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9 May 2021 at 03:25 #71662
@janetteb To be fair to docnerd, it was me who first mentioned that some of us are ‘pretty old’. (Bearing in mind that I think docnerd is quite young, and to a teenager, thirty is ‘old’). As Macca rightly said, age doesn’t matter when we’re discussing Doctor Who. But I think it may just affect our style of communication.
7 May 2021 at 09:11 #71659Well Mrs D and I had our flu jabs on Tuesday (covid jabs might be a month or two away). And it’s near the end of summer, yesterday instead of driving out to Piha for a swim, I just went for a walk along below the Manukau harbour cliffs – only possible at half tide or below, but it’s my usual winter walk on fine days. And today Mrs D and I suddenly came down with a severe case of what is probably flu – I went for a covid test and currently awaiting the result, but I’d put money on it being negative. So at the moment we’re sniffing and suffering. Not watching a lot of Doctor Who, I bought a ‘new(er)’ second-hand Thinkpad a couple of weeks ago and installed Linux on it, and it’s a slightly unusual combination of hardware and software that struck a couple of hiccups, so I’ve been re-learning all sorts of interesting things about how the setup works. Which it finally successfully does, so I can revert to watching Who DVD’s.
We (NZ) have a slightly fragile quarantine-free ‘travel bubble’ with Australia, subject to suspension if there’s an outbreak (in fact it’s currently paused for 48 hours due to a couple of cases in NSW). And also about to have a ‘travel bubble’ with the Cook Islands, which will massively help their economy.
In other news, our PM Jacinda just announced an approximate wedding date ‘some time next summer’. Mild surprise, I’d sort of vaguely assumed she was probably married, but for some reason I’m amused by the fact that our PM for the last few years has been an unmarried mum. I do like the fact that nobody cares.
5 May 2021 at 22:26 #71654Put it this way, I saw the first episode of Doctor Who when it screened. And I don’t mean ‘Rose’, I mean the original with Hartnell. Though I didn’t really have much interest at the time, I watched intermittently, through Troughton to the start of the Pertwee years, and then just stopped. (In those days there was no Internet to keep in touch, and not even VHS tapes, it was a matter of catch-the-episode-when-it-screened or never. Home video (“VHS”) in 1980 was a revolution in that you could *record a program off TV and keep it forever*, and you could rent or buy movies on VHS. So you could watch whenever you wanted. All the format changes since have just been improvements on the same).
But I didn’t really start watching Who seriously until ‘Rose’ aired, a while later.
I don’t recall a lot about the early Hartnell eps, other than that – at one point – the ‘future’ troops were brandishing World-War-1 vintage Broomhandle Mausers complete with their clip-on wooden stocks, which someone in the art department obviously thought looked futuristic enough in 1960.
5 May 2021 at 07:40 #71651@docnerd223 If you want an ongoing real-time chat, I don’t think this forum is like that. We tend to let some time elapse between posts, not least because we’re in different time zones. I think most of us have other hobbies and do many other things. And many of us are pretty old. So if you’re looking for a high-energy busy group to belong to, this probably isn’t it. It isn’t really a matter of anyone ‘accepting’ you, as much as, if you post something (preferably Who-related, though we all stray from that at times) which interests people enough to reply to or comment on. But don’t hold your breath waiting for an answer 🙂
Nobody’s going to tell you you don’t ‘belong’, or criticise your Doctor Who knowledge 🙂 I was a newbie a few months back too. Whether this is the forum you’re looking for is for you to decide.
I hope I’ve summed it up fairly, don’tknow if anyone else wants to comment?
5 May 2021 at 06:46 #71648@docnerd223 Day’s going okay, didn’t get a lot done, it’s almost time for the 6 o’clock news. I’m in New Zealand, it’s about the end of a remarkably long summer (the water was warm enough to swim up until May Day, which is extraordinary). And we’re one lucky place in the world that’s almost Covid-free, I guess you could class us as relieved but nervous.
There are quite a few Canadians on this site, at least one Aussie, not sure where everyone else is from.
To return to Doctor Who, my favourite doctor is Capaldi. Tennant was good, though he got a bit emotional towards the end. Matt Smith struck me initially as too young and confused, I thought he’d never replace Tennant, but I soon got used to him. And probably my favourite episode is the Day of the Doctor, with the two of them (and John Hurt, and Rose aka The Moment).
5 May 2021 at 06:31 #71646@docnerd223 Hi docnerd ‘On the sofa’ is, in theory, for general chat about Doctor Who. ‘The kebab and calculator’ is for general chat about everything else. That’s as I understand it. In practice, discussions stray all over the place, I’ve never seen anyone admonished for going Off Topic. There are also forums for specific episodes, listed on the main page.
This isn’t a very busy site, sometimes days go by with no posts. So if you want to post something, I’m sure it would be welcomed.
4 May 2021 at 02:40 #71642@janetteb Two months – that’s serious. I’d start getting restive after a couple of weeks.
I was in a one-bed ward (i.e. private room). I could have had the operation for free on the NHS, I ‘went private’ because (a) I had my own health insurance which would pay $35k of the $42k total cost, the remaining $7k was just affordable for me, (b) I didn’t have to join a waiting list, I could schedule the op for when I wanted (I chose August, so I’d be recovered by the spring), and (c) it freed up a place for someone else on the list. So win-win. And (d), my one ‘luxury’, I paid $1k extra for a single room, rather than a twin room. I was actually more apprehensive about sharing a room with someone who might be a rugby fanatic or a devotee of soaps or sitcoms or (shudder) ‘reality TV’, than I was about the operation. (Just to clear up one point, the standard of care was not a consideration, heart ops here are done by the same specialist surgeons whether in public or private hospital).
I can absolutely share your feelings about being stuck in a ward of old people, specially in those early hours of the morning when you can’t get to sleep and the night seems to last forever.
And public televisions – I dislike them too. Usually they’re just loud enough to be a nuisance, without being audible. They’re very rarely showing anything I want to watch (Sturgeon’s Law applies – 95% of anything is rubbish) and if it *is* a program I want to watch there are far too many interruptions in a public setting. Muzak, on the other hand, I’m more tolerant of, since I can usually mentally tune it out and it occasionally reminds me of a good old song that I can then track down on Youtube and rip to a mp3 for my player.
Unlike you, I did grow up with TV (two channels) and it was kind of magical, at least for a while. But I soon got picky about it, I spent more time reading books (books are the ultimate in pickiness, I never have to read a book I don’t like). The trip through your grandmother’s garden sounds magical to me, I used to love ‘jungles’ when I was a kid in England. Anyway, now I really only watch the news and The Chase on TV, Mrs D watches indiscriminately while I jam on headphones and watch DVD’s or Youtube on my laptop. Interesting how the 60’s vision of the whole family gathered round the TV set soon degenerated into a battle over the remote, from which we have now been rescued by personal electronic devices. And the bane of public transport in the 60’s, loud transistor radios, has been mercifully silenced by headphones and earpods. Sometimes technology does cure its own ills.
3 May 2021 at 11:53 #71639@janetteb You summed up the Covid situation well, for us in NZ too. In normal times, the couple of lockdowns we’ve had would count as exceptional circumstances, but compared with the rest of the world they’re trivial. So long as our quarantine holds… Mrs D and I, being old like, will probably be due for vaccination in a month or so, apparently.
