when they are still trapped in the cup-o-soup. Wouldn’t he have to rescue them first?

Well, I didn’t say it would be easy!

However, let us suppose that the actions of the three Doctors in the 50th caused…the crack in the universe, that has been felt since the 11th Hour (in a timey-wimey way) and that the Time Lords are (have been) on the other side of that crack ever since the 11th Hour. They may well be in a cup-o-soup waiting to be discovered, but they may also be able to communicate through the crack.

Also, remember back to The Doctor’s Wife when the Tardis left the universe, and the Doctor sensed Time Lords…lots of Time Lords?

I think there might be ways. Moffat is, after all, the master of timey-wimey.

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@fatmaninabox @bluesqueakpip

Does this mean I cannot include Peter Cushing, Rowan Atkinson, Richard E. Grant, Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent, and Joanna Lumley?

And let’s not forget the guy who was the robot version of the Doctor built by the Daleks in “The Chase”!

Yes, I confess…now I am being silly.

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@bluesqueakpip

Gallifrey is now a fairy-tale kingdom frozen in time, waiting for the Doctor/’prince’ to fight his way through and reawaken it.

That is a lovely way of expressing it. And yes, I think that is precisely what season 8, 9, 10, etc, will be.

I also agree with @phaseshift that the Time Lords won’t grant The Doctor a new set of regenerations because of their generosity. Rather, (and here I think the theories of @phaseshift and @bluesqueakpip can be reconciled) they might well grant him a new set of regenerations because of their self-interest. They need The Doctor, as he is the only one who can re-awaken their fairy-tale kingdom.

I am reminded of that other fabulous show from 1963, Jason and the Argonauts, where the gods on Olympus grant Jason powers, so that he can achieve their ends. They are ultimately selfish and capricious, allowing some to live and some to die, but, as Zeus says at one point, they, as gods, will only live as long as there are those out there who believe in them, So they intervene occasionally in order to keep the beliefs of mortals alive. But the motive is self-interest.

Similarly, the Time Lords might well grant the Doctor (and I agree with @phaseshift …the 13th Doctor) more regenerations in order that he can live to ensure that they might live.

Hmm. Might well be time to stick Jason and the Argonauts into the DVD player on this cold Sunday afternoon. A star turn by Patrick Troughton as the sinner condemned by the gods to be harassed by harpies, and some really excellent duelling skeletons!

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@fatmaninabox

Well, on the one hand, to me, at least, River just feels right as the mystery ghost.

But, as I have said before, I have an unbroken record of getting my predictions wrong!

If it was a previous Doctor, it would have to have real meaning (and, at the same time, the appearance should not upstage Matt Smith’s farewell, but complement it in some way. So…while David Bradley as the Hartnell Doctor is a nice idea, it is still another actor portraying an iconic figure. But…it might (with the aid of CGI) be William Hartnell himself who appears. That would be kind of cool.

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@fatmaninabox

I wouldn’t have thought it would be Bradley. Not sure it would have the same resonance as it did in AAiSaT.

I think the word “legend” is just journalist hyperbole, and would go by “fan favourite”. And it has to be a character that means something to Matt Smith’s Doctor alone. And who makes a “ghostly” appearance.

Ergo…River.

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@devilishrobby

I think it is all part of the BBC marketing division’s brief, actually.

But assuming it is accurate, my guess would be River.

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If true, there are all sorts of possibilities.

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/showbiz-tv/hot-tv/356783/Dr-Who-Mystery-favourite-in-Xmas-plot

but to me, one seems more obvious than the rest.

If this is true…

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@phaseshift

Now that I think about, perhaps the perfect entry point for the show was the TV movie, Babylon 5: In the Beginning made near the end of the run. I haven’t seen it in years, though, and am not sure how hard it is to get. In fact, I may have had a long-lost VHS copy. If so, I must rectify this omission immediately!

