in the social messaging of Chibbers I thought it was overtly political – except I understand that’s both essential (plays & stories were always this) & part of Who’s rich history but something about the execution of their messages was clunky or unsubtle….

Well, you said in three lines what I took a page to do.   The ‘social messaging…[Read more]

I’ll comment on your points tomorrow.   It’s 3-34 a.m. and Mrs D reminded me it’s about bedtime.   (I’m retired so don’t have to worry about getting up in the morning.   Mrs D is…[Read more]

I think @ps1l0v3y0u meant that women could sometimes be written as “another bloke” as opposed to a well thought out female character. If I’m wrong please chip in.

I’m not sure what that means. Well, if they got drunk with the other – girls, cracked juvenile bad-taste jokes, and went out on the pull on Saturday night, I guess t…[Read more]

Some people were annoyed that Moff’s companions were obvious bloke adjuncts. They have a point. I’ sure Bill ‘molested by a puddle’ also had some people frothing. 

Not sure what ‘bloke adjuncts’ means.   They were normal heterosexual people (like, the 90%) who naturally had boyfriends (or, in the case of Bill, girl-puddl…[Read more]

I do like strong female characters who don’t just stand on a chair and scream when they see a mouse.   (Though I did have a female acquaintance last…[Read more]

Well, ‘Alien’ would fail that and the hero was a woman, ffs! So would ‘Hell Bent’ (I don’t think Clara and Ashildr talked to each other about anything other than the Doctor, although…[Read more]

And I, like you, was also disappointed in the companions, or rather the treatement of them. I re…[Read more]

All the other books are satire too, of course.   And I’m certainly not saying Small Gods was bad, I’d sooner read it than, say, anything by a less talented writer  (which is most of them).

You don’t need patience, or any commitment, to read the Discworld books.   Any more than you need a commitment to watch an isolated episode of Doctor Who.   The ‘recommended reading lists’ give the impression, possibly inadvertently, that each ‘series’ is one continuing story.  This is just not the case.   Although many of the charac…[Read more]

I’ve got the Hogfather movie on DVD, on my ‘rewatch soon’ pile. I’m a little surprised a lot more Discworld movies weren’t made. I guess with the wide cast of…[Read more]

And it appears the Dalek syste…[Read more]

I think ‘Fifth Elephant’ may well have been derived from ‘5th Element’. It’s very common in literature and drama, I think it’s perfectly legitimate and a nice nod to the original work.
There are plenty of examples in Doctor Who. ‘Spyfall’ obviously comes from ‘Skyfall’ (James Bond). ‘Empress of Mars’ is very obviously a tribute to Edgar…[Read more]

I know what I’ll be watching for the next hour and a half.    Moffat is always interesting to listen to.

As for ‘The Time Machine’ somehow invalidating…[Read more]

1867 is quite recent.   Still beats Australia though.

I wish you happy birthday, good luck and elbows up!    🙂

If the Beeb was closed down the rights wouldn’t suddenly disappear.   They would probably be sold off to the highest bidder – who would probably be Disney or Netflix or one of those.   Doctor Who: Jedi Knight  meets Alien.   It would make a mint.

Night of the Doctor, now, was an excellent little cameo.  (Is ‘cameo’ the right word?)   Moff’s dialogue was on its best form.   As it was with the onl…[Read more]

Most unfortunately, he fell into the Gap.   I’ve seen the movie.   Taken as a random sci-fi movie, there was nothing wrong with it.   Jus…[Read more]

Hmmm. Last series in this mid-series slot we got Boom!, 73 Yards and Dot and Bubble. (As the incorrect menu on my probably-bootleg? DVD reminds me.) What it links to, though, is The Well (very good), Lucky Day (not so good) and The Story and the Engine. So how will this turn out?

Hmm, ethnic. I hope…[Read more]

And I do agree also about UNIT and the series.

So, how did Belinda and the Doc know to dress in Stormtrooper uniform? Did the ‘patriots’ win in the 2020’s? Is all the future a militaristic hell?

The exploration of the base is a bit reminiscent of Aliens (or indeed a dozen other sci-fi’s. I guess there’s only a very limited number of ways to…[Read more]

Lux.   Yes, there wasn’t a lot of content in it.   Basically just “all cartoons wish to be people”.   I’m not sure if that’s a common…[Read more]

Not sure why Belinda is so thrilled to go back to the 50’s. I was born in 1947, so I was a teen in the 60’s, so naturally for me the 50’s were the least coolest thing ever, with their lame hairstyles and their frowsy dresses and their banal music and their bourgeois tastes and their puritanical morality and self-imposed…[Read more]

(And if it isn’t true then it ought to be…)

@ps1l0v3y0u   That moment of turning down the ‘patient’s’ speaker was probably the most horrific of the entire episode.

I’ve been lurking/incommunicado the last few days because we flew down to Christchurch last Tuesday and, among the things I forgot, was my laptop charger.   Since then I’ve been running on battery, just enough to check emails.  I ordered a charger online…[Read more]

But it runs into the same logical continuity problem (not sure if there’s a word for it) as the fact that Sean Connery ‘was’ Jame…[Read more]

Things would have been very gloomy if Orban had stayed in power.