I don’t know about you in Oz, but here in NZ our summer has lasted absurdly long. Now it’s getting a bit cold at night, air’s cool but the sun is warm, on Saturday – May Day – I went to the beach and had probably my last swim of the year. I usually start swimming just before Christmas, the water doesn’t get really warm until February, and usually lasts till about Easter. Well this year it was warm until last week, which is ridiculous. On Saturday it had finally dropped back to about what it was at Christmas. Which is extraordinary.
2 May 2021 at 16:01 #71635@janetteb I agree with all of that. And that World Enough and Time / The Doctor Falls are the darkest episodes. (Heaven Sent was possibly even darker but it had a triumphant ending). I got the exact same feeling from the episodes, of trapped helplessness. That’s why I prefer Hell Bent as my favourite finale, even though Clara was dead, the tone was much lighter.
Except, my personal experience of hospital was the opposite of yours. I’ve only been in once, for a week, for a heart operation a decade ago (which was completely successful, I’m still here and still functioning). And it was a pleasant experience. No I’m not some weird masochist, in fact I used to be terrified of visiting the dentist. But I only have one vague memory of discomfort, when I momentarily half-woke up thirsty in the middle of the night of the operation with tubes stick down my throat. For the rest, I just had a week of lying on my back in bed, in a warm bright room, mostly listening to CD’s – I had books to read if I wanted but I never roused the energy, and a TV which I never switched on. And the great thing was, for possibly the only time in my working life, I could just lie there without any guilty feeling that I should be doing something productive. Doubtless the paracetamol helped me to relax. So this was really a very pleasant interlude – obviously I was lucky.
I do get occasional nightmares about being trapped in various weird situations – but not hospitals.
30 April 2021 at 12:04 #71627Hi Declan @oochillyo World Enough and Time / The Doctor Falls
Well I’m pleased you liked those eps. It’s about six months since I watched them but I can still remember them pretty well. So all this is from memory.
Right at the start I thought it was going to be a really fun episode, with Missy at her best – right up to the moment Bill got a hole blown in her. That was a hell of a shock. Then it went very dark. Good, but dark. Especially when it became gradually more apparent that Bill was not going to be magically fixed 100%. I think I suspected she was going to be turned into a Cyberman but it was still a shocking moment when that was confirmed – I was still desperately hoping she would somehow be rescued in the nick of time like in every single adventure drama ever. I think that was, quite possibly, the darkest moment in all of Dr Who.
Now, the Mondasian Cybermen – when I saw stills from the original OldWho ep, I thought they had to be the lamest, most unconvincing ‘monsters’ ever, they were only too obviously human actors in cloth helmets. But World Enough and Time turned them into the most convincing, most frightening ‘monsters’ of all, precisely *because* they were made-over humans. All kudos to Moffatt and the costume department for the transformation. And it was all done with the very best of intentions.
In The Doctor Falls, it was tragic how Bill still saw herself as Bill and everyone else just saw the Cyberman. And even though they accepted that CyberBill was on their side, they were still creeped out by her.
Missy and the Master – I must admit I was pleased when Missy finally decided to side with the Doctor, and shocked when the Master shot her (okay, he was provoked) – Missy, you really should be more careful! I found it tragic that the Doctor would never know what Missy decided or how she died.
And this was the Doctor, almost out of options, with the Tardis out of reach, in a hopeless situation, where he couldn’t pull off some incredibly clever move to save the day for all. All he could do was buy a little time for a few people. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Doctor so powerless.
And – then the Doctor died, far from his Tardis. And it looked like really the end for 12. And then a miracle happened – Heather! I was shocked (again!), surprised and delighted at this. I absolutely love it when the writers set something up, they tell us pretty explicitly what they’re going to do, and then, several episodes later, when everyone’s completely forgotten about it – they do it! Or in this case, Heather’s obsession with following Bill across the universe was well explored in The Pilot – does anyone doubt that Heather was keeping tabs on Bill and saw this as a final chance to rescue her?
By the way, I don’t see Testimony (in Twice Upon a Time, having acquired all Bill’s memories) as invalidating this. Any more than their possession of Clara’s memories – which they restored to the Doctor – invalidates Clara’s saga with Me in their Tardis, heading back to Gallifrey by the scenic route. In either case, Testimony could have extracted their memories, either milliseconds before they were intercepted by the Time Lords and Heather respectively, or after, when the Time Lords finally returned Clara and the Bill-Heather hybrid finally expired of some unknown cause.
27 April 2021 at 00:08 #71623@oochillyo Nothing secret about it, it’s not a matter of what I’m ‘allowed’ to say, and you can certainly ask.
If you look at Kaylee402’s only post, she is advertising and linking to a site where nursing students can pay to get someone else to write their assignments for them. I believe this is considered cheating (by the students). But anyway, nothing to do with Doctor Who.
If you click on her profile, she became a registered member and instantly posted that. Hence my conclusion.
Cheers
26 April 2021 at 11:35 #71621@craig – another spambot for you, Kaylee402 on General Open Thread – TV shows
25 April 2021 at 15:13 #71620Well, I just watched The Hungry Earth
Very intriguing moment with future Amy&Rory waving from the distance. Did that ever pay off? – I think it just got forgotten. That isn’t really an inconsistency – they had plenty of time between episodes to have wandered past there some time in the future – but it would have been interesting to see when it cropped up.
Rory is really being a bit of a drag at the start of the ep.
The drill at 21km is – improbable. The Kola borehole reached its practical limit at 12km due to heat and pressure.
The earth swallowing things up is marvellously spooky, it was a bit of an anticlimax that it was just people (well Silurians) doing it.
I like Nasreen (though I thought her sudden enthusiasm for travelling with the Doctor showed a remarkable intuition, but was a bit unexpected in the middle of a crisis). Her question after the Tardis fell to the Silurian tunnels – ‘why aren’t we burning alive?’ – is (finally) an acknowledgement of geotechnical physics.
I didn’t like Alaya and certainly didn’t like Ambrose. And what’s with this obsession humans and Silurians have with dissecting each other, other than low-budget horror?25 April 2021 at 01:31 #71617Okay, provisionally. (I have to say ‘provisionally’ because our young nephew is staying with us, he might want to go to the beach – insanely, the water is *still* beautifully warm, latest in the season I’ve ever known before it drops off towards winter. Or Mrs D might want me to drive them somewhere. However, I should be able to find a couple of hours somewhere in the day to watch a couple of episodes – I think you were talking about the Hungry Earth 2-parter? (Next on my rewatch list).
23 April 2021 at 10:10 #71615@macca Well, speaking as one whose favourite Doctor is Capaldi, if I had to make a list of the best Capaldi episodes – for me – it would be pretty much the list you gave to Declan (with the exception of Empress of Mars which doesn’t really float my boat). Though I might add Listen, Flatline, and the Monks trilogy.
But I’ve found – starting my re-watch at Season 5 – that even the episodes that don’t really stand out (and that I’d skip instantly if someone ‘rationed’ me to the best 20 or even best 50) – are really quite watchable. There are very few, of any season, that I can’t be bothered to watch. I think it was the Moff who said “You’ve got to keep giving the viewers something to keep them interested every five minutes” (or something of the sort) – and he does.
