@thane16  syzygy    AI ‘knows’ a lot of stuff, but doesn’t actually understand any of it.    Youtube keeps feeding Mrs D videos of ‘divers exploring the Titanic’ and the like (never mind that any diver at 4000m would end up flat) where it’s obvious the AI doesn’t have a clue how a wrench works, for example.  Or the ‘cruise liner in a hurri…[Read more]

@janetteb      Works for me too  🙂

D’you suppose that’s what RTD actually meant?   Admittedly I can’t suggest any others.

But I really would like to see a bit more Billie Piper than that.

@janetteb
It would be great to see Billie Piper again. And very fitting, since she played a major part in the re-launch in – when? – decades ago.
She could be a place-holder for the next Doctor, but plot-wise, it would be very easy for her to become the new Doctor. The Doctor and the Tardis seem to be somehow psychically linked (as in e.g. The…[Read more]

@ps1l0v3y0u Thanks. That’s a lot to digest.

The reason I mentioned ‘improv’ was sparked by ‘On the Turning Away’. That has four sung verses, followed by nine guitar solo ‘verses’ (not sure what to call them, I expect there’s a word for them). Except that sometimes there’s eleven in the solo, or even thirteen. (There are plenty of videos on…[Read more]

@winston Your experience with ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ was similar to mine with ‘Pulse’ (which just happened to incorporate the whole of DSOTM as the second half, although the musical arrangements were different in many places).

In fact I’ve noticed there are many different versions of tracks on the Net, some official, some bootleg from various…[Read more]

Apparently Doug Adams was in that ‘scene’, he threw parties attended by many of the rock artists. And it reflects in his books, remember Disaster Area, the loudest rock band in the universe? And he mentioned Mark Knopfler specifically by name in So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish.

I was a bit of a classical snob when I was a teen. Beethoven,…[Read more]

@thane16   Morricone’s ‘Jill’s Theme’ is haunting, I have it on my MP3 player (sung by Edda dell’Orso, as in the movie).    I also have a version with a theremin taking the ‘sung’ part, and in the mid-upper ranges it sounds eerily like a human voice.

As musical scores go, I thought Murray Gold’s score called ‘The Shepherd’s Boy’ was one of the…[Read more]

@Thane16 @ps1l0v3y0u That beginning, with no music, just a creaky windpump, is very effective. And Morricone’s score, particularly Jill’s Theme which is a haunting piece of music.
I watched it recently and managed to follow all the plot threads (for the first time). Not that it’s complicated, just that Leone leaves the audience to join up the…[Read more]

@nerys   As I’ve said, shouty Donna is her least attractive part, and that’s exactly what we got on her first appearance.   First impression and all that, it took me a while (about two seasons) to get over my Donnaphobia.   I thought the metacrisis ‘solution’ was clunky but by then I was sufficiently reconciled to  Donna that I let it go.

I…[Read more]

@winston   Our garden has osteospermums (Cape daisies) flowering, and also our rose bush has a few flowers on it.   In the middle of winter.  (Did I mention that before?)

But what I came to say was, that garden idea of yours is intriguing.  You becoming part of the garden.  A garden that captures people.   Has that ever been used in Doctor W…[Read more]

@ps1l0v3y0u   I’d forgotten the exact dialogue.   That discussion of ‘variables not being equally weighted’ sounds like mumbo-jumbo to me, I’m pretty sure that with a multi-digit code like that, the ‘variables’ are exactly equally weighted, any number is exactly as probable as 9,999 others.   The Tardis (which is presumably also a super…[Read more]

@nerys   I didn’t put any effort into making my ‘theory’ of the briefcase code work, it’s just a conclusion I came to.   I can’t say I like it very much.   But, to mangle Sherlock Holmes, ‘when you have eliminated every other possibility, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth’.

I don’t like it very much.   This is definit…[Read more]

@nerys   I guess Nova Scotia was a bit like New Zealand in respect of Covid, being relatively easy to isolate.    Omicron was, I think, way more infectious than previous variants, but probably less deadly.   Also, I think, by then people were starting to get a bit more blase about precautions.   Part of the rationale for the precautions was not…[Read more]

@nerys I agree about Anita, I really liked her. I would have liked to see her as a Companion.   The Time Hotel is, of course, a species of time machine. I’m sure it generates all sorts of time paradoxes.

The just-married couple in Anita’s Sandringham Hotel honeymoon suite took the Doctor’s incursion remarkably calmly, I thought. Just a reminder t…[Read more]

@thane16    The Moment was a weapon so powerful it had achieved intelligence.   And maybe even a conscience.   (Current AI has quite a long way to go).    And Billie Piper was one of those people the camera loves.  Even leaning against the wall of the cell in the Tower of London behind three Doctors, she was stealing the scene without moving a…[Read more]

@thane16    Wild Blue Yonder was great, and a perfect example of how to properly use CGI.   And having just two cast intensifies the drama.   The alien ship looked truly beautiful.   Probably my favourite RTD(2) episode.    And, the reintroduction of Donna was successful.

School Reunion was good because it introduced the Old Companion well, it…[Read more]

Gosh, look away for a couple of days and the comments fill up.
@thane16 Syzygy (I thought I posted this) That lecture was in Bill Potts first episode, The Pilot. Transcript at chakoteya.net.
I thought the idea that Rose(2) could solve the metacrisis by being non-binary – it didn’t really make sense to me, and it felt distinctly forced – RTD…[Read more]

@syzygy  @thane16   Oh yes those ‘cue cards’.   “Sorry for the loss of your friend/relative/pet.”   How Capaldi delivered those lines without cracking up I don’t know.  (Reminds me of those ‘personalised’ offers we used to get a few decades ago from Readers Digest and the like –  “Dear [Dentarthurdent], we are certain that you and your family a…[Read more]

@ps1l0v3y0u    I agree that Disney, with their tendency to milk old classics for all they’re worth, and cartoonise everything, was not a good fit.   And since their name was on it, I assume they vetoed anything too adult.   Their only plus is, they tend to be woke, and much as I deride that term and tendency, I guess it’s better than being bigot…[Read more]

@ps1l0v3y0u   Hmmm, so you think RTD was making himself essential?   Possibly so.   Obviously Mrs Flood / The Rani was an extremely long-distance arc.

But suppose RTD and the Beeb had parted ways halfway through, I guess someone else could have found a continuation of the Mrs Flood storyline.   But as for all the other storylines – first it woul…[Read more]