@DenValdron   @ichabod

I have been hesitating whether or not to butt into this debate but, as you may have gathered, my position is somewhere in the middle, so maybe I have something to contribute.

Yes, Davros was being devious; he had made his plans and set the trap and he was calculating and manipulative throughout.  On the other hand, he kn…[Read more]

@denvaldron  You feel that there’s something honest in Davros opening up. I don’t feel that there’s anything honest in it at all.

Yup.  We disagree, as we’ve both been saying for several rounds now.  Thanks for the detailed explanation — I still disagree, and so do you.  I grew up with siblings; I’ve had plenty of experience with disagreem…[Read more]

@denvaldron  . . . the charge I level at Moffat. He’s taken a character with the potential for life-like depth and flexibility, for fallibility and humanity, and he’s reduced her to a plot pawn to perform a prescribed story function. 

I disagree; but where she can go after the special circumstances of S8 has been a question since S8 ended.  I don…[Read more]

@denvaldron

From a literary criticism point of view I tend to agree with your analysis. Of course we all know that this (or any) show isn’t going to be perfect, especially given how much material they have to crank out in such a short time. Mind you, I’m not meaning that to make excuses.

Looking backwards, I’m not sure if the Master/Missy eve…

[Read more]

@denvaldron   Perhaps the Master’s title refers to something else. Perhaps it simply means ‘Better.’ Or ‘Best.’ The smartest, the fastest, the winner, etc. Perhaps the Master has truly gone blazing through the universe, not in a quest to rule it, but to test himself/herself against it. To beat it, to demonstrate that he’s better, that he’s the…[Read more]

@DenValdron

No, he set it up two or three script pages before.

Nope, sorry. It’s definitely not a Deus Ex Machina. Using regeneration energy for someone other than themselves is a previously known character attribute of Time Lords, so the only thing that needs to be set up within the episode are the revolting sewers.

The set-up is in two…[Read more]

@mudlark  Oh, I know, and when Davros said that, my next thought was ‘well there goes that theory.’  lol  But it does occur to me that we’re assuming Davros is right, and that he is privy to fact rather than opinion or personal interpretation.  Just because Davros thinks the prophesy means Daleks and Timelords, does that make it automatically so?…[Read more]

@DenValdron     Fair enough. I think what we have is some character behaviour that may not bother some people, but feels entirely wrong or out of place to others. I have felt that way about companions or other characters in the past and others have not necessarily shared my view. For example, I felt that Courtney’s hurt at the Doctor not thi…[Read more]

@Denvaldron

No, he set it up two or three script pages before.

That’s what they are supposed to do, courtesy of Chekhov’s ordnance supplies (and menagerie, for those who know their DWF history)).

 I recognize the theory being circulated that Clara’s rather anomalous idiocy was the result of remembered trauma from a future self who ended up as a D…

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@DenValdron   re your points about genuine emotional payoff and the revolting sewers.    I see what you’re saying, and it’s a fair point in a way. But here’s my problem with it. If the Doctor is only to be allowed victory where it is based on concepts that pre-date the episode, this is pretty limiting to the writers. I can see that it might have…[Read more]

@DenValdron

Instead of treating The Witch’s Familiar as a single episode, why don’t you try treating it as a chapter in a continuing story?

If Clara has any residual memory of being mutated into Dalek Oswin, she will be terrified – especially when she realises that she can’t even say her own name (Oswin had managed to hack a lot of the control…[Read more]

@DenValdron  @purofilion  @Arbutus

Another reason why Clara failed to exhibit her usual quick thinking and resourcefulness on this occasion might be that from the moment they meet in The Magicians Apprentice, Missy has been doing all she can to undermine her confidence and put her off her stride.  When Clara arrives for the meeting in the squa…[Read more]

@mudlark  There, you just said it so much more concisely!  Yes, the Doctor plans — but when it comes to the crunch, he ends up improvising brilliantly, because a) that’s what happens to even “the best laid plans”, and b) brilliant improvisation is one of his strongest suits.

@purofilion  you’re quite right in asserting its not completely B&am…[Read more]

@denvaldron  Is it possible, and this is just a wild theory, that Clara is terrified most of being inside the Dalek because a part of Oswin lingers in her timestream?  She is, as far as we are aware, Clara Prime.  She may not recall explicitly things that happened to the fragments of her scattered through The Doctor’s timeline, but perhaps th…[Read more]

@DenValdron   @purofilion

It seemed to me that Clara, knowing perfectly well that her words were being translated into something unrecognizable, tried desperately to say whatever she could in hopes that something of her essence would leak out and be heard. It must have been as clear to her as it was to us that this Dalek’s repeated a…[Read more]

@denvaldron @fