• Dentarthurdent replied to the topic 73 Yards

    Well that was different.

    First, no opening titles? Or did I just miss them? Is there any significance to this?

    Second, no Doctor (for most of it). No offence to the Doctor, but the story was well enough written to keep my interest without him.

    Third, what did we just watch? It was *good*, but completely baffling. Who was the woman? – future old…[Read more]

  • Dentarthurdent replied to the topic Boom

    @ps1l0v3y0u     Well, it’s my personal choice to avoid reading too much into a story, since I can get quite enough political insanity from watching the news, and I like my fiction to be escapist.   And also, I find such interpretations are frequently able to be skewed to suit the preferences/prejudices of the viewer.    (Having said that, I just …[Read more]

  • Dentarthurdent replied to the topic Boom

    @ps1l0v3y0u     Well, I don’t think this is really the forum for political discussions, so I’ll keep my views to myself (not that I think they’d surprise anybody.)   You do have a good point, that the US and Europe was supporting Ukraine with military tech.   (Vastly to the benefit of the military/industrial complex, by the way.)    But a quite d…[Read more]

  • Dentarthurdent replied to the topic Space Babies

    @winston   I generally agree with you.   The Space Babies were ‘cute’ on overload  (I don’t like ‘cute’, did I mention?) and their voices were young teens.   And I think a couple of times the voice didn’t quite sync with the ‘baby’ who was speaking.   So the whole thing was rather unreal.

    Also, how come babies were controlling a space station?…[Read more]

  • Dentarthurdent replied to the topic Boom

    @ps1l0v3y0u    If you’re referring to current political events (like, the US elections/Ukraine/Gaza) I sympathise, they can be very – distracting.   Though I find I can usually switch off my real-life awareness and just immerse myself in the story.   Whatever happens in Real Life (TM) in the next few weeks, or four years, ‘Boom’ and the Doctor…[Read more]

  • Dentarthurdent replied to the topic Boom

    Okay, this is the verbose version.   You have been warned   🙂

    Phones implanted in hands, that’s new. But then, we had hand mines (and don’t tell me that idea didn’t start off as a bad pun, which duly turned horrific in Moff’s fertile imagination) in The Witch’s Familiar. Speaking of mines…

    Battlefield scenes seem to be a theme with Moff. He…[Read more]

  • Dentarthurdent replied to the topic Boom

    @ps1l0v3y0u    Be interesting to see your observations.

    @janetteb    I’m flattered, but slightly abashed that my comments were so brief.   Yes, it’s a classic Who story in the Moffat genre.   I think I might re-watch tonight and see if I’m impelled to fill out my comments a bit.

  • Dentarthurdent replied to the topic Boom

    Now this is more like it. This one grabs you from the get-go, and it doesn’t let go. Don’t you just *know* that an ambulance is not going to be good news? “The Villengard Corporation would like to extend its deepest condolences on your upcoming loss. Thoughts and prayers”. The Moff’s irony has an edge on it that could cut steel.

    These are, I…[Read more]

  • Dentarthurdent replied to the topic The Devil’s Chord

    Now this is definitely looking like an improvement. The Beatles impersonators are – good enough, I thought. They look and sound near enough to the originals that I could accept the illusion.

    Well that was a better episode. Certainly – different. I thought the villain was a little bit naff, actually, but I’m being picky here – certainly a better…[Read more]

  • Dentarthurdent replied to the topic Space Babies

    @janetteb   We seem to be fully in agreement on Tardis ranking.

    I suppose this is technically a ‘first’ episode, I tend to think of it as ‘second’ since The Church on Ruby Road precedes it in the DVD set (though TCRR is numbered ‘0’ in the set).   Also, I found Space Babies a bit gross.

    I’ll have to see if the next ep can re-engage my interest.

  • Dentarthurdent replied to the topic The Winchester

    @janetteb

    “Exeter I thought. That is near Cornwall. I love Cornwall. What the hell. We’ll go to Cornwall.” I love that!

    Generally, main road signage is quite good. Though, with respect, I wouldn’t choose a large Mercedes for the trip. On my trip I was lucky enough to score a Toyota Aygo X – dreadful styling, but extremely tight turning circle, g…[Read more]

  • Dentarthurdent replied to the topic Space Babies

    On my first viewing (probably a good sign that I almost immediately want to burst into print…):

    This is really weird wild and wacky – but in a good way. I like the conversation between Ruby and the Doctor, she asks entirely logical questions to which the answers are, of course, wildly abnormal.

    And then they’re in dinosaur-land with some…[Read more]

  • Well, well. Doctor Who meets the Muppets.

    The first quarter was definitely Christmassy, goodwill to all, with Doctor Who as a sort of Santa doing good deeds. All the (human) characters were believable and just nice, pleasant people.

    Then we’re deep into Muppet territory with the goblins, or maybe it was more reminiscent of Labyrinth, though…[Read more]

  • Dentarthurdent replied to the topic The Winchester

    @nerys    I often find  Satellite View  (in Google Maps) is a lot better at showing tracks, than the regular map view.   Though it does depend a lot on the terrain.    And of course I’m talking about viewing it on a laptop with wifi Internet, which is probably a non-starter in the mountains  (unless you saved the screen previously).

  • Dentarthurdent replied to the topic The Winchester

    @winston I love large-scale maps e.g. the Ordnance Survey’s 1″ to the mile. In 2013 when I first ventured into France in recent decades, I got a huge Michelin atlas and photocopied all the relevant maps (about 20 of them), ditto for Italy and Switzerland. And that was how I navigated. In 2017 the rental had a GPS, stuck in French but that was…[Read more]

  • Dentarthurdent replied to the topic The Winchester

    @ps1l0v3y0u    You are correct about the A-Z.    But (I seem to recall) there was some earlier confusion with grabbing books off the stacks and trying the code on them (I need to re-watch to figure just what they were doing).   My suggested procedure would, I think, have been far the quickest in finding duplicates.    The A-Z would have been an ex…[Read more]

  • Dentarthurdent replied to the topic The Winchester

    @ps1l0v3y0u     Sherlock and algorithms – I’d have to point out that my suggested method of comparing the books is last-century stuff.   Dating from the 80’s when everyone had a home computer running Basic and wrote little programs on it.   Probably the default these days would be to use a spreadsheet but – in 99% of applications – that’s absurd…[Read more]

  • Dentarthurdent replied to the topic The Winchester

    @nerys    In hindsight, I should have phoned the Emergency Assistance number as soon as I was established in my hotel room at 1 a.m.   (They are 24-hour I think).   I expect they would have had a new car lined up by the time I finished breakfast.   But I was too tired to bother, and the subsequent confusion was all my fault   (they were far too po…[Read more]

  • Dentarthurdent replied to the topic The Winchester

    @nerys  Umm. Well, in the hope that Craig will pardon the bandwidth… I picked it up from Valence TGV station, I had a Fiat 500 booked but they ‘upgraded’ me to a MG ZS. The 500 would have been ideal for narrow Alpine roads, the ZS less so. Some cars, I can tell precisely where they are on the road; others, I have some trouble accurately judging…[Read more]

  • Dentarthurdent replied to the topic The Winchester

    @janetteb @winston @nerys My recent travels (as I probably mentioned already) included two weeks driving an Opel Corsa around the Alps and two weeks of a dinky little Toyota Aygo in south of England country lanes, without putting so much as a scratch on either (for the first time ever). Boring. But as winston commented, all the best stories tend…[Read more]

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