She was recently in an overblown show on Netflix called The Diplomat,  in which the 2nd-4th seasons were full of plot holes & static factual inconsistencies…. but she was terrific! 😬😬

@janetteB @dentarthurdent yes! Mr Puro wat…[Read more]

Reverse the polarity…?

Well, if so, it’s a bit sad really.
The reason for the regeneration was a bit forced. Jodie’s reappearance decidedly non-valedictory. The fact that the new face WAS Billie was by far the best bit of Reality War… and that says it all.
Perhaps that’s RTD’s point: someone’s not available; yo…[Read more]

our son is also finding AI in work places (like law firms) often hallucinates cases or answers & with me, recently, I’ve found that it mixes up symphonic titles with the names of movements in relatively well known orchestral pieces & chamber music.

Scary stuff.

the dropping of Jed Mercurio’s name is very much to do with media reacting to his profile as an established BBC showrunner.

But, Line of Duty is a VERY good police procedural/organised crime group/vice and corruption drama. Lots of mystery, shock, twists and tension. Also humour. Transferrable skills.

The B…[Read more]

Cheers

Janette

instrumental verse…

The Beatles did it with Yer Blues, unintentionally: maybe the engineer failed to plug in the vocal lead for the last verse or something (you can just hear Lennon on the background).

Starless by Crimson has a 3 verse ‘1st movement’. Sonata and through-composed are the two default positions for Crims…[Read more]

I remember a good friend across the street pulling out some Dylan & Cold Chisel (Cheap Wine, Forever Now), the latter which I’d never heard before (my parents were notorious haters of rock) & playing t…[Read more]

Yes. That’s enough Floyd.

Spotify is also excellent for sampling the unknown, just exceedingly parsimonious to the artist. I must listen to ‘On the Turning Away.’

If you are venturing into ‘The Tube’, there was an excellent BBC (?) compilation of Floyd films from Arnold Layne (I think) through to The Wall.

The Dave Gilmour‘s…[Read more]

Improv. Always fun to pontificate on something you never have a chance of doing…

Miles Davies could obviously improv and knew many fine musicians who could achieve exactly what he wanted. He also said he wanted to form a rock band because they made lots of money and the music was simple.

That is improv in rock and jazz is n…[Read more]

Sorry, made a mess of that last post… half measures really won’t do. But perhaps an in depth discussion of PF belongs here.

Richard Wright was probably the most original of the five core players and wrote off-beat pop songs with Syd Barrett. He tried to continue in the same vein after Syd left but encountered much res…[Read more]

Floyd! It’s difficult to talk about them without sounding like an obsessive. I really know nothing about their later post Walters incarnation. I know Gilmour was a friend of Jackie Leven, who I greatly admire.

I’m bewildered by their struggles after Syd Barrett ‘imploded.’ There was a huge struggle over what they were go…[Read more]

I was 18-19 listening to Dark Side of the Moon & typically did a “I don’t like it.” As a classicist, I was a snob & ignorant of “modern music” for at least another year.

Though I did see a few rock concerts, as young as 11-13 because the babysitter had tickets so threw a dressing go…[Read more]

I also remember how she heard & felt, temporarily, the Ood’s song of captivity which the Doctor heard at all…[Read more]

The Doctor Lies

The Soufflé is not the Soufflé, the Soufflé is the Recipe

Planet of Hats here I come

Just Some Bloke??!

Mark Gatiss made a rather downbeat interview recently, rather different to the ‘all is not over shtick’ issuing from the usual armchairs. He points out the BBC’s stance n…[Read more]

I think a comic-con panel had Billie Piper. A fan asked the question …..the only question that can ever be asked! “Are you the doctor?” And Piper said “I’m not the Doctor I’m Rose Tyler on hiatus.”

@dentarthurdent  @whohar     The other day I was standing out in the garden surrounded by growing things and all the critters they attract and it was all go…[Read more]

This isn’t really an explanation but…

DOCTOR: ….four digits. That narrows it down to a possible 10,000 numbers. Feeling lucky?
JOY: Really not.
DOCTOR: I mean, the variables are never equally weighted. I could figure it out if I just had…
JOY: What?
DOCTOR: Time. The Time Hotel.
JOY: The what?
DOCTOR: I couldn’t use t…[Read more]

However, when I do a search, the overview we’re given suggests that your conclusion is the correct one:

The Doctor…

[Read more]

You made me watch The Pilot again. Really NOT a problem… indeed from the age when watching Who REALLY wasn’t a problem.