(The reason I re-started at Eleventh Hour and not Rose is that I’ve watched Seasons 1-4 many times. There used to be a video store – a Blockbuster Video franchise in Newmarket, Auckland near where I worked – that specialised in ‘cult’ TV series, particularly sci-fi – Who, Farscape, Trek (of course), Battlestar Galactica (old and Gino), Firefly, Red Dwarf, Blakes 7, The Prisoner etc etc. But eventually, tragically, it closed, somewhere about the end of Tennant. So I’d only seen a couple of Fifth season eps on TV and then I lost track of it. It was only a couple of years ago that a post online drew my attention to it again – it was actually a clip of Bill Nighy as curator in Vincent and the Doctor – and I decided to buy the DVD series and catch up. Which I did to the end of Series 11. Not sure if I’ll bother with Series 12.)
21 April 2021 at 01:14 #71612@oochillyo I’m sorry, I think I missed that. Was that your 8-37am or pm? (12.17 pm here)
20 April 2021 at 10:01 #71609@oochillyo Correct, but at the moment (due to Summer Time or somesuch) we’re just 11 hours ahead, i.e. our 8pm is your 9am. I could do 6pm till 3am (NZ time) – that is, 7am to 4pm UK time. I could also do midday till 6pm (11pm to 7am UK time) if I’m not out of the house.
20 April 2021 at 05:54 #71607@oochillyo Fine but – please excuse my ignorance – how do you mean ‘watch some Doctor Who with you’? I had imagined that we would just post our impressions of the episode here and comment on each other’s but there may be other ways to do it. Also, I’m in New Zealand so there’s probably a time difference (I can’t recall where you are?)
20 April 2021 at 02:01 #71605Okay, I just watched Amy’s Choice. Don’t have a lot to say. It sort of proved Amy loves Rory, but since Rory is a bit of a dork that doesn’t really thrill me. Maybe it was compensating for Amy throwing herself at the Doc in ‘Meanwhile in the Tardis’ (which was a very funny three-minute extra). The two scenarios – the cold star and the village full of really creepy aliens-inhabiting-old-folks – were really quite good. But they were both just – the Doc on magic mushrooms? I’m not usually disconcerted by ‘reset buttons’ but this one made the ep fall flat, for me.
@oochillyo So, I’m on to The Hungry Earth next.
20 April 2021 at 01:37 #71604@macca Well, my favourite Doctor is 12 (Capaldi), but I like all the previous NuWho doctors back to 9 (and also the War Doctor and Eight – though I’ve only seen him in the ‘The Night of the Doctor’ special). The only oldWho I’ve seen recently was Seven (McCoy), but he’s good too. (I saw a few Hartnells and Troughtons when they first screened, but that was a looong time ago). My favourite companion is Clara, and Rose, though I do like most of the rest back as far as Ace (pity Seven and Ace didn’t get to have more adventures).
So we disagree a little on that. But we agree (unfortunately) on Chibnall. When he started he said he wasn’t going to bring back any old monsters, so instead we got – toothface Tim Shaw, and the p’ting, and a talking frog (okay, the frog was cool in a weird sort of way, but I like frogs). And now I gather for Season 12 (haven’t watched it) he brought a swag of them back – but I’m not sure that’s a good thing unless the writing improves. Which I don’t think he’s capable of.19 April 2021 at 02:47 #71599@oochillyo Well, the Dickens story ‘The Signal Man’ is online at the link I mentioned, https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1289 (combined with two other Dickens horror stories).
I first read of the Beult viaduct accident of 1865 in ‘Red For Danger’ by L T C Rolt, a classic history of British railway accidents and the development of safety measures like signalling. It was written in 1955 but still highly readable today (I have a copy but I can still recall chunks of it from memory). Rolt’s style is good, not too technical, it explains any technicalities in layman’s terms. It was a popular book, published in hardback and paperback, if you come across it in a book sale for a few dollars it’d be well worth buying.
Also Wikipedia has a page on the accident – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staplehurst_rail_crash
If Unquiet Dead was 1869, that would fit better with Dickens’ life. I believe Dickens died in 1870. I seem to recall (from when I watched the episode) there was some sort of reference or implication of Dickens being later on in his life.
18 April 2021 at 14:31 #71595Unquiet Dead – just the third ever NuWho episode. I was amused by the Doc calling Rose ‘Barbarella’ – that was a campy movie, the sci-fi equivalent of a spaghetti Western. But anyway, as Rose, observed, we can never visit the past (the Doctor can).
(As an aside, I was watching a video in which Brian Cox was answering questions about cosmology and someone asked if time travel was possible and he answered with a flat ‘No’ as far as the past is concerned. Not just practically possible, but physically impossible. He isn’t usually so dogmatic. But – going backwards in time would violate causality, which means the physical laws of the Universe would break down (that’s as I understand the point). Same for faster-than-light travel. But never mind, this is science fiction where anything is possible…)
I have to say, my respect for Dickens went up a lot after this episode, purely as a result of the actor playing him. When I was at school I loathed Dickens, simply because we *had* to read him. (Not nearly as much as I detested Graham Greene, though). Shakespear was okay, because – though his English was much more archaic than Dickens – his works being screenplays were much more concise than Dickens’ florid style. But Dickens was a massively popular writer – his stories were serialised in weekly magazines I believe.
Dickens’ short story ‘The Signal Man’ (which the Doctor calls ‘best short story ever written’) was okay, but it could still have done with a good editing. (Available online here: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1289 ) It probably appealed more to me because it was about railways.
(Dickens was actually involved in a train crash – on the South Eastern Railway in 1865. A crew were replacing a rail on the Beult viaduct, a low viaduct near Staplehurst, the foreman had consulted the timetable but had misread the time of the boat train, which ran at irregular times (dictated by the tides). There was a man with a red flag, supposed to be 1000 yards ahead, but he had estimated the distance by counting telegraph poles which were unusually closely spaced at this location and was only 550 yards away – not far enough. The train ran over the side of the viaduct and was wrecked. A number of people were killed, but not Dickens or his mistress or her mother. (His mistress – Dickens you old dog! I would never have guessed.))
Unquiet Dead was ostensibly set in 1860, which doesn’t quite work – The Signal Man was first published in 1866 (and probably based on the Clayton Tunnel collision of 1861). But Dickens doesn’t query the Doctor’s mention of it. Maybe the Tardis got its dates a few years late, after all it was supposed to be going to Naples, not Cardiff. What intrigues me – in real-world terms – is whether Dickens wrote The Signal Man just before, or just after, his own terrible experience of the Beult viaduct crash. I tend to think he must have written it before, and it wasn’t published until afterward.
Okay, back to Who – I did really like Gwyneth. Interesting that she could read Rose’s mind. And nicely written that her adventurous spirit was clashing with her brainwashed Victorian morality. It’s hard for us to comprehend how limited (in distance) people’s lives were just 100 years before we (oldies) were born – nowhere in England is more than 60 miles from the sea and yet there were people living in the 1860’s who had never, ever seen it. The advent of railways was changing that so fast, not just for the upper-middle-class like Dickens but for the working classes too.
Certainly a very watchable episode for NuWho’s first foray into the past.
Oh, and – Who producers – given Dickens’ penchant for rail travel (at least before 1865), and Queen Victoria’s, and the fact that Britain is peppered with preserved railways only too eager to rent out their trains and lovely old locomotives of whatever period – howcome you’ve never ever shown a vintage train? (Orient Express in space doesn’t count).
17 April 2021 at 08:46 #71591Speaking of which – Helen McCrory, who played Rosanna Calvierri, has, sadly, just died. It was on our evening news ten minutes ago (though they didn’t mention her role in Doctor Who).