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@phaseshift

In @janetteb‘s absence, a couple of suggestions for Babylon 5 (a real guilty pleasure!) would be the arc episodes “The Coming of Shadows” from season 2, and (among many from the excellent season 3) “Point of No Return”, “Severed Dreams” (both about the conflict with an increasingly fascist government on Earth), and “Shadow Dancing” and “Z’hadum” (which brought the season 3 to a spectacular season end). As I said, a real guilty pleasure.

But for a wonderfully whimsical experience, nothing (as pointed out by @jimthefish and @wolfweed) can compare to The Flipside of Dominic Hyde

 

 

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Many thanks @craig. (and for the heads up on iPlayer Global!)

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@janetteb

The wonderful @craig just brought my attention to the I Player Global app, which I just downloaded and saw that they are featuring the John Hurt version of “Whistle and I’ll Come to You” which you said you would look out for.

And remember…it is really creepy!

 

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@craig

Unfortunately, the Strax video does not seem to be able to screen outside of the UK….

<shakes fist> The British Empire is screwed over once again!!

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Christmas viewing (aside from Doctor Who):

Over in Doctor Who News the wonderful @wolfweed posted a link to Mark Gatiss’s directorial debut at 9.30pm. It is an adaptation of the ghost story “The Tractate Middoth” by M.R. James. It is followed by a documentary on James, hosted by Gatiss.

As many of you know, the is something of a Christmas tradition of screening adaptations of James’s ghost stories. Indeed, the 2010 adaptation of “Whistle and I’ll Come to You”, staring John Hurt, was one of the creepiest ghost stories I have ever seen.

For those of you who don’t know the work of M.R. James, he was an English scholar whose ghost stories are brilliant and should be required reading.

I know you will all be online after the screening of Matt Smith’s farewell performance, but I strongly encourage everyone to tune in to “The Tractate Middoth” at 9.30. But be sure to put the kiddies to bed and turn the lights down low when you watch it. You may very well end up watching it from behind the sofa.

Typically, I, on the other hand (lost in the wilds of Canada) will have to wait for the DVD of everything you get to see that night!

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@MartyB

There are always rumours out there, which may, or may not, be true.

I think it best to be cruel to be kind and not say anything!

Only 7 days left. Be of stout heart.

And don’t take it out on the cat!

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Somehow or other, there has to be a reference to the sonic  in the skeleton’s hand. @pedant said something about that. Damned if I can remember.

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@phaseshift

I knew that my Kennedy assassination theory was correct…deny it as you may…

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Just watched “The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot” again.

Astoundingly excellent.

Perhaps my favourite gag (among so many) was:

“Hold on, why are we doing this?”

Peter: “For the fans.”

Colin: “Of course. For the fans.”

Sylvester: “Right. For the fan.”

 

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@wolfweed

Thanks!

That was….hilarious!…and brilliant!

 

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@wolfweed (or anyone else who might know)

The Five(ish) Doctors (which I have not been able to see yet).

Is this publically accessible yet? I am suffering the same “Canadian” problem again.

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@devilishrobby

I agree that there are hints that the Doctor is more important to Time Lord society than we know. In “Remembrance of the Daleks” he lets slip that he, along with Rassilon and Omega, created the Hand of Omega. That alone makes him rather special.

How this relates to the regeneration limit, though, I am not sure. Moffat has said (if we believe him!) that the limit is canon and must be respected. So that does imply that Moffat will have to address the regeneration limit in a rather special way.

As to what they way might be, however, I have no idea!

 

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@wolfweed

Thanks! (and loved you recap of Silence will Fall)

As for the picture above, besides indicating that the Daleks seem to be behind everything, it made me wonder if the Daleks are now aware of the “new” fate of the Time War.

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Was looking at the BBC America site, and discovered one photo from the Christmas special that is not on the BBC site. It is of Orla Brady, who I understand is playing the Mother Superior of the Papal Mainframe with…a Dalek stalk sticking out of her head (as in Asylum of the Daleks). but sorry, I do not know how to upload it. @wolfweed, help me out!

