See above

Apologies to anyone I’ve missed off the list.

As to what’s goi…[Read more]

Who has, of more recent years anyway, been very reluctant to kill anyone (significant) off, most egregiously with Clara, but also Donna and to some extent, the Ponds.

As soon as we saw Kate L-S dustify followed quickly by the rest of the Unit team, I immediately thought “RTD is going to pull a Last of the Time Lords…[Read more]

I think it was @bunface who suggested the possibility that the woman in the hooded cloak might not have been Ruby’s mother, and that chimes with the direction of my thinking over the past 24 hours or more. It’s a question of assumptions, led in our case by the way the observed facts were presented.

The Doctor, who was the only external…[Read more]

@bunface Oh, I do keep wanting to say that I find the death of death thing intensely maddening. Not only because, as others have said, it’s nonsensical, but beyond that I find any cultural inability to accept death offensive and troubling. So it alarms me that RTD seems to be pushing the idea that we can all live forever, even if he means t…

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Thanks for the tips. So basically anywhere, as long as you pick a series. But Night Watch, I’ll start there.

@ps1l0v3y0u

Mabinogion

Ah yes. Thanks. I’ll check it out. Probably some crossover with Irish tales, of which I have a reference text.

And I saw your comment on the other thread:

Alf Garnett. Alien Life Form Garnett?…[Read more]

@ps1l0v3y0u
Another writer! I liked Jackson’s LOTR but hated The Hobbit. But even the Hobbit is genius when placed next to that Amazon atrocity.

And, yeah, agree that Who has never…[Read more]

@classicsrule1

A pedantic friend said that RTD “has the gift of conciseness.”  In rewatching  Before Gap or classic…[Read more]

With the wishes at the end of the universe as @juniperfish elucidated, is it possible this applies to “death to death = life” @bunface you wrote of “2 wrongs don’t make a right.” And @blenkinsopthebrave yes, it seems “stupid” unless it IS connected to the wishes?
But if that’s so, then wouldn’t the Doctor need to wor…[Read more]

On the question of Gatwa’s performance that you raised @bunface, when I compare him to Tennant (also not my personal favourite) Gatwa can do charm effortlessly, but I don’t feel he can do anger all that well. Yes, he can scream at the seeming death of…[Read more]

Daleks.

My first reaction on seeing Space Babies was these are Daleks waiting for education and a new chassis.

Then I riffed on the babies’ journey to a planet that doesn’t really want them. What if deal was done with a third party and they were diverted to a very different world.

But then if snot-doggo is a projection of Sut…[Read more]

Your money is on Mrs Flood…

I have made my case about the woman who is a bit ‘rivery’. Mrs Flood, whoever she is, doesn’t know the blue box but knows what a tardis is, yet she is delighted that someone can escape with The Doctor. Her example would seem to be the One who Waits.

You doubt if this Amy but virtual reality could create…[Read more]

Edit: I…[Read more]

Yes!  “Either Ruby will go through the one at UNIT HQ and end up exiting the TARDIS in the time window, and then find out who left her at the Church. I don’t think she’ll find it’s her mother there and agree that she will have been left by some prescien…[Read more]

I’m glad it was helpful. One of the great things about this forum is the many different areas of expertise and the different angles which people bring to the discussions.

Yes, I’m an archaeologist. I started out as a prehistorian, specialising in the Neolithic and early Bronze Age periods in Britain, while at the same time spending…[Read more]

Did you really think it that scary?   I suppose I was treating it like an exercise in field work – visiting, say, the site of an abandoned medieval village or of a monastic precinct, observing and recording all the humps and bumps marking buried remains, identifying them in terms of ditches, walls, buildings and so forth, and trying to i…[Read more]

Mrs Flood… I can’t really add much more to what I’ve said already. But if ‘she’ had been born or transported to the early sixties, ‘she’ would be 60 odd today. Though ‘she’ might have added the odd decade via regeneration to help her get across the pond in 1969. And, yes, in that case she would resorted to Termi…[Read more]

“the doctor being a coward?”

I have invoked Doc 5 in comparison…

‘what do we DO Doctor??’

’Ah! Give ourselves up I suppose… by the way, Mr Ruthless Badass, we ARE quite innocent.’

‘Hmmm? What’s that? Oh yeah. Tough.’

An unfortunate production decision: the universe vs The Doctor: not done that before. Next up we’ll turn him into a…[Read more]

Stooky Bill

Ruby and Carla have already scanned that VHS tape VERY closely – but they never saw a police box materialise and the Dr come out, or the woman turn and point etc…

Maybe I’m mistaken, but I thought that the raw CCTV footage didn’t show the Tardis because the camera was facing in the wrong direction. What they did was to use the the VCR rec…[Read more]

Is this Sutekh worse than the Magma Beast, or the Myrka, or the Primords, or the Mara or Absorbaloff? Probably not. I suspect something closer to the original Jackal/Canopic Beast might have been more chilling. That actually looked like a deranged dictator. Nb He had a non-divine origin in PoM… worth remembering.

Mrs Flood would seem to…[Read more]

Thanks yes, blank post, I was trying to include an image of the jukebox with Rose but failed in my efforts!

interesting that in Rogue, Ruby was very nearly trapped & I wonder if this is signalling at least one possible future out of all the time streams or multiverses. Is time collapsing in certain timestreams? Are tiny decisions, the ones we regularly make every day, leading…[Read more]

And, as others noted, when Kate articulates her chrysalis theory, Ruby arrives at UNIT with her VHS. S Triad is the vessel for e…[Read more]

@bunface @Blenkinsopthebrave @thane16

I wonder if Gatwa Doctor’s frequent tears are because, on some deep level, he recognises that there is a Red Doctor/ Sutekh-possessed Red TARDIS out there in the crossed…[Read more]

Early in the comments you were discussing the newly and overtly empathic and emotional face of the Doctor. For what its’s worth, I’ve been seeing this as a result of the bi-generation.  What was left of the accumulated trauma and guilt carried over from the Time War and other events and losses, together with all th…[Read more]

@bunface @thane16

Just rewatching… What about Kate testing DNA and saying ‘Just because Susan Triad is nice, doesn’t mean she can’t change. A chrysalis doesn’t know it’s a butterfly. A phoenix is just a bird until it burns.’