(Would you believe this – I’m just watching the commentary for Vampires of Venice and one of the commentors mentions how good Helen was. That is, Helen McCrory. And then I finally ‘clicked’. I can notice a fact if you wave it in front of me often enough).
17 April 2021 at 07:36 #71590Hi Declan @oochillyo
First, spoilers – I’m not sure if there’s a website policy on spoilers (other than current episodes). Maybe I should have been declaring ‘Spoilers’ before I talked about past episodes – I haven’t been doing so. Can anyone clarify? (In NZ, I regard everything as a spoiler – for example Xena, even though it was filmed here, at one point there was a 2-year hiatus between seasons screened here, so *everything* online was a spoiler).
But anyway, I don’t think there’s any problem with discussing episodes in this thread, but if you’re not sure just put a spoiler warning.
Face the Raven – I can’t remember where I posted about it, but I’d be very happy to discuss it. One of my favourite episodes, even though tragic. Just go ahead with your comments.
Vampires of Venice – my, you do analyse episodes carefully, don’t you? I hadn’t noticed those plot points. Apparently all the Saturnyn women died escaping the cracks, leaving only the Queen, her son, and all the males. I’m guessing now, but maybe only Francesco’s blood can convert human women into Saturnyn brides. Presumably the Queen’s can’t because she’s female, and all the Saturnyn males can’t because they’re not royal. They could breed with human->Saturnyn women, but not ‘create’ them. (This doesn’t make sense in human terms, but gender and reproduction work very differently in other species – consider bees, or hyenas). So when Amy killed Francesco they couldn’t make any more, and Isabella’s father blew up the ones they had. Why the Queen couldn’t mate with some of the males I don’t know, maybe she’s too old as you said (it happens) – and no, cancel that, I’ve just read the website (tardis.fandom.com – excellent site). It’s simpler than I thought. Because Rosanna’s perception filter was jammed (as a result of Amy kicking it – good shot Amy!) she couldn’t turn it off, so the male Saturnyn’s couldn’t tell who she was, took her for human, and instead of mating they ate her.
As for other branches of the Saturnyn race on other planets, maybe Rosanna had lost touch with them so didn’t know if they had survived, maybe she was exaggerating when she said the Doctor had killed their race. I just see that as a minor inconsistency.
16 April 2021 at 16:18 #71587Vampires of Venice – another monster with needle-sharp teeth (like Prisoner Zero), there’s something very scary about teeth like that.
So then Rory is having a stag do complete with cake and stripper but instead he gets the Doctor, who tells him in front of all his friends that Amy is a great kisser. The Doctor has still not adjusted to the human world, obviously. Interesting that Venice is under quarantine to stop the plague getting in (just like NZ at the moment). Trogir (in Croatia) makes a very convincing Venice, with expertly done CGI ‘extensions’ as required.
Something about Francesco makes me want someone to punch him. The girls are all very good looking, I guess as vampires should be. So then Amy applies for admission to the ‘school’ (could see that coming a mile off). “What could be so bad it doesn’t mind us thinking it’s a vampire” – intriguing question. I was greatly saddened by the death of Isabella. Quite fitting that that was what caused the Doctor to issue his death sentence on the Calvierris. And that her grieving father blew up all the Calvierri females, thus dooming the race.
First mention of the Silence – Moff takes his time with his world-building.
I like the little touch where the black-clad henchman (presumably human) takes the opportunity to decamp with the family treasure.16 April 2021 at 10:50 #71582@oochillyo Declan – OK, I’ve got Vampires of Venice and Amy’s Choice to work through, but when I get to The Hungry Earth I’ll drop a note. Actually from the title and the spooky atmosphere of the start of Hungry Earth I was expecting something more metaphysical. It reminded me of Conan Doyle’s ‘The Day the Earth Screamed’ which also featured a deep drill hole – turned out the Earth is alive and we are no more than like bacteria on its skin. (A bit like Kill the Moon – but rather more convincingly plotted, I think).
(Did you know Conan Doyle also wrote historical novels and science fiction – the Professor Challenger novels – as well as Sherlock Holmes? His ‘The Lost World’ was the original inspiration, I think, for all the Jurassic park-type dinosaur movies. Doyle’s Lost World was Mount Roraima (or a fictional counterpart) in Brazil – you can Google it – a high plateau surrounded by sheer cliffs with (in Dyle’s world) surviving dinosaurs on the top. And – @nerys was talking about horror stories – there was his story ‘The Horror of the Heights’ in which he described huge tentacled jellyfish-like beings lurking in the stratosphere (remember this was published in 1913 when nobody had flown much over 10,000 feet). It scared the daylights out of me.)
I have to disagree with you on Cybermen vs Daleks – I think the Daleks are more deadly and always should be. I have no logical reason at all for wanting that, just I think the Daleks are cooler monsters. But it’s absolutely a matter of personal taste.
16 April 2021 at 10:23 #71581@janetteb Kill the Moon probably started as a high-concept musing – ‘what if the Moon were an egg?’. Unfortunately, while many such postulates result in extraordinary episodes, sometimes the practical difficulties are insurmountable. But in KTM they just blandly ignored them all, a list a mile long. I think every practical detail was wrong. For just the first example, landing a space shuttle – which is a big (and very poor) glider, on the Moon – gliders need air. But even the non-techy bits were wrong – how could Clara ‘consult the people of earth’ by having them turn their lights off – how long would that take to organise? If the risk to Earth was from chunks of Moon, released by the creature, hitting Earth, then what happens if you blow the Moon to pieces? (Actually orbits don’t work like that, generally). Also, I doubt a dozen nukes would even scratch it. Why would the Moon ‘putting on weight’ cause massive disruption on Earth? ‘High tide everywhere at once’ – how? Where would the extra water come from? And if it was an egg, why would it put on weight – eggs don’t. And how would it, it’s not eating. And if just ‘putting on weight’ caused massive disruption, what about the gravitational effect of the creature flying off and another Moon popping into existence, the gravitational variations from that would surely be spectacular. Also disastrous. Nothing about the story works!
I do like the situation that they have to consider detonating the bombs and killing themselves to save Earth – that’s a weighty situation. Could be good in some other episode.
And Clara’s decision was (as you note) absolutely wrong, but portrayed as right. The only thing I did like was the argument with the Doctor, Clara was quite justified in being incandescent with rage at the situation the Doctor left her in. It was also absolutely out of character for the Doctor. (And I can’t help but note the difference with the 13th Doctor, who scolds other people for killing things and then does exactly the same herself in the same scene *and nobody ever calls her out on it*, which is intensely annoying).
Yes I’d much rather the Doctor and companion got along, but if they’re going to clash then it should be a good one.
15 April 2021 at 17:36 #71577There are some interesting points in this conversation you’re having.
@janetteb I thought Mickey was a bit of a drip, though he did improve a bit as time went on. But the companion’s boyfriend never had an easy ride in Nu Who – Mickey, Rory, Danny Pink. Hint to guys – if your girlfriend starts travelling with the doctor, just find another girl, it’ll save you a lot of grief in the long run.
I’m always *very* reticent about watching a TV show with anyone who isn’t a fan, I’m nervous they’re not going to like it and that does destroy the enjoyment for me. And I don’t like reading bad reviews for the same reason, though I don’t mind arguing with other fans because, I suppose, they’ve also made the implicit commitment to follow the series so they’re not going to laugh at me for liking Who (or whatever).
I do like Army of Ghosts / Doomsday, even though it’s tragic and marks the loss of Rose, who is one of my favourite companions. Because I’m okay with sad, if it’s well done. And I think this is the first episode where a voice-over was used – that can be very effective, if used sparingly. It certainly was effective here – Rose (Voice over:) “But then came the army of ghosts. Then came Torchwood and the War. And that’s when it all ended. This is the story of how I died.” That really makes you sit up and pay attention. And I loved the pissing contest between the Cybermen and the Daleks – “Daleks, be warned. You have declared war upon the Cybermen.” “This is not war. This is pest control.”
The last few seconds of Doomsday, I’m afraid, permanently prejudiced me against Donna. I know it was just a teaser for Runaway Bride, but I wish they hadn’t done it. The Doctor has just farewelled Rose and just faded before he could say ‘I love you’ and he’s grieving – and then this strident angry woman shatters the mood. First impressions sometimes count for a lot and unfortunately, in Donna’s case, they’re appalling – a Dalek would not have been more unwelcome.Season 2 was OK for me – a mix of weak and strong episodes. The Girl in the Fireplace (another sad but excellent ep), The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit, where Rose saved the day at the last moment, Army of Ghosts / Doomsday – all strong episodes. The Idiot’s Lantern, Love & Monsters, Fear Her aren’t up to much (IMO), though I found Love & Monsters reasonably entertaining and not nearly as bad as its reputation. And the first four eps – Christmas Invasion through to School Reunion – were fairly good. It was in School Reunion that the Doctor said the memorable phrase, “You get one warning. That was it.” The full quote is, “I’m so old now. I used to have so much mercy. You get one warning. That was it.” I love the understated menace in that.
(I thought it was in Christmas Invasion but Grepping** tells me it was actually in School Reunion. I just use the command “grep ‘You get one’ * ” in my transcripts directory. It searches through all the files in the directory for the phrase “You get one” and prints the filename and the line of text. ‘grep’ stands for ‘get regular expression’, an old Unix/Linux utility, I think you can get it for Windows too. I’ve got all the transcripts from Chatokeya.net which is a marvellous site saved on my hard drive, it makes finding a quote very quick and easy).15 April 2021 at 12:41 #71571So far as I can tell, this is the most appropriate forum to discuss episodes. (Though people seem to ramble all over the place, and I’m as guilty as anyone).
Flesh and Stone – I’m continuing my trip through Season 5. A Time of Angels was a cracking episode, and this second half keeps it up. First time I saw it I was a little confused about the storyline, but this time round I could follow it OK. The Moff was really piling on the hazards here – Angels, being trapped in the corridor, having to kill the lights, Amy’s count-down, having to keep her eyes shut, the crack in the universe… the sequence where Amy had to walk blind through the Angels and they were starting to realise she couldn’t see them was genuinely scary.
The Angels falling into the crack as the ship’s gravity failed was convenient but quite a legitimate plot point – that was well set up ahead of time but it caught me by surprise just like it did the Angels. Because they could move so fast in the dark one tended to forget they were subject to gravity too.
It’s being established there’s something odd about Amy – she can’t remember earlier Earth events, but when the troopers fall into the crack – which causes their mates to forget they ever existed – Amy still does remember.
Also notable for Amy coming on to the Doctor at the end (and in the short ‘Meanwhile in the Tardis’). I don’t find this odd – she’s just barely survived a terrifying experience, she’s getting married in the morning which is an alarmingly ordinary prospect (particularly since Rory probably talked her into it), not entirely surprising she wants a final fling with the madman with a magic box who saved her life. What’s funny is Amy’s determination and the Doctor’s bashful refusal to understand what she’s aiming at. I don’t think I’d have the Doctor’s strength of resistance.15 April 2021 at 11:41 #71570@winston I agree about Holmes and Watson should be British males. But I’m not ‘protective’ of the Doctor in that sense that I require him(/her) to be a certain character. Since the Doctor regenerates into a whole new person there’s nothing to protect. What I do want is that the new Doctor be an interesting strong character (and, I guess, not break continuity with any previous incarnation, which should be fairly easy to not do, but I think Chibnall failed to not do it). But I’m afraid Jodie Whittaker just doesn’t ‘work’ for me.
Incidentally, I tend to like Bond movies better when they’ve got a strong female lead to match Bond – such as Die Another Day (Halle Berry) and Tomorrow Never Dies (Michelle Yeoh) – both kick-ass (as well as eye candy). Having a strong female co-lead actually adds a lot of interest to the story, for me.
14 April 2021 at 14:55 #71567@janetteb Well, as to James Bond, I guess you’re right and continuity of the main character is a lost cause (though Mrs D still refers to Sean Connery as ‘James Bond’). Talking of actors who didn’t ‘fit’, (I know you were talking about the Doctor but I’m applying it here), Sean Connery fitted perfectly, George Lazenby (who only did one) for some reason didn’t fit very well, and Roger Moore didn’t fit at all, he was far too debonair and lightweight and the series degenerated from a slick spy thriller into a camp comedy caper. Later on, when Moore got a bit older and acquired a few lines on his face, he improved markedly, just before he was replaced.
Though of course The Avengers did replace their female lead with Emma Peel (Diana Rigg). (Oh, I just did a quick Google and had to revise that! John Steed’s first notable partner was Cathy Gale (Honor Blackman) who started the whole leather-clad action thing. Then, well into the run, she was replaced by Emma Peel, who continued in the same style. And later on, Emma Peel was replaced by Tara King (Linda Thorson). Though I think, for most people, Emma Peel will always be the classic Avengers girl.
But anyway, Avengers did explain those changes in the plot, so continuity was preserved.Back to the Doctor – I’ve never seen Sacha Dhawan so can’t comment, I’m sure you’re right 🙂 Of course they managed to work around Peter Capaldi’s previous appearance, but that was quite a long time gap (6 years, or 2000, according to how you count it) and they did put in a little reference to explain it, not that it mattered much. Didn’t it also happen to Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman)? But transmuting from The Master might be a bit too hard to explain. For the exact same reason Michelle Gomez could not have become the Doctor. (And of course Sophie Okonedo would have needed some explaining too, but probably manageable).
It’s just occurred to me (though it must have become painfully obvious to casting directors) that a long-running TV series like Dr Who has such a vast appetite for ‘secondary’ characters that the pool of ‘unused’ actors becomes seriously depleted. It certainly happened here in NZ where I guess the number of actors is much less, over the course of a series like Hercules/Xena some extras racked up half-a-dozen different roles (I think the record was ten). That’s speaking parts, crowd scenes didn’t count.
14 April 2021 at 11:45 #71565Okay, I’ll pick that one up, cautiously.
First, I like every Doctor from McCoy through to Capaldi. (I thought McCoy looked silly in still photos, but after seeing him in The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot I watched his last three stories and I thought he was good. Great chemistry with Sophie Aldred. And I thought Matt Smith looked too foolish initially, but he rapidly grew on me).
I don’t think the Doctor “needs” to be female, or black, or white male for that matter. In fact I distrust people who say someone else “needs” to do something, I think they’re just projecting their feelz as an imperative onto everybody else.
Roles like, say, the next James Bond should – I think – continue to be white and male for simple continuity reasons. (For strict continuity he should still be played by Sean Connery, of course). Changing his colour/gender is just too much of a jump. Invent a new spy if that’s required. Halle Berry or Michelle Yeoh could play them.