 

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Well, Mrs Blenkinsop and I finally surrounded ourselves with boxes of tissues and watched “An Adventure in Space and Time” last night.

It was magical.

Everything you have all said was true. It was a love letter by Gatiss to both the show, to the people who made it happen and to Hartnell.

David Bradley’s portrayal was superb, and when the credits rolled I was wiping away the tears.

The one thing that I was especially struck by (not sure if it has been remarked on already) was the relationship between Hartnell and the Tardis. When he takes on the role and complains about the non-appearance of the set of the Tardis while they are filming the first episode, you assume it is just his nerves about taking on this new role, but as the show progresses it becomes clear that he is the only one who truly understands how important it is that the Doctor know exactly how the Tardis operates, because it is the type of thing “the kiddies will know”. And by the end of his tenure, he might be forgetting his lines but he is the only one who knows how to turn on the Tardis. I thought that was a lovely touch, and says something about storytelling and when “Doctor Who” works and when it doesn’t–ie, that it works when the people working on it really understand what the show is.

That is one of the reasons why the scene with Matt Smith works so well, particularly when Smith puts his hands on the Tardis’s telepathic circuits. As @pedant (where are you, my old friend? time to return to the fold) points out, if true, it is sheer genius.

And then, the final clip of William Hartnell giving the “one day I shall return” speech at the end, captures (in light of everything that has gone before) the power and legacy of both Hartnell the actor, and “Doctor Who” the show.

Just wonderful.

 

 

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@wolfweed

If Moffat has said there will be a fair bit of nudity in the Christmas special, and given that we should never take anything he says at face value, I think the nudity will involve a baby.

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@wolfweed

we were going to watch AAiTaS tonight, but Mrs Blenkinsop and I decided to get in more boxes of tissues before the experience, so watched somethimg less emotionally challenging–Poirot–instead. Tomorrow.

And thanks for the posts on Canada during my exile.

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@scaryb

No, I made sure I watched “Night of the Doctor” and “The Last Day”, and they were excellent set-ups for the show.

I now have “An Adventure in Space and Time” with me, but I really am waiting for Mrs Blenkinsop to get home before watching that one. As I have said on this board–before I went missing in a pocket universe waiting for the shows to arrive in the blenkinsop letter box–I have been looking forward to “An Adventure in Space and Time” even more than the 50th special. What with Hartnell being my first Doctor, or, more specifically, Hartnell’s Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Susan being the reason I fell in love with the show as an 11 year old. All that means either I will be disappointed that the experience of watching “an Adventure in Space and Time” doesn’t live up to my expectations (unlikely), or, I will have to watch it with a really, really, big box of tissues close to hand (very likely and highly probable).

I will report back on the experience tomorrow.

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@scaryb

Aw, shucks! <blenkinsop goes pink from embarrassment>

Well, I did not manage to escape every spoiler, but enough to be surprised and delighted when I watched it.

Will wait for Mrs Blenkinsop to come home from work to watch it again….Oh, well…maybe not.

 

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Finally, I get to see it in the wilds of frozen Canada. Have been avoiding the site until I actually watched it (and that has been difficult!) So, all the bonkers theorising I came up with here over the previous weeks and months, none of it was right! Hurrah! Why? Because what Moffat offered us was better!

It was simply fantastic! It was a love letter to the show, it was a love letter to the fans (well, it certainly connected with this one), and it was a brilliant way of setting up the show for the future. In fact, everything he promised. (One of the few times Moffat was not lying!)

So much to say about it, but I really need to read through the hundreds of comments above (and so many new people on the forum! Hi!) before I do.