’The Pilot.’ I feel there’s story in the title…

Moff’s given another chance? ‘No no you’ll just scare the broadsheets with your saphic africs…’

Moff given a surprise extra series? ‘Chibnall is…[Read more]

As I recall, when the first wave of Omicron hit, Atlantic Canada escaped the brunt of it because…[Read more]

Davros and ablism. It’s not a simple ‘No! Not on my watch’ surely? Yes, the world has moved on, and we got Shirley and (see below) Jinkx Monsoon on the show, but there are ways of playing it, ain’t there? 12 turfed Davros out of his unit and rode it like a bumper car. I’ve said it before bu…[Read more]

the most concerning was Dacron’ ableist issue; the sonic better as a telly remote than a gun & TenDoc regenerating back into his 2006+ clothing as keeping 13’s outfit would be an insult to drag performers

Agreed. Also the hypocrisy. The sonic is too gun-like but then the Doc shoots Omega in the fa…[Read more]

RTD1: weird narcissistic racism, venal politicians, polyamory, shaggy dog stories about royal malaises, tech monocultures, nerds and their love interests,  racism in the past, environmental collapse, imperial heritage, more venal politicians, assisted weight loss, slavery, xenosexuality, super-wealthy…[Read more]

On the face of it, the ‘let it go’ moment is definitely a bit clumsy. Or you could read it as a generic ‘hey, these are just people’ statement.’ Or it’s RTD getting his revenge in first. I wasn’t studying the forums or meta at that stage, but I imagine Russ knew what was coming.

Otherwise you wonder if…[Read more]

As the Doctor was male, he couldn’t let go of the Dr/Donna crisis, but Donna could pass the meta crisis energy to her non-binary daughter so this burden was split & Donna avoided inevitable le…[Read more]

@ps1l0v3y0u

It’s an interesting discussion.

On the etymology of woke: IIRC it came out of the Civil rights movement in the US (pre-Covid) with the phrase “Stay woke” meaning stay awake i.e. be alert to what’s going on around you. It was taken on by liberals and it started to appear in the le…[Read more]

Was RTD rubbing the viewers’ nose in it? Being ‘arsy’? Not arf!

I’m not sure ‘woke’ would be anymore than a novel and obscure adjective if not for The Culture Warriors. Why persecute religious or racial targets when you can choose to denounce absolutely anyone who disagrees with you?

Of co…[Read more]

yes, Moffat loved the humour & it’s what made it entertaining to me- thus rewatchable. I rewatched Listen and the Under the Lake 2-parter with 12’s “cards” that Clara organised.

RTD did humour too. Once. And even though message-heavy Dr Who existed in the 60s it was clever, sardonic, mature,…[Read more]

Again… not really about a specific ep so I moved it here.

Sorry, my mulling over RTD turned out to be a bad post, late night etc. And then I changed it half through. The contraction of titles in two parters was started by Den of Geek, I think.

So, what the hell has just happened?

I’m not sure how RTD got the gig the first tim…[Read more]

The Arc…

The weird thing is the incomplete arc so obviously echoes the RTD vs Corporation gambit played out. But you HAVE to pay because only I can EXPLAIN! Although, as I keep observing, someone signed off those press release.

Well, the DG has just cast a whole raft of shows adrift… all light entertainment but… WHO KNOWS WHAT’…[Read more]

Yes. What the hell, hero? Also sketchy science. Though it looked great. Also, in the words of Sylvia Noble in The Star Beast, ‘none of this real!’

Also, Eurovision looms large in Who History.

So, in my view, as you know, RTD was cooking a monster arc in which The Doctor is being tested: it was all Mind Robbers, War Gam…[Read more]

Right. Chib. The socio-economic years.

The history eps: Rosa, Demons… yes there’s commentary there but, because it’s buried in the (recent) past, you can (if you want) mentally sanitise it to oblivion. And, worthy though the ambition is, the narrative of Rosa is a problem. Old white bloke on bus. Then we get proper risk…[Read more]

I’m afraid the BBC didn’t want Moffat anywhere near Ladydoc. And I can see their point.

I also suspect they loaded Chib’s tenure with many, many stipulations; or maybe he thought The Fam up all on his own. BUT either RTD and Moff were both phenomenal auxiliary script editors (and I really don’t think that’s Moff’s forte) or C…[Read more]

I observe these were criticisms made of Moffat. They are aren’t my accusations. But, yes, RTD was also quite up for all that. Personally, I don’t really understand the angst, other than it being the natural tension of a kiddult scifi show. To me it’s Hinchcliffe/Holmes vs Whitehouse or JNT/Seward vs Grade.

I went out a…[Read more]

That’s one episode I rewatch because it’s funny, it takes one out of oneself but the ending, where the clone-grown humans are  released & well, brin…[Read more]

yes, apologies: I saw, in my post, that I’d misspelled your name so added that in separately. Prior to this, though, I saw more mistakes so used the edit function which then happily decided to delete the entire thing! I know people will often compose a response in their Documents & then copy it into a post. I used to do this but f…[Read more]

I’ll do a recap. @whohar @dentarthurdent @ps1l0v3y0u

I enjoyed Listen, particularly how Clara & the Doc can play against each other & poke fun? In my 20s I couldn’t accept my figure or my face.

I wondered as to how RTD with his “that’s alright” from the Toymaker seemed a gentle dig at Moffat? Though RTD brought b…[Read more]

Was this tendency because the Doctor was (then) male, and the companions, as ever, were female

I mean, yes I think so. The companion does tend to riff off the lead and, with Moff’s previous writing, we know he likes to explore the sexual politics of the traditional male-female relationship.

I liked RTDs take:…[Read more]