@nerys    Well yes, Ruby was on the football pitch precisely in order to ‘target’ (or terrify) Roger ap H-bomb.   She actually got too close and had to back away to exactly 73 yards, and she knew her ‘follower’ would do the necessary.   Exactly what her follower could possibly say to get that result, I don’t know.   Possibly it wasn’t just wor…[Read more]

Yowza! That was some episode. I think this time round I could follow the plot better, or at least understand what was going on. But I’m still completely baffled as to why, and how.
Was the 73-yard woman Ruby all along? Or a holographic projection? And what could she possibly have said to make people run in terror, and keep (effectively) running,…[Read more]

@nerys   @whohar   I’ve quite intentionally never owned a DVD player that wasn’t multi-zone or region-free.   It allows me to buy DVD’s on Ebay without worrying what region they are (Region 1 is US, Region 2 is UK).   We’re Region 4 in Aust/NZ.   But obviously the potential selection is far wider if I’m not limited to Region 4, particula…[Read more]

@nerys     It just occurred to me that King Goblin (aka Jabba) was an acute case of ‘fat-shaming’.    🙂

‘Boom’ also had a song (though mercifully no dancing, what with landmines around and all…)

I’m pretty sure Who had songs on occasion before.    There was the Dickensian Christmas one with the shark.   And Rings of Akhaten.    And probably m…[Read more]

@WhoHar    Oh, thanks for reminding me of that.   It was of course under RTD’s oversight, but how could I have forgotten?

@nerys   I finally got to it.   And it was as good as I remembered.

Moff was back with a vengeance, no-holds-barred, and taking aim at (in no particular order)  the military-industrial complex, unchecked capitalism, holy wars, blind faith, mealy-mouthed corporate-speak, and making all decisions on a totally commercial basis (there must be a word…[Read more]

@nerys    Every long-running series does a song and dance number, just as they all do a Western. Eventually.

So, when Ruby was playing the piano on the rooftop, where did the string accompaniment come from? Inquiring nitpicky little minds want to know.

Maestro didn’t do anything for me, as a villain. Just got no charisma. If the character was su…[Read more]

@nerys @ps1l0v3y0u Space Babies (the title sort of says it all, doesn’t it?) Damn, do I *have* to watch it? Well, maybe I’ll just skip-watch to see if there were any developments in the long-term story.

OK, I liked the little joke about the Butterfly Effect. (Did they have butterflies in the Jurassic? Does it even matter?)

Um, snot monsters and…[Read more]

@nerys   Whoo!   You’re racing through the DVD’s, aren’t you?  Up to the Sutekh thing already.

I’ve been out of action (and mostly, contact) the last few days, since I munged my main laptop, the one with the DVD drive and my email client configured.   I’m just sorting a newer one (but I still have to configure the email, for now I just have t…[Read more]

@janetteb   @ps1l0v3y0u  @whohar    @janetteb     Like Janetteb, I found Chibs’s rewriting of the whole Who timeline too much to take.   ‘Future’ events (by which I mean ones the Doctor’s timeline hasn’t reached yet) can do what they like, but ‘past’ events had better fit into the sequence or they just confuse and annoy me.   Which am I supposed t…[Read more]

@TranslatorCircuit    By a ‘small’ episode I mean any that doesn’t have a cast of thousands and where the peril is focussed on the Doctor or a small group, not some universe-ending threat.   Far more credible

What do you mean, “of course Midnight was total crap”?   Where did the ‘of course’ come from?   Your opinion does not constitute a universa…[Read more]

@nerys   (I’m just coming up to a re-watch of this – after I do The Church on Ruby Road).

The Babies reminded me quite strongly of the goblins in Labyrinth, except not so well done and they didn’t have David Bowie to give it some class.   Or maybe evil Muppets.

Oh, hang on, is this the right episode I’m thinking of?   (Quick frantic google for T…[Read more]

@ps1l0v3y0u     The Toymaker’s pseudo-German was really annoying at first.   I think he dropped it later in the episode (thankfully).      What made the Toymaker so hard to combat, I think, was that he didn’t have plans for world domination or any particular motive, he was just having malicious fun.

Mitchell & Webb had some classics, my favouri…[Read more]

@janetteb    I thoroughly agree about the ‘small’ episodes being some of the best.   (Blink, Moonlight, Listen, the Van Gogh one, The Doctor’s Wife, Boom, even Fugitive of the Judoon).   There were many ho-hum small episodes too, of course (The Wire, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship).   But I think being small gives more opportunity to make the characte…[Read more]

@ps1l0v3y0u   Did you get to re-watch this as you threatened?   🙂

I just managed it.   Not a lot of comments.   The Toymaker is so annoying I want to slap him.

The Vlinx is absurd, a Disney creature?   Never satisfactorily explained.

The Toymaker talked of doubling the Doctor again and again.   Reminds me of a Farscape ep where the villain-of-…[Read more]

@janetteb When I was six or seven I used to walk a mile to school, half of it on a path across a ‘common’ – a patch of uncultivated land covered in bushes and trees. (I went back last year and it’s all still there). From about ten I used to bike across a different common to the station to catch the school train. Once I rode to Salisbury – about 30…[Read more]

@ps1l0v3y0u   That Winter Palace / 1916 scenario could have been developed into quite a good episode all on its own.   They certainly spent enough on the impressive and elegant set ( /CGI?)    But as it turned out, it was just a convenient location for the Doctor’s involvement to happen.   None of the (historical) events of 1916 even got a mentio…[Read more]

@translatorcircuit    I tend to agree with you that goblins and babies are better left to fantasy.

But ’73 yards’?   Lighten up.  I assume you’re in the UK (correct me if I’m wrong) but don’t they still use Miles?   I’m in New Zealand, we went metric 40 years ago but I’m still bilingual (or should that be binumeral?).   The US and Canada st…[Read more]

@camdudetenger2018    Yeah, see the link in Translatorcircuit’s post.

@translatorcircuit  @ps1l0v3y0u  @whohar

“However, Kate Phillips, chief content officer at the BBC, previously said the show will continue on the BBC “with or without” Disney.   She said at this year’s Edinburgh TV Festival: “Any Whovians out there, rest assured – Doctor W…[Read more]

@ps1l0v3y0u   I know Chris Boucher mainly from Blakes 7.   I remember that series mainly for quarries, sets that were reasonably convincing, weapons that weren’t, and some delightful dialogue, often featuring Avon.   But the line I best remember is down to Servalan:   “And, I want a gun.”  Avon:  “We only have one gun.”  Servalan (patiently…[Read more]