Is that a hint… As you said, baaaad Doctor?

I re-watched The Pyramids of Mars…[Read more]

A VERY good point bunface….

And the Capaldi iteration had a carer: “Clara cares so I don’t have to” so possibly there’s a more relaxed Doctor wearing heart on sleeve; carefully introducing characters to Gallifrey; to Susan; & ruminating on potential children…

Perhaps in keeping with his new personality: confident in himself; putting o…[Read more]

@scaryb @devilishrobby @dentarthurdent @krathoon @miapatrick @cookgroom @bunface @orionhunt @fozzyb @bobbyfatv2 @spacedmunkee @Craig

Thought I’d do a recap ahead of the two-part finale.

What needs clearing up:

1. Who is Ruby’s mother / mysterious woman wh…

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So rather than the Doctor turning the tears on, for whatever purpose (cf @bunface), could they be an involuntary response to something he knows but doesn’t know he knows (presumably relating to the Toymaker and his machinations)? 

Oh yes, I like that. Makes me want to review all the crying to see whether he looks like he doesn’t kno…[Read more]

Noticed second time that Varma’s bird form entered the room to announce the wedding saying ‘wilkommen, bienvenue’ like the Emcee in Cabaret. A film all about masquerade and queerness in the face of a very dark threat.

Ooh – I missed that – more masquerade – love it… I am forever a fan of Alan Cumming’s version of Cabaret.

“queering” of the Doctor. (Not delved into the nether regions of Twitter tho, or BTL comments). But this old school DW veteran is very happy.

Me too – I’m delighted. I may have let out an undignified squeal once Gatwa Doc starting getting his flirt on with Rogue.

@Miapatrick I feel the need for a rainbow TARDIS mug with Gatwa-Doc lea…[Read more]

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

I think you misunderstand what a “white saviour” is.  It’s not a saviour who happens to be white.  It’s someone with an arrogant saviour complex, who thinks he or she is entitled to intrude in on a society and offer unsolicited h…[Read more]

so maybe the fact Ruby Sunday (I mean, the name!) is so very reminiscent of Rose/Amy/Clara is because she’s full on alien, even in the world of Who. That is, she isn’t just alien, she’s a supernatural/fairy tale/Disney character.

Which makes me wonder, is she even real to the Doctor, only he doesn’t know it yet?

Yessssss – and therefor…[Read more]

@miapatrick

I get what you are saying bun, and to an extent I agree with it but for me it’s like Superman asking Lois to save Metropolis or Batman to ask Robin to be the hero. Not sure many people,  I might be wrong,  are tuning in to see Ruby be the main saviour as she has been in the Maestro ep and whatever ep 4 was meant to b…[Read more]

The Doctor’s tears
@bunface thanks for the quote, that does make sense.
@juniperfish @miapatrick – the tears are noticeable, even when the rest of his face is still. Also reminded me of Bill’s puddle-person who can come back in a teardrop.

Also @juniperfish – I’m liking your 3 witches (or 3 fates?) theory 😉
I do also like the…[Read more]

It probably says something about the whole Who audience, which is what the reboot is now addressing overall

Interesting thought. If RTD is addressing this in show, it’s a more subtle approach than Chibnall would have taken (Doctor enters, shouts “Racism is BAD”, and exits)

I work in a large city and it’s highly multicultural, but I live…[Read more]

Glyngatwg means “Valley of the Cat” apparently:

https://x.com/DoctorWhoPN/status/1792615329429917783

I wonder if the pub name, Y Pren Marw, which means “The Dead Wood” according to Martin Bellam on T’Other Place, together with “The Valley of the Cat” are both tributes to stories by that master of weird folk horror Algernon…[Read more]

And while I thought the episode was excellent, I confess I did at one point (after Ruby has had no luck…[Read more]

Oh, I remember reading your flights of fancy now! All the better for their ‘wrongness’, right?

Just waxing prosaic.

Oh, all the abandoned children, presumably, too. Which would tie in with Space Babies (a phrase oft repeated in that ep, and which all the Doctor’s children would technically be) and the Dad theme in Boom.

This makes a lot o…[Read more]

@bunface – 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.

Stooky Sue = Susan foreshadowing?

Stooky Sue had three Stooky babbies – so it seems the Doctor’s progeny is definitely a thread to pull on.

I’m also going to suggest that Mrs. Flood is Susan

I have a (pointlessly) wordy post on Mrs. Flood in the Church on Ruby Road pages.  I don’t think she’s Susan primarily because she didn’t recognize (or even suspect) the police box was the TARDIS.  She only recognized it as *A* tardis (not THE tardis) after it dema…[Read more]

 “The One Who Waits” is Susan.

Anything is possible, and in a recent Radio Times piece Carol Ann Ford was reported as saying that if the call came for her return she would be up for it, but even if the references to her so far do herald her reappearance, I doubt that it will have such a weighty significance.

In the conte…[Read more]

@Blenkinsopthebrave

I seem to recall the Doctor telling Ruby that they are in London at the same time as The Hartnell Doctor and Susan. (Or words to that effect.) And at some point a bit later he stares wistfully across at where his…

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