@arbutus Yes, now you mention it  that transition is particularly dodgy if one fancies Ten and then wants to mother Eleven…  Hmmmm.   Thank heavens for Twelve!

I think Rose partly gets stick for being a fairly realistically drawn teenager – over on the Buffy blogs it was noted I think that Dawn was utterly loathed by many fans of the ser…[Read more]

Just to chip in to the convo re Dickens – I’m a huge fan.  I started reading him while I was still at junior school and have read and re-read everything over the (many) years since.  I love the sheer exuberance of his writing – his revelling in language and the power of words, his larger than life characters who yet somehow have a core of r…[Read more]

A stonking finale.  Most of the things I might have said have been (I’m late to this party, by about a year and a half, having just acquired the box sets of series 1-3 and rewatching for the first time since they were broadcast).

Captain Cheesy’s regen/resurrection – now, was he immortal before this, or did Rose/Bad Wolf’s channelling of the…[Read more]

Not a huge amount of thought stimulated by  this episode, TBH.  I wasn’t enthusiastic about another Slitheen storyline, to say the least, though they (all credit to Annette Badland, as well as to the writers) did at least make the portrayal a bit more nuanced, even if the sentimentality doesn’t amount to anything resembling morality.  I’d co…[Read more]

I love this.  The ’empty child’ is both chilling, genuine shiver down the spine stuff, and heartbreaking.  A child’s voice saying ‘Mummy?’ is designed to be impossible to ignore, unless you’ve a heart of stone, and so you really feel the pull to answer it, to go to it and see what it needs, even whilst feeling that chill, knowing that this is r…[Read more]

Re-watching these, ten years on, is fascinating.  At the time what I brought to them was fond memories of classic Who (interwoven with all the stuff I’d watched since, amongst which Buffy was probably the strongest thread), and hope – each week almost with crossed fingers willing it to be good enough to do justice to the legacy and to ensure that…[Read more]

This is fascinating to re-watch, given some of the more recent encounters with the Daleks.  Especially Into the Dalek.  The line ‘you would make a good Dalek’ is in both, I think, or something very  very similar.  And the same polarisation between Clara/Rose wanting to heal and mend and believe in potential goodness and the Doc unrelenting bec…[Read more]

Many thanks!  I will post something asap and hope to get some discussion going.

Hi there, can we have threads for Dalek and especially Father’s Day please on the 9th Doctor forum?

Many thanks!

I enjoyed this.  Simon Pegg, Tamsin Greig, Anna Maxwell Martin and Agent Weaver from SHIELD – lots to enjoy.  The satire is, as @TheKrynoidMan says, not exactly subtle and the adult audience will be sceptical from the outset.  But the line that @PhaseShift quoted is a damn good one, and worth wheeling out on a regular basis.  We know, as gro…[Read more]

Just checked IMDB and it is Tosh (ie its not just a Torchwood actor in a random role like Gwen/Gwynneth) – Doctor Sato. I’d forgotten that.  I had not forgotten the Slitheen despite the years of therapy.  It’s not just the farting, I’m not above finding that funny, on occasion.  It’s the maniacal laughter.  And the way the baddies in this have to…[Read more]

My favourite episode so far.  This is spooky, referencing the old-fashioned ghost story, lots of literary in-jokes, Rose once again connecting with the downtrodden young women of whatever era or species that she encounters on their travels, but facing up to the culture clash between the two, plus Gwynneth’s genuinely moving self sacrifice.  And S…[Read more]

@craig many thanks, that sounds like a very sensible policy.  Glad you like the ep, I’d forgotten how good it was.  I will post something asap.

More specifically on this ep, my biggest problem was that it suffered from Harry Potter syndrome.  Too much dependence o n reaction shots – lingering ones at that – to tell us we should be awestruck/amazed/amused.  Which would make more se nse if it were Rose’s reactions, but less so the Doctors.  He knows all the species gathered there, he’s se…[Read more]

I’m sure I’m being dim but how do I get to start a new thread?  I’m mid re-watch of S9 and wanted to comment on The Unquiet Dead.  Ta!

@purofilion @TheKrynoidMan  @bluesqueakpip   I think when ‘its for kids’ is used to excuse simplistic or sloppy writing, it’s a total copout.  Kids deserve good writing – and they can tell the difference.  I read Enid Blyton as a kid, alongside Alan Garner, ROsemary Sutcliff, C S Lewis et al – and I knew the difference.  EB was a bit of ligh…[Read more]

@rose2112  Good point about the goofy grin masking the darkness.  And yes I do love Jackie – she was a real departure for Who, a companion’s mum, and what’s more a middle-aged woman who wasn’t just a mum, flirty and funny.

Just rewatched Rose for the first time since, well, the first time.  Wincing at the clunkiness, the crudity of the special effects, the pacing – but TBH I never loved Old Who for the special effects or the whizz bangery, so all is forgiven, as it was when I saw this on first broadcast.  I’m perhaps less happy with CE than I was then but that c…[Read more]

@Whisht @purofilion  Aha!  I thought my finely tuned musical antennae had picked up a reference to Fripp somewhere in the ether…  Haven’t listened to League of …  for a while but the old Crimson CDs get regular outings.  Tonight, however, we’ve had some Rory Gallagher, followed up with Siouxsie and are now on to T Rex.  Currently playing – Ele…[Read more]

I’m not weighing in as far as the substance of this discussion is concerned, as I’ve not been involved.  But ‘the kool kids like to smack around the newbies’?  No way.  Whenever I join a new forum or group I observe how people interact, I listen and get the tone of the discussions, and join in as and when I feel I can – and I’ve encountered  not…[Read more]