But the Doctor and his regenerations is, almost uniquely, the one case where the ‘continuity’ consideration does not apply. So a black/female Doctor can fit perfectly well in my opinion. I do think there’s a certain amount of ‘wokeness’ (ugh) operating, in that the Doctor’s been white male for so long, there’s a feeling it’s about time blacks/females got their turn, which is fair enough. I’d be annoyed if there was one obviously best choice who happened to be a white male and who was bypassed for an inferior choice just for that reason, but I can’t suggest anyone who ‘owns’ the role so I can’t cavil.
That said, I just do not like Chibnall’s writing or Whittaker’s interpretation of the Doctor. It seems to be the case that Chibnall wanted to do everything differently and Whittaker never watched any previous Doctor Who, and it shows. No presence, no underlying depth of character, no menace. (Disclaimer: That’s based on Season 11, haven’t watched 12 yet).
If I had to suggest an actor off the top of my head, I’d say how about Sophie Okonedo (Liz 10 from The Beast Below). She looks like she absolutely could kick ass. But I’m sure there are dozens of actors of any colour/gender who could do a perfectly good job given decent writing and direction.
11 April 2021 at 08:45 #71558@janetteb The Piano was at Karekare, which is the next significant beach south of Piha. Hercules and Xena and most other productions use Bethells Beach, 5 miles north of Piha. Piha tends to not be used so much because it’s the busiest settlement, however I have come across filming activity at The Gap and also at the far north end of Piha Beach. In between these beaches are a lot of tiny bays under the cliffs, some with a little sand, some of them only accessible by boat. South of Karekare though, the beach extends in one sweep 5 miles to Whatipu, it has built out a mile from the cliffs with swamps behind it. I haven’t seen The Piano but those sweeping beach shots you mention were probably of this long beach. I’ve only walked this stretch of beach once (both ways, there and back), and I met – no-one. Not a soul, it was utterly deserted.
I’d guess the beaches west of you suffer from being too sheltered for good wave action. Most of the beaches around Auckland (except for the west coast) are the same, they tend to be muddy rather than sandy, either being in harbours or sheltered by the Hauraki Gulf islands. It takes a good amount of wave action to keep a beach clear of mud, I think.
As it happens, today was fine (after two days of rain), so a beautiful fine calm day at the beach, and the water is still warm. I’m not sure how long this is going to last but I’m making the most of it.
10 April 2021 at 16:26 #71555Hi @janetteb
The black sand at Piha is a mixture of iron-rich black sand (titanomagnetite), and ordinary yellow-brown sand. The black sand apparently comes all the way up the coast from Mt Taranaki (Mt Egmont), 200 miles away, by wave action (okay, so I had to Google that). The yellow sand is probably of local origin, and that would be volcanic, since the coast line locally is mostly volcanic comglomerate from ash showers, with occasional lava intrusions. The sand can vary from almost yellow to purple-black, depending how the washing effect of the tide has sorted the grains. It’s extremely fine, and gets very hot in the sun since the black iron absorbs a lot of heat (due to its colour), has a high heat capacity and a high conductivity. On a sunny afternoon it’s a painful challenge to race across the beach in bare feet to the cooler sand below high tide mark.
I don’t know for sure, but I’d guess its darkness might have caused headaches in the grading for Directors of Photography on innumerable productions, not just Hercules and Xena, but a number of movies, most notably The Piano, shot on the west coast. It’s okay (visually) in the sun, but when a cloud hits it – of which we have a plentiful supply – it can look really dark. One time I was walking at Piha and I came upon an American production being shot at The Gap. Nobody would tell me its name, but the crew were very pleasant and gave me a coffee and a snack from the refreshment tent. The security guards for these productions are invariably pleasant and polite about keeping bystanders out of shot, it’s a public beach so I don’t think their filming permit gives them any legal authority to chase people away. But there are so few people on the beach outside summer holiday weekends, their job isn’t too difficult. I wonder how that compares with e.g. Doctor Who filming on the beach in Time of Angels.
@winston Good to hear about your forthcoming vaccine. Vaccination has started here in NZ, I’m not sure where we are on the list, not for a while yet, but it’s not so urgent for us.
10 April 2021 at 11:37 #71553Not sure whether this should be in Doctor Who memories (where I put my comments on Victory of the Daleks) or On The Sofa. I’ll stick it here (On The Sofa). I’ve got up to A Time of Angels.
A Time of Angels – now that’s cooking with gas (as they used to say). Right out of the blocks, it’s cool, slick and cheeky. Hallucinogenic lipstick, indeed. River, summoning the Doctor across 12,000 years of space-time to rescue her when she blows herself into space. And she can drive the Tardis better than the Doctor – cue the inverse of woman driver cliches. Is this River’s first appearance since Silence in the Library? Love the way she and Doctor compare notes.
The first sight of the Angel, the blurry monochrome TV picture, reminds me strongly of ‘Alien’ – Ridley Scott’s classic scifi horror. Apparently the ‘alien ship’ set looked so phony when seen in close-up, that he had the genius idea of showing it all through a grainy old TV set which served as a monitor for the crew’s helmet cameras. Then when Amy returns to look at the monitor and the angel has moved – that’s genuinely a shock. Especially since the video is supposed to be on a repeating loop. And then Amy’s nightmare begins…
The whole sequence of the soldiers looking through the catacombs with torches in the dark is reminiscent of ‘Alien’ (or was it ‘Aliens’?). Very scary though. And then the realisation that, if the extinct Atlans all had two heads, why do all the statues only have one?
This was a cracking episode.9 April 2021 at 09:25 #71552@winston I thought you might Google it (it’s what I instantly do for any reference).
I usually swim at the South beach (south of Lion Rock), but my favourite spot for watching the surf is The Gap. If you zoom in on Satellite View, at the south end is Taitomo Island – which is only just technically an island, the water only just fills a shallow channel across the beach inside the island at the top of the tide – and at the south end of the island is The Gap (which is marked on Google as The Blue Pool – I have never heard it called that, and it usually isn’t blue). There is a small deep pool there (usually, sometimes it gets bigger, but I’ve known it to disappear completely once – the sand on the beach moves around a LOT from year to year). But anyway, there’s a natural rock wall, I think a lava dyke, that runs north-south across the inlet that makes it so magic – waves come thundering in through the Gap, hit the rock wall just below the surface, and surge over it, but that breaks most of their force, so you can swim in the pool inside in comparative safety even when the approaching waves are spectacular.The other interesting phenomenon is that the incoming waves bring in a lot more water over the ‘wall’ than can drain back out after the wave has subsided, so a ‘river’ flows northwards across the sand and disappears through the Taitomo cave (which Google has named ‘the Keyhole’).
I like to sit on a comfortable natural rock seat on the rocks at the south side of the gap and watch big swells come thundering in and sometimes make massive showers of spray. I can do that for an hour.
This picture http://cr01.info/misc/Piha-TheGap/p1230045.jpg shows it at just above low tide, you can see the ‘rock wall’ with a wave just managing to spill over it.
And here’s a couple at high tide with good waves, which is when I like it best, the ‘rock wall’ is submerged but doing good work at bouncing most of the wave energy back seawards
http://cr01.info/misc/Piha-TheGap/P1060830.JPG
http://cr01.info/misc/Piha-TheGap/P1060835.JPG
(I do hope the website software doesn’t imbed those pics, I don’t want to use up all Craig’s data storage)8 April 2021 at 08:27 #71548I saw that one. One ref to Peter Davison and four paragraphs on Advice When Visiting Your Doctor, presumably stolen from somewhere. Makes me wonder if it’s some sort of bot that can’t tell the Doctor from a doctor.
