@nightingale

No, River’s origin story works fine. Just ask yourself where the Timeless Child got her ability to regenerate from?

And Madame Vastra was very clear that it was in River’s DNA. I vaguely recall a big DNA diagram on screen, and she was rather delicately trying to ask if the Doctor was River’s father. Without using the words ‘sex’ or…[Read more]

@Jimthefish

Just saying that I really hope that we’re not being infected by the Twitter virus where if you articulate any criticisms of the current run that you’re automatically labelled an NMD and basically told just to shut the hell up.

I hope so too – but I think, when articulating criticisms, there is a responsibility to assess whether the…[Read more]

@phaseshift

But ‘I repeat’ this is as cynical a fanwank as you are likely to experience.

Then we’re just going to have to agree to disagree – because where you see cynical fanwank, I see enormous creative possibilities.

Yes, the BBC can sell the franchise now, into areas where British produced programmes are a niche taste. The actors (m or f)…[Read more]

@phaseshift

I could point out that the story not only retcons the Doctors history, but the outcome of he Cyberwars themselves (see Revenge of the Cybermen, Ark in Space and the various stories about the mass exodus from solar storms for more information). But what the hell.

Wasn’t that dealt with in The Haunting at Villa Diodati when the Doctor…[Read more]

@phaseshift

Okay, I’m going to pull some quotes from your first post:

That was as cynical a bit of fanwank as you are likely to experience.

and

Chris Chibnall who is a mediocre mind with a small gift for self selling.

Those two sandwich praise for Robert Holmes and Philip Hinchcliffe from the Tom Baker era. Your point is that (another…[Read more]

@jimthefish

For your average ‘Not We’, all they know (and want to know) is that the Doctor is a renegade Time Lord from Gallifrey who travels in a Police Box and has adventures.

Except that part of that statement isn’t true. Well, it wasn’t true in 1963.

Is there something wrong with a story that plays with the audience ‘knowing’ som…[Read more]

@phaseshift

your response is an inelegant method of not answering my main point.

Inelegant, I grant you. But I suppose my main point is that I’m developing a deep suspicion that had the Holmes/Hinchcliffe/Nation plot points been broadcast under the name ‘Chris Chibnall’, you would even now be telling me how awful they are.

I can accept that…[Read more]

@phaseshift

Can I say that I sincerely hope the story about Robert Holmes is a bit of fanwankery and isn’t actually true? Because if it is, that’s really not one of his best writing ideas. Hey, let’s put a load of production staff images as previous faces of the Doctor in one clip in one story, then put a completely arbitrary limit on the number…[Read more]

@jimthefish

That Who has made it to 50 is remarkable but even I strongly doubt it will make it to a 100.

Really? Sherlock is currently over a hundred and thirty years old and Doctor Who has a much more flexible structure than good old Sherlock. I’d expect the series to be ‘rested’ at some point, but given that we’re now looking at an twenty six…[Read more]

@nerys

I would say there are two possibilities. One, given that a big thing was made in Spyfall about encoding hidden information in pictures is that ‘Brendan’ is an encoded version of the Doctor’s/Timeless Child’s life. Should anyone not in the know look at it, they’ll see a fake memory (a ‘legend’) of the Doctor’s life as a Division agent, in…[Read more]

@galaxymage

Tecteun has a vaguely Aztec feel, but I suspect it’s a made-up name. My guess is the tect is from ‘Tekton’ (ancient Greek), followed by the Korean girl’s name ‘Eun’ which Chibbers might know from a Korean film or an actress.

Anyway, the two would fit. Tekton is Greek for ‘builder’, ‘eun’ is Korean for kindness, mercy, charity.…[Read more]

Other lovely, ironic stuff. The Doctor standing in the ruins of the Citadel, automatically telling her fam that they can’t be here because no aliens are allowed on Gallifrey. When she’s the original alien…

Also explains why the xenophobic Time Lords disliked The Doctor so very much. They needed her to become Time Lords, but she was an alien.…[Read more]

@vervain

Namely that by removing the previous Gallifreyan ruling elite (the Pythia) as precursors to the Time Lords you end up without the Sisterhood of Karn, meaning you end up with no War Doctor.

You’re confusing history and pre-history, I think. Plus you’re not allowing for the tendency of succeeding regimes to rewrite the previous history,…[Read more]

It seems to be a bit of a ‘marmite’ episode, but I’m firmly in the ‘loved it’ camp. Sacha Dhawan was utterly brilliant – broken, and malignant with flashes of something almost like empathy. Did he really say ‘Good luck, humans’? And yes, I can imagine that discovering he’s not just related to the Doctor but is (in a way) her descendent would tear…[Read more]

BBC APPROVED SPOILERS...

BBC APPROVED SPOILERS...

@jimthefish

It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Yeats and the Irish Literary Revival helped make ‘fantastical’ political in Southern Ireland, but I think he might have been riffing off an older tradition. You don’t get much more political than Dean Swift, even if his most famous work is now seen as a children’s story.

Yeah, I think the gap is…[Read more]

@Jimthefish

To be honest, when the robber pulled out his pistol my first thought was dissident Republicans, but I can see why an Irish reporter might not be too keen on saying that. We in the UK tend to see the troubles as Northern Ireland, but most Gardai deaths on duty (that aren’t accidents) result from a crime investigation that turns out to…[Read more]

@Jimthefish

The Easter Rising was in 1916, but Brendan’s Garda mentor (do we ever find out his name?) is wearing a Garda uniform when he’s investigating the finding of Baby Brendan. Which means that has to be 1922 or later (unless we’re doing a Whoniverse thing of fudging the dates/uniforms because it’s not our universe).

So when Brendan is seen…[Read more]

@miapatrick

the supposed unlikelihood of one of the handful of survivors being a nurse, another a teacher.

I found those comments a bit odd, to be honest. Soldiers wouldn’t be the last people to survive: they’d have died – or the good ones would – protecting the nurse, the teacher or fighting the Cybermen. The people told to refugee out would be…[Read more]