• Bluesqueakpip replied to the topic On The Sofa (10)

    @blenkinsopthebrave

    I think there’s a difference between ‘we can afford to blow stuff up’ and ‘we can afford more than six episodes’. At the moment, the BBC are struggling to finance six, or maybe three specials every eighteen months.

    Yeah, Disney are quite happy with the type of show where two moons collide one week and then a few weeks lat…[Read more]

  • Bluesqueakpip replied to the topic On The Sofa (10)

    @blenkinsopthebrave

    Yes, but have you ever watched Disney Plus?

    My experience with the Marvel shows is that while they have indeed given them a whacking great budget (for TV) their influence is mainly concerned with which characters to introduce from the comics, possible spin offs and which actors and directors to approach once they’ve decided o…[Read more]

  • Bluesqueakpip replied to the topic The Power of the Doctor

    @translatorcircuit

    Yes, some people stay looking the same as they age. Others don’t. Elizabeth Sladen did, but I think you might have problems recognising Mark Strickson unless you knew who he was. A very famous and successful actor might have work done to make sure their face stays recognisable; the rest of us just update our photos every few y…[Read more]

  • Bluesqueakpip replied to the topic The Power of the Doctor

    @translatorcircuit

    You think they should have chosen a different actor because the ageing process has changed their appearance?

    That doesn’t really make sense – in this episode Janet Fielding is playing a former companion of the Doctor. This former companion is thoroughly annoyed that the Doctor has apparently forgotten about her for nearly f…[Read more]

  • Bluesqueakpip replied to the topic The Power of the Doctor

    Real life, alas, has been rather demanding of late (which is why I haven’t posted in ages). I think I need a second watch, especially since my first watch was broken up a bit.

    I thought the way they removed Dan was good – it’s all fun and games until you see the hole in your helmet. I presumed that removing him that early in the episode and rep…[Read more]

  • Bluesqueakpip replied to the topic Dr Who News (5)

    I got Disney Plus primarily for the Marvel content, but it has a lot more. It looks like at some point they decided they needed movies and series for parents to watch when the kids have gone to bed. So they’ve got a lot of movies, plus box sets like The Walking Dead, Grey’s Anatomy, Buffy, Angel, How I Met Your Mother. It might be worth che…[Read more]

  • Bluesqueakpip replied to the topic Dr Who News (5)

    RTD has done this before – rumours abounded that the Rani was coming back, but it turned out to be a another character called Rani. Unless Rose acquired the ability to regenerate when she became Bad Wolf, I’d guess this is the same thing. Yasmin Finney is playing someone called Rose. Not the Billie Piper character.

    Given that Rose Tyler is p…[Read more]

  • Bluesqueakpip replied to the topic Eve of the Daleks

    @devilishrobby

    It was Karl from Whittaker’s very first episode – at least, the credits named the character as Karl and he was played by the same actor (Johnny Dixon).

    The question is, was it a little joke, or is it significant?

  • Bluesqueakpip replied to the topic Eve of the Daleks

    That was a fun one – resetting to one minute later was a good use of the time loop concept. Also good use of the guest stars – Adjani Salmon figuring out how to save himself was a highlight.

    @devilishrobby yeah, Whittaker seems to be joining Davison as someone who only relaxed into the role when she knew she was leaving it.

  • @blenkinsopthebrave
    I thought it was the General trying to make a joke – Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart shouts like he was Corporal Lethbridge-Stewart. Somebody tell our ‘new corporal’ to turn the volume down.

    It’s completely impossible that a Corporal in 1967 could be a Colonel in 1968, so there’s definitely something ‘off’ about it. However, the…[Read more]

  • @juniperfish

    I agree that I quite liked the Doctor as ‘John Smith from Gallifrey’. But one thing I did manage to mention before they shut the Graun thread; Chibbers is making the Doctor’s origin story that of an abused child. A very abused child.

    Which is terrific, fairytale or not, because being an abused child is too often the villain’s[Read more]

  • @blenkinsopthebrave

    I genuinely don’t know. Given how easy it would have been to call that episode ‘The Timeless Child’, I’m pretty sure the plural has some significance. Right the way back in Chibnall’s second episode, The Ghost Monument, the Doctor herself is the Timeless Child, singular.

    One of the things I did pick up this episode is that…[Read more]

  • @blenkinsopthebrave

    Definitely meant ‘knowingly’. This is Chapter 2 – if a Deus Ex Machina turns up in Chapter 2, I expect to find out why by the end of the story. 😀

    Dan’s parents 1) turn up without being mentioned previously. 2) Have the precise skills needed to save Dan as well as the precise information he needs and finally (this is the…[Read more]

  • Okay, that was … dull. I’m not sure why I felt that way, because most other people seem to have found it a fun episode.

    It probably didn’t help that I have to watch the current series on time-shift, which means that if I get bored I can pause rather than having to carry on watching. But it’s a bad sign when I really do wander off to make a cup…[Read more]

  • BTW, if anyone is doing another watch – keep an eye out for oblique or direct references to previous companions. The ones that are coming into my brain after a night’s sleep 🙂 are: Station Rose, Nitro 9 being unstable, Claire having the same name meaning as Clara (thanks to T’Other Place for that spot), plus a direct reference to Graham and…[Read more]

  • @Juniperfish
    Yes, there was a lot going on.

    A clear link made to Victorian industrial revolution Britain, and the poor being worked to the bone in the mines (digging for what, if not coal?).

    Ah, that’s the interesting thing. Williamson was clearly harking back to previous villains like the Great Intelligence, but he and his tunnels are part of…[Read more]

  • Well, when an episode is entitled Chapter 1, you know what you’re going to get. An episode in which we establish the characters, the setting and the problem.

    My guess is (agree with you, @devilishrobby) that the problem is still the Doctor’s Memory Wiped Past and we are now in Act Three of that story. That’s why the Inciting Incident is…[Read more]

  • Bluesqueakpip replied to the topic The Kebab & Calculator

    @cathannabel

    So sorry to hear of your loss.

    I can’t think of any quotes, but the whole ethos of Who is that every second of time is eternal. Whatever memory you can think of, whatever event, the people we love will always be still living, there, in that moment.

    We can’t meet them there again, because we don’t have a TARDIS, but that perio…[Read more]

  • Bluesqueakpip replied to the topic Dr Who News (4)

    I read that Russell T was returning and I was wondering if April 1st had come early. Then it got reported in the other papers.

    Well – I wasn’t expecting that, but definitely great news. He brings the best out in other writers (as well as being a bloody good writer himself).

  • Bluesqueakpip replied to the topic The Kebab & Calculator

    @dentarthurdent

    They could easily have fixed it by dating the telegram ‘1943’ instead of ‘1940’ though whether that would have fitted with them evacuating from London, I’m not sure.

    My favourite reply to the ‘but you used an artefact from the wrong period’ was from the producer of the 1995 version of Pride and Prejudice. In response to e…[Read more]

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