@juniperfish

Yessssss – and therefore only “real” in the “mavity” universe, and so when the Doctor has to restore the timeline, and undo what he unleashed with the salt line at the edge of the universe, Ruby will have to vanish, like the changeling she is – back into faerieland…

Hmmm, liking it. Which suggests that nothing will be resolved unti…[Read more]

@fozzyb
@miapatrick

Yes, you’re right, and the race issue bound up with the Doctor as saviour is also made explicit in this episode because he actually offers to save them all/save the world, but as he’s not a white saviour he isn’t eligible.

All we can say is hooray that the dwindling group that only puts their faith in white saviours is doomed!

@fozzyb

I get you, I’m still finding this series uneven, but maybe our expectations are always sky high anyway? No series has been 100% brilliant, has it?

See above for a quote I posted from RTD, though, about wanting to move away from the Doctor as a superhero (which is what the Tennant years explored and the Smith ones continued). It feels…[Read more]

@scaryb

(Interesting that a number of comments in t’other place (tho there’s a lot of positive reaction too) say that they don’t have a problem with Ncuti being black but they don’t like the scripts/don’t think he’s playing it right/doesn’t feel like the Doctor for them etc etc – micro-aggressions in action).

I only read this forum as it’s r…[Read more]

@juniperfish

I love the Yeats connection, and you know I’m into the whole faery context, but whether the Doctor’s tears are significant beyond a new kind of iteration, not sure. Of course nothing anyone explains can be taken as the be all and end all, but Wikipedia has this:

I was thinking about what a terrible world it is now, and how many…

[Read more]

I wonder if this is another episode filmed whilst Ncuti was filming Sex Education as most of the Doc appearances to camera rather than physical.

Honestly, there’s just no commitment any more!

Any piece of art that makes you think is good, so hat tip to RTD.

And as you point out, he makes you feel it here, like a punch in the tum, which is ever more effective.

And the funny thing is that people will be complaining about this ep on their socials, completely oblivious…

But yeah, do people feel stuff anymore? Unless, like Lindy, the…[Read more]

Why create the spiky slug monsters?

@whohar I guess for cover, as a diversion? Otherwise people would be bubbling down asap and the idea would be to maintain control.

And it was only at that point that I realised all of Lindy’s friends and socials were white. And then it all made sense. Brilliant.

I don’t know if that says something about me th…[Read more]

Just watched it again live and have to add that the look Lindsay gives the Doctor at the end felt meaningful.

Reminded me of Mrs Flood’s knowing/dark looks, the kind Missy would give. That kind of thing…

Late to say but having talked about Ruby being a changeling I thought again about the butterfly stepping episode – oh-so-throwaway as it seemed – where in that alternative life she looked much more like a fairy than anything.

It would be good to see a getaway from the young woman companions, I agree, so maybe the fact Ruby Sunday (I mean,…[Read more]

I really think RTD has given us another excellent episode, and one of the darkest in the history of  Who.
@blenkinsopthebrave

Hahaha. Seems like we didn’t agree after all!

Okay, that was both both powerful and utterly depressing.

@blenkinsopthebrave Yes I agree, though not sure whether for the same reasons, except perhaps it’s left me slightly nonplussed too.

My feeling at end was that I’d been hit with a hammer, or two. I went with the whole social media satire but was quickly bored of it. There’s making the…[Read more]

@juniperfish

Super thoughts! 👏

Yes to the Doctor/Mad Jack-Ap Gwilym swap, very perceptive. All the doubling and binaries now to think of, perhaps even more than appears? A kind of Upside Down, then, a Mirroring, as you say. Or perhaps things overlaid, swapped out. Mirroring retains both images, whereas this is replacement?

Also yes to Mad Jack…[Read more]

>For the first time, Ruby feels she recognizes the hiker played by Susan Twist. “Haven’t I seen you before?” or words to that effect. That also acknowledges that Ruby has previously seen Susan Twist’s face. (I know that it has been argued that while we, the audience, have seen the same face multiple times, that Ruby was never in actual eye contact…[Read more]

@juniperfish

Great analysis.

 a time-line which leads to the bi-generation of the Fourteenth Doctor in The Giggle (a metaphor for divergence in time) 

Love that.

Also love the fairy speculation re Ruby. So maybe it’s not that her mother rejected her (that would be a human assumption) but that her mother is fey, and took a human baby in exc…[Read more]

Best ep so far, the balance of old timey wimey and new supernatural spot on. Dark, scary and then oooohhh, yes, we shouldn’t fear it.

Should we?

Love it, and next week looks a great contrast too.

Questioning: was Mrs Flood being disingenuous when she commented ‘nothing to do with me’?! Or  was it just that this one really wasn’t her doing…[Read more]

hmmm your avatar has recalled Stooky Sue from The Giggle for me, in relation to all three of your speculations about the return of the Doctor’s granddaughter.

@juniperfish

Coincidence?

Actually it’s Stooky Peg, from Night Terrors. But let’s face it, dolls are all cut from the same creepy bit of wood (and therefore sonic proof and likely to cro…[Read more]

Bringing my Susan/Flood musings from the Boom pages, to get things in their proper place.

Not sure about Mrs Flood (…) but I wouldn’t be surprised if she ends up just being an indomitable elderly side character a la Wilf. (Unless, of course, she is the series 1 main villain — in which case, she might be Bad Wilf. Arf.…[Read more]

@brewski

Oh, I remember reading your flights of fancy now! All the better for their ‘wrongness’, right? 👍 Apologies, I don’t retain anything beyond the next adventure (other than some odd detail that probably means nothing and the general mood), so I’m going to study Flood and ponder.

Also have difficulty with more than one conversation at a…[Read more]

@mudlark @brewski

Yes, I guess CAF would be the obv choice for an older Susan, although at time of casting/planning it may not have been so clearcut or possible? It’s sometimes hard to keep a glove on the real life shenanigans and timeframes, always remembering it’s a fabrication we’re dealing with! Ahem.

I don’t think Susan Twist is Susan…[Read more]