@bluesqueakpip

Good point about the Looms. As you say, it doesn’t mean that won’t manifest in some form and it’s true that the show does have form in nicking stuff from other media. Having said that, Chibs seems to be going out of his way to retcon Moff’s vision of Gallifrey out of exsistence, so I wouldn’t put anything past him at the…[Read more]

@Miapatrick @Bluesqueakpip

The possibility that it involved some jiggery-pokery with time did flit across my mind but I dismissed it, perhaps over hastily, as a time-loop too far.  But then again,  why not give it a whirl.

In a possible future or alternative time line, ape-descendants on or from earth discover the principles of time travel and d…[Read more]

@mudlark I like your idea that the Scythra (I know it’s officially Skithra, but I like my spelling better) are a hive species.

@bluesqueakpip Yes, I can buy your distinction in terms of the Spyfall mind-wipe for tech-whizz Lovelace (as she’d seen the future) vs the lack of mind-wipe for tech-whizz Tesla. But, as you and @jimthefish and @mudlark…[Read more]

With @badwolfalice & @bluesqueakpip on this. Usually when historical episodes have popped up in the past in episode trailers, they’ve been greeted with an eye-roll.

However, even though this episode was still a little underwhelming (like most in the Chibnall era), I really don’t mind the historical ones in the Chibnall era.

Cinematography and…[Read more]

@bluesqueakpip

I didn’t actually start it 🙂 I am 18, so maybe arguing is still a ‘thing?’

The platitude -sacred belief issue is one quite common to those in certain areas of journalism, preaching etc. It tends to be used a lot when no-one is ‘arguing’ that a particular point is otherwise.

No-one has said “poor” don’t have access to Oxygen…[Read more]

@JimTheFish  @juniperfish  @Bluesqueakpip

Yes, mindwiping is a hugely problematic concept because it is an assault on the person at a very fundamental level, and the Doctor, as a moral being with high ideals, should be above that. But how many assaults on individuals or societies as a collective have been perpetrated ‘for your own good’ or ‘for t…[Read more]

@bluesqueakpip, @jimthefish, the mind wipe thing is a can of worms – though as @bluesqueakpip says, there is reasoning behind why it might have seemed necessary for one pair and not the other. I think Ada and Noor actually did some coding work with the Doctor, explicitly learned the future development of their field, here the Doctor more or less…[Read more]

@Bluesqueakpip oops. yes, see, you did it again “does it make them any more important” with the platitudes. No-one is claiming they are more important, more significant or better able to argue.

And yep, the poor sods who glued their hands to trains -apologised -& were fined*, making this a stronger sacred value platitude. It’s an illusion of a…[Read more]

@bluesqueakpip

Yes, we’re  debating rights. Or rather you are. You’re talking about “rights & choices” when no-one has actually said they (the “poor”) don’t have any rights. You’re using sacred-value platitudes in order to build an argument no-one’s arguing about because no-one’s saying those values are wrong. The argument should be couched in…[Read more]

@bluesqueakpip

Yeah, I’m not sure I buy that personally. Especially as Tesla’s own tech got given a Doctor boost in a potentially highly destructive way. But to me it highlights the fundamental issue at stake — the Doctor shouldn’t get to choose, particularly not on a set of murky and possibly shifting criteria of her own devising….

(I’m…[Read more]

A huge improvement on last week and if I’m honest the episode from the Chibs period that I’ve most enjoyed so far. Certaintly, Nina Metivier has a stronger grasp of putting together a Who story than many of the writers of recent years and possibly even the showrunner himself.

That said, it kind of flags in the middle and feels a bit SJA at points…[Read more]

@Bluesqueakpip Good thinking about a Scythra scavenger parallel to the Time Lords.

If we put that together with the genetic mutation focus of the last two episodes, I think we might guess the answer is that the Time Lords scavenged genetics and then (dark, but great story) undertook genetic experiments on their kids, perhaps to make them “time sensitive”?

@thane16 @bluesqueakpip

‘Qu’ils mangent de la brioche’* certainly shouldn’t be attributed to Marie Antoinette, since it was originally quoted in the autobiography of Jean-Jacques Rousseau where it is attributed only to ‘a great princess’, and this was written before Marie Antoinette even arrived in France. It has been suggested that it was in…[Read more]

I think, please, that we need some mods to deal with the code that often crops up in people’s posts. I have NO idea why all of that appeared so apols for the masses of punctuation that appeared there and wasted space. To Blue:

@bluesqueakpip

Keep protesting. But don’t forget the science textbooks.

You’re saying the “poor” couldn’t get to work b…[Read more]

@bluesqueakpip

<i>Keep protesting. But don’t forget the science textbooks.</i>

<span style=”display: inline !important; float: none; background-color: #ffffff; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia,’Times New Roman’,’Bitstream Charter’,Times,serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: n…[Read more]

@bluesqueakpip

While I’m sniggering I’ll just point out I may have arrived at a (admittedly poor) reason for last week’s mindwipe.

The first Mindwipe was completed by the Timelords on Jamie & Zoe. If we are looking at the lies of Timelords then the memory wipe will do. Could be a reminder the TLs do have this power and the DoctorMaster may have…[Read more]

@phaseshift There’s absolutely a dysfunctional families thing going on this season.  The Master destroying Gallifrey is another manifestation of it, the fabled “sins of the fathers” thing.  And I think the Doctor’s fam will end up strained too over the course of the season, but come back together by the end.

@bluesqueakpip I’m in sort of that p…[Read more]

I actually watched this on Monday night, and then spent a while thinking how I could engage meaningfully with this episode. Then I come in and see so many of you have given it a thorough kicking, and I needn’t have worried. 😉 And @whisht deserves a good star for that post. Marvellous!

And @bluesqueakpip is on the money here. I don’t mind made…[Read more]

@Jimthefish I’m not massively keen on Gallifrey’s re-destruction personally. It all depends how it plays out, of course

I’m not massively keen on it either. I LOVE Gallifreyan stories, but it feels a bit odd, after the long and wondrous arc of the Time War across Doctors Ecclestone to the War Doctor (and then Capaldi Doc’s search for the Gall…[Read more]

@Bluesqueakpip

how do people expect anyone to be convinced about the science of climate change when the production team are apparently unaware that fire needs oxygen and the writer knows so little science they don’t realise an apex predator is at the top of a food chain?

Excellent point.  As I wrote above, strict scientific plausibility is not es…[Read more]