@spacedmunkee  yes I thought it strange that ashildr would be so dismissive of Clara, given she helped her and was so nice to her in previous episode. Possibly she was jealous that the doctor chooses to travel with a “Mayfly” rather than her

I think so too — she clearly had expected that Clara was long gone, being just a mayfly, so Clara’s stil…[Read more]

ah @brewski I think the idea that death releases energy (in all episodes so far) and opens up dimensions etc is definitely a way to bring back Gallifrey.

Its almost not bonkers!

😉

But not sure if Clara sacrificing herself for that is where I see it going but what do I know!

On an aside, in terms of Clara I see her as the “bootstrap girl” – a…[Read more]

@lisa   Beautifully put!

@Brewski    @ichabod     Agreed, Capaldi made those lines into something pretty special.

It occurs to me to wonder how people can dismiss Doctor Who as “just a kid’s show” when it can inspire a conversation like this one! From plot points to “what is art” in a few posts. Nice.

@brewski  The fact is, sophisticated baby poetry SHOULD be hard to accept. But dammit, it was done so beautifully I’m totally buying into it. My own tolerance for believable is quite variable.

And the performance of that poetry was so beautiful (by an actor whose own mother died only a year and a half ago, as I recall, which may have added de…[Read more]

@Brewski @pedant @ichabod

Fascinating ideas. I was going to post full agreement with Brewski’s original comment, and certainly from my own point of view it’s absolutely right. But @pedant is equally right on the “there is only so much that one can accept” side of things. But where that line is drawn is obviously different for all of us, which is…[Read more]

@brewski  (That is the sound of Brewski eating his words. )

Don’t eat ’em, they’re fine — it’s a matter of proportion.  If the art is good, it captures the emotion, meanwhile eliminating or changing things that don’t add to the perception of the emotion.  A photograph also eliminates (and sometimes contains re-arranged elements, choices by th…[Read more]

@Brewski

The photo captures the bare reality. The art captures the feeling it evokes.

Hmmmm, or indeed hmmmm, and for that matter hmmmm and hmmm.

The search for emotional truth does not absolve the writer (or the photographer) of the requirement to avoid outright absurdity (unless absurdity is the point) or falsehood, for down that road lies…[Read more]

@Brewski

Sometimes in Doctor Who we accept beauty and poetry and philosophy over science

This is the Moffat(1) (and the oft-cited Joss Whedon and Rob “Veronica Mars” Thomas) way – in a conflict between emotional truth and pedantic rectitude, emotional truth wins. It helps, of course, having a cast that can deliver to good – being it Sarah Michelle…[Read more]

@denvaldron   Perhaps the Master’s title refers to something else. Perhaps it simply means ‘Better.’ Or ‘Best.’ The smartest, the fastest, the winner, etc. Perhaps the Master has truly gone blazing through the universe, not in a quest to rule it, but to test himself/herself against it. To beat it, to demonstrate that he’s better, that he’s the…[Read more]

@Brewski

I am wondering, too, why the Doctor didn’t retrieve the sonic when he went back.

Perhaps because Davros, had kept it and many centuries later shown it to him as proof that he remembered their original encounter.  To have retrieved it after that would have been to create a small, but possibly significant glitch in the space-time co…[Read more]

@brewski I certainly thought the whole episode gave off a Curse of Fatal Death vibe! Not just the chair and sewers, but the whole “Davros trapped the Doctor but the Doctor was expecting it and had a counter-attack but then Davros had Colony Sarff but then The Doctor knew he would win all along” plot.

Cool theory! I personally don’t think that…[Read more]

OK, pretty cool. Really looking forward to seeing this again as one long double episode viewing.

As is the case with Moffat, it is all simpler than our convoluted theories and yet containing more that we even considered.

@Brewski, I doff my hat to you my friend, you were right about the hand mines. I shall doubt your wisdom at my peril in the…[Read more]

@brewski  “Davros remembers” what the Doctor did to him. He allowed him to live that awful life. Curse his compassion!

Brilliant, brewski!  I love it!

@phamlore  It might have been perfect to have some countdown occurring appearing to be for the Doctor’s demise but instead to wind up being Clara’s, perhaps her time being up so that she would…[Read more]

@brewski you might still have something. Both exterminations were the standard blue light + skeleton, immediately followed by a red flash. The colour the vortex manipulators made earlier when they jumped to the Doctor? A red flash. Not to mention the fact that both of them still have the ones on their arms and I wouldn’t put it past Missy to have…[Read more]

@brewski   Here’s Missy being zapped.

And here she’s very nearly disappeared. There’s still a light where her ankle was.

Hi @lisa 🙂 Thanks for that. I remember the dalek antibodies vaporising people – but don’t remember the daleks managing it. (Mind you, I don’t remember what I had for breakfast most days.)

@Brewski    I took a couple of screenshots, but don’t think I’m registered with a photo-sharing website, so can’t show you. If I can register somewhere w…[Read more]

@idiotsavon Hey I remember you from way back 🙂 In season eight even when
they were zapped showing the red ‘after’ light they disappear. I agree however
that dead people usually leave behind their bodies.

@Brewski I was thinking that maybe she pre-dialed the vortex manipulators
at some point with a delay?

@brewski Your ideas have got me thinking about the Doctor the the weapon.

These are just thinking aloud thoughts. Now, I am assuming that because of what happened at the beginning of the episode (the Doctor finding the boy Davros and running away) that Davros now remembers. But, what if the Doctor goes back with a modified Dalek weapon to…[Read more]

@brewski

Indeed. But that was the 6th Doctor (who, let’s face it, had his own problems–namely, John Nathan Turner). But it is not the sort of thing I would expect Moffat’s Doctor to do.

Your main point, though, is a good one.

@brewski

Of course the Doctor does not go back to kill the boy.

Yes he exterminates the handmines instead.

Hmmm. But why go back with a weapon (not really a Doctor sort of thing) and exterminate the hand mines? If he went back to assuage his conscience, why not go back to do what he was trying to do in the first place, get the boy to focus on the…[Read more]