I will say one thing before I go off and set the blenkinsop brain to work. And it is about the way he used the device of familiar faces and duplicates. There was the face of Rose (but who wasn’t Rose), there was the face of Tom Baker (who may or may not have been the Doctor or simply the Curator) there was the Queen and Kate Lethbridge-Stewart and Osgood (who may or may not have been themselves–or Zygons), and of course, there was Hurt and Tennant and Smith who were simultaneously themselves and each other. In fact, practically everyone was playing versions of themselves. This is why I think incorporating the Zygons was such a stroke of genius, as it allowed for that play on people playing themselves. Not only was it a great meta comment on the heart of the show (the Doctor changes faces but is always the Doctor), but it went to the heart of the Doctor’s choice about ending the Time War–beneath our external differences were are all connected, and to kill the children is to kill yourself, because they are part of you.

Then there was the way Rose/the Moment was alluding to the angel in “It’s A Wonderful Life” who shows Jimmy Stewart what the world would be like without him…Oh, hold on…I said I was only go to say one thing.

OK, back in a while…

 

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Cheers to all from the blenkinsop household.

Mrs Blenkinsop and I have opened a fine bottle of Australian shiraz (which I feel would be approved of by the third Doctor in particular)

We toast you all!

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@craig and fellow Enthusiasts

Alas! As I am currently residing in the Who-challenged Canadian colonies without access to the one cable station that will be screening this, I shall have to wait for my pre-ordered DVD to arrive in early December.

But on the bright side, this gives Mrs Blenkinsop and I more time to prepare the blenkinsop TV room for optimal viewing pleasure. (I have outlined a couple of preparations already in play to @wolfweed on the trailer page).

One vital preparation will be having the music of John Smith and the Common Men

http://www.juno.co.uk/products/sounds-from-the-inferno-1-per-customer/486573-01/

played on a continuous loop in the hours prior to the screening.

Mrs Blenkinsop has promised her 1963 coiffure will be ready in time!

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@jimthefish

 I can’t rule out a political assassination at some point

I resign!

(True, I am not living up to my monicker, but, as Orwell noted: “Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind  simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” And who am I to dispute George?)

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I see that so far there is only one President, and it is me!

I promise to rule wisely.

When I told her, Mrs Blenkinsop’s response was: “Funny, you don’t look like Timothy Dalton”.

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Holy smoke! I am…The President!

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@jimthefish, @wolfweed

Oh dear, I forgot to put on the pince nez this morning. Next thing you know, I’ll be leaving my teeth in the glass beside the bed.

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@wolfweed

The Radio Times covers.

Do my aging eyes deceive me, or is that Richard Hurndall instead of William Hartnell?

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@craig, @Time Lords, The article above posted by @DanMartinUK  is great, but it might be judiciously moved the Spoilers page. I am thinking of @scaryb in particular, who probably should not read it.

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A voice of reason from the otherwise lukewarm-on-Who Canadian colonies:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/arts-video/chris-hannay-doctor-who/article15467639/

Sorry, @pedant, but I do not know how to lose the advertisement at the beginning.

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@fatmaninabox

Brilliant Bayeux Tapestry!

@janetteb

I see it over the blenkinsop and Mrs Blenkinsop bed.

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@wolfweed #20766

OK, I give up…what’s the spoiler?

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Crikey! Well, now we know. And it all makes sense.

 

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@shazzbot. Just responding to your RSVP. Quite content to be represented by a less than super dooper low res version of my avatar. I think the warm and fuzzy look of the low res version will capture the mood of blenkinsop in his cups.

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@scaryb Many thanks for the efforts on our avatars. Yes, a glass of claret-sized avatar sounds perfect!

@craig, @shazzbot, more than happy with what @scaryb has suggested. Only wish I could be there in person.

 

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Inspired by @wolfweed‘s “blinovitchism”, I suspect that the intellectual trajectory of some of the regulars on this site (particularly the ones whose Who memories go back to the 60s and 70s) might–from undergradate days to the present–might go along the following lines:

Marxism-Poststructuralism-Postmodernism-Blinovitchism.

 

 

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@craig. Excellent decision. Two weeks of bonkers theorising sans trolls. Hurrah!

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