I can’t find it now, maybe Craig got to it.
8 April 2021 at 07:52 #71546Thanks @ winston
Here’s hoping your emergency lockdown works and you’re released in time for your summer.It’s just occurred to me how extraordinarily lucky I am. First, I’m retired, there’s just me and Mrs D in the house, so we have space, even in a lockdown, to not get on each other’s nerves (and after 30+ years we’ve learned how to get along). I imagine families in inner city flats, or people having relationship problems, must really suffer.
And the other thing, our first Covid lockdown was March last year, pretty much when the summer weather broke (it’s hanging on later this year), so not-going-to-the-beach was something that would have happened anyway. Though on a nice winter day (happens occasionally) I have been known to go there for a walk (not during lockdown though, too far). I do love walking on the beach and, if the sea is rough, watching the waves surging and crashing in The Gap, I can sit there for an hour and just watch the sea.And even in Level 4 we were allowed out to the nearest park, which was the busiest it had ever been, with people walking around in intricate dynamically changing patterns keeping at least 2 metres from each other. So I was still able to do my 45 minutes daily walk without which I will turn into a blob.
8 April 2021 at 07:22 #71545Nothing wrong with jigsaw puzzles. 🙂 There’s something very satisfying about completing a good 1500 piece puzzle. Mind you, I do ‘cheat’ by making sure the puzzle I choose has plenty of detail and no big areas of low-contrast visually ‘samey’ extent. Then I make little piles of e.g. sky, sea, building, etc, and I usually do the edges first. I suspect that’s how the Doctor would do it (unless of course he wrote a computer program to exactly match the shapes of the edges of the pieces).
Has the Doctor or anyone else in Who ever done a jigsaw puzzle?
Anyway, plot holes (and physical impossibilities). I’ll allow pretty big ones for an episode I like. I’ll happily accept time travel, anti-gravity and teleports (because it’s sci-fi). But things like the golden arrow in Robot of Sherwood bother me because an arrow is a common everyday item with no supernatural properties, and the Doctor didn’t ‘magick’ it. The more ‘current technology’ a thing is, the more it bothers me when it does something physically impossible *unless there’s alien tech involved*.
Kill The Moon went well over the physical-impossibility border in so many ways, it was as if it was trying to stretch my credulity. Victory of the Daleks has this huge time jump in the middle (unless I missed something) where the antigrav-equipped Spitfires suddenly appear. I can accept the antigrav and gloss over how the pilots could breathe, and even their chances of destroying the mothership with 20mm Hispano cannon, but the time element baffles me. If the Doctor had managed to time-lock the Dalek mothership for a couple of months I would not have been so puzzled.
I think I’m revealing my inner nerd 🙂
7 April 2021 at 13:51 #71542So I just watched Victory of the Daleks, because it was next in sequence.
Churchill was not particularly good, though not atrociously bad either. A bit too fat and the accent not quite right.
Stukas over London? I didn’t think they had the range. But Googling shows the occasional one did drop a bomb on London, though not a dozen of them in daylight. So we can count that as semi-accurate.
Curious that Amy doesn’t remember the Daleks – a first hint that her world is not the same one.
There is a HUGE continuity problem with the Spitfires in space. It would take weeks to fit the antigrav units, develop a pressurised cockpit (so the pilots could exist), and make three aircraft. It would take many hours (even with antigrav) for them to take off and reach the Dalek mothership. In the episode it takes 5 minutes.
One Dalek could shoot down a dozen Stukas – howcome the Dalek mothership couldn’t get three Spitfires? And how much damage would a pair of 20mm Hispano cannon do to a Dalek mothership? What were the Spitfire engines running on? How did they manouvre with no air?
Why do I get the urge to nitpick this? Because WW2 aircraft are among my interests, I guess. The more you know about a topic, the less likely to be able to accept inaccuracies around it. But I think that continuity gap over the time for the Spitfires to reach the mothership would bother me even if I cared nothing about aircraft.
Never mind, Time of Angels next.6 April 2021 at 15:15 #71539The Caretaker. If that’s what the Doctor calls ‘undercover’ – Worst. Disguise. Ever.
I seem to recall that Danny and the Doctor weren’t too impressed with each other (to put it mildly). And this was where Clara’s efforts to lead a normal life and indulge in adventures with the Doctor came unstuck. In fact I wasn’t too impressed with Danny. He seemed too controlling. But this was probably because I regarded Clara’s arrangements with the Doctor as normal (for a companion), how did the newcomer Danny have any business dictating to Clara how she lived her life? Of course I was biassed.
As for Courtney – no. Just no. Impossible brat.
It got worse with Kill The Moon (though the clash between Clara and the Doctor at the end was impressive). But that had plot holes and physical impossibilities that made anything in The Caretaker or Robot of Sherwood look like pinpricks. Got a lot better with Mummy on the Orient Express and Flatline – those are two I would go to for ‘feel-good’ episodes. I loved the mini-Tardis in Flatline.
6 April 2021 at 14:16 #71538@winston I guess in Canada you should be getting into spring by now?
Easter is usually when the weather breaks down here, but our summer (NZ) seems to be hanging on extraordinarily well. We had a batch of rain before Easter, so I hadn’t been out to Piha beach for a week and a half, went out today, the beach was near deserted, the waves were big, but, to my surprise, the water is still warm. As warm as it was at Christmas! Absolutely great. The only other people swimming were a family of four from Brazil, and there were three Japanese tourists on the beach taking selfies in front of the surf. Since anyone from most countries has to stay two weeks in quarantine on arrival, and places and permission are strictly limited, I wonder what their stories are. Have they been stuck here ever since Covid started? Who knows.
3 April 2021 at 11:31 #71528@winston That’s happy news. I guess he’ll have a story to tell his kids in future years if he remembers (or if his parents document it for him). Kids are surprisingly resilient. I’m not surprised he made a kilometer, even young kids can move at quite surprising speeds on occasion. (I’ve just realised I’ve been saying ‘surprising’ a lot, too lazy to reword it, sorry 🙂
1 April 2021 at 11:31 #71512Well, I just watched The Beast Below (carrying on from The Eleventh Hour). Almost didn’t bother, but I did because it had Sophie Okonedo in it. And – it was very good indeed. There was a lot more in it than I remembered. The dialogue between the Doctor and Amy was engaging. The little girl (Mandy) was a very appealing character. The plot point about voters choosing ‘Protest’ or ‘Forget’ was well worked out. Sophie Okonedo as Liz 10 was magnificent, I would have loved to see her as the 13th Doctor for example. When she said “*I* am the highest authority”, that was convincingly regal. And the plot twist that she herself had perpetuated the regime she was now investigating (and had chosen to Forget) was brilliant. The Star Whale was a rather absurd concept, but I could easily overlook that because, as always, it was the character interactions that made the story.
30 March 2021 at 08:04 #71511I found with Hercules and Xena that the pleasant, often impressive, scenery helped a lot to make me more accepting of impossibilities. Though about 50% of the episodes are still forgettable and better forgotten. It was an open secret even the producers acknowledged that the quality varied wildly. The other thing they had going for them was Joe loDuca’s magnificent musical score, I rate him consistently better than Murray Gold (though it’s not a competition, that’s just my personal opinion, and Murray Gold did good work in many eps).
Joxer, now, was one of those characters that people either loved or found intensely annoying. I thought that intensity of opinion was unique to Xena fandom but I’ve since seen it in others including Doctor Who.
30 March 2021 at 07:03 #71510@janetteb A number of Christmas eps aren’t very Christmassy (not that I care because I never watch eps on their TV release date). The End of Time is one of those. But quite a powerful ep. A good voice-over always adds weight, especially when it’s voiced by someone like Timothy Dalton. Some people just have voices that ring with authority. I quite liked the John Sim version of the Master in this one, now that he was vulnerable and not the main enemy; and I liked Lucy’s revenge. And the Vinvocci (did anyone recognise Sinead Keenan as the werewolf from Being Human?) were great comedy. It’s hard to look exasperated when you’re green and covered in spikes but she managed it. I did have a credibility failure when the Doctor crashed straight through the glass dome and survived. Much liked the firefight between the Master and Rassilon. Wilf getting himself stuck in the control room was annoying and a bit of a downer since it killed the Doctor. It also seemed rather contrived.
Speaking of Specials, other than Christmas, the previous one, Planet of the Dead, was good. The horde of metallic scavengers was frightening. The fly creatures were surprisingly sympathetic, pity they got killed off. And Christina (Michelle Ryan) was a great intrepid character, I was convinced she was going to become a companion. And she might have done, if Ten wasn’t reaching his use-by date. I think there could have been some good clashes between her and the Doctor. Or maybe she might have been a recurring character like River Song.
@winston As it happens, I’ve restarted watching with Matt Smith and Amy’s first ep, The Eleventh Hour (yes the very next ep after The End of Time). Although I wasn’t alone in the house last night, I still half-closed my eyes for the jump-scare when the hideous Prisoner Zero appears behind Amy. This time round I could follow the sequence of the Doctor’s appearances to Amelia Pond rather better. And I’ve grown more used to Matt Smith, first time round I found his youthful food faddery quite annoying after the far more serious Tennant. Not sure if I’ll carry on with The Beast Below or skip it, I might take it in for the sight of Sophie Okonedo as Liz 10.
29 March 2021 at 12:00 #71506@winston It was probably just as well that my knowledge of ancient history was…. sketchy. If I’d known much I would probably have been continually dismayed by Xena’s wildly erratic treatment of history and chronology 🙂
But what am I talking about. Greek female warrior princess – about as likely as a Tardis, I guess. It’s a thesis of mine that ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ is very inconsistent and what really bugs me will pass unnoticed by someone else – and vice versa.
Just for starters everyone in the ancient (Xena/Hercules) world spoke the same language (which conveniently happened to be English) without the benefit of a Tardis translation circuit. Ah well, pretty much like every other historical drama in that respect. Translator microbes and Babel fish hadn’t been invented yet.
29 March 2021 at 09:52 #71505@janetteb You forgot Last Christmas! The best ‘happy’ of them all, in my opinion. Where else could you have a sarcastic Father Christmas and sarcastic elves drawing attention to the unlikeliness of their own existence – and all strictly explained in sci-fi (and not magic or fantasy) terms? (You could in Pratchett’s Discworld, but that functioned explicitly under the influence of a pervasive magical field so it doesn’t count). But quite aside from that, it was hilarious.
Anyway, that’s my number one. I do like Twice Upon a Time, I don’t know why you didn’t think it was ‘happy’. The Doctor gets to see Bill again, Testimony restores his memories of Clara. And Testimony turns out to be benign – “It isn’t an evil plan. I don’t know what to do when it isn’t an evil plan.” Priceless.
A Christmas Carol was much sadder. Lovely, but very sad. I did like that Kazran hadn’t frozen Abigail out of spite, but because he didn’t want to lose her. But many of the Christmas specials weren’t ‘happy’ ones. Voyage of the Damned – which I quite liked – okay, Mr Copper was lucky, but Astrid died.
You also forgot The End of Time (two-parter) with the Master and the Time Lords. That was a cracker. Timothy Dalton as Lord President was formidable. But also not a ‘happy’ episode.
And The Time of the Doctor wasn’t a ‘happy’ episode either. Actually a good episode, sad in parts (where the Doctor was growing old). Actually I always mix it up with The Name of the Doctor, both very good episodes but they get overshadowed by the dazzling Day of the Doctor sandwiched in between them.
I love Blink and Listen of course, even though they’re both scary. Which just shows that my favourite episodes aren’t always the ones that relax me. I like a good comedy, or a good tragedy. You’re absolutely right about Moffat’s ability to mix scary with humour. (Why I used to like Xena – the writers – sometimes – could come up with marvellously ironical black humour).
And I see you just gave top billing to Day of the Doctor. Right on! (Technically not a Christmas special but I never attach much importance to the date of screening – since I never saw them on TV, but on DVD, my chronology is a bit different from many fans.)
Makes me want to go and watch some of those right now, too. Think I’ll restart with Eleventh Hour, I like to try and keep in sequence, I might omit a couple of eps that don’t do much for me (but that’s surprisingly few). That’ll keep me busy for the next few months…
27 March 2021 at 05:32 #71501@missy Well, last night while Mrs D was out babysitting, I was watching TV and there was an Unexplained Thud in the kitchen. Or maybe it was an Unexplained Clonk. And a definite whirring noise. Quite unnerving. I can only imagine that it was the fridge, starting up. The Noise had gone when I went to investigate, half an hour later 🙂
We used to get occasional scrapes and thuds in the ceiling, but I think that was just possums that had got in.
I do avoid watching anything too scary late at night. Such as ‘Listen’ 🙂
27 March 2021 at 05:22 #71500@missy @janetteb Face the Raven is absolutely one of my favourites. Well written and tragic. How can I like an episode that killed my favourite companion due to a miscalculation? Because that’s the essence of tragedy. Clara died while courageously saving a life. Okay she thought she’d be safe, but it still takes courage to run the risk of something going wrong – as it did. The Doctor barely controlling his anger with Me was impressive. And the image of Rigsy decorating the abandoned Tardis at the end was deeply moving – illogically (but not unusually), that scene had me nearer to tears than anything else in the episode.
Thin Ice is okay, but Victorian episodes aren’t really a favourite of mine. (By the way, why does the Doctor never encounter steam trains? The Orient Express in space doesn’t count. Many, many historical dramas chuck in a steam train – because they can. Preserved railways are only too eager to offer their premises and many have a few old locos which, if not going back to Victorian times, at least go back to early 1900’s (and can pass for Victorian to anyone except railway nuts like me, and I’m willing to forgive mild anachronisms if they’re not too blatant 🙂 )
Back to Doctor Who – unlike @winston, I don’t feel comfortable in the past. It always feels dangerous and foreign to me – probably because most of history is about things which went horribly and fatally wrong, and the Doctor (or at least his companions) is out of their time, and I’m always afraid they’ll be found out. And historical events then tend to dominate the story. I feel most comfortable in the present, when the story can unfold uncomplicated, or the future, where the writers can indulge in interesting ‘world-building’. Oddly enough, I never got that uneasy feeling watching ‘Xena’, who notoriously strayed all over ancient history. I can only put that down to the fact that it was ‘her home period’ (even though that date was, to put it charitably, chronologically ill-defined) and she didn’t officially time-travel, so she wasn’t at risk of being stranded ‘out of her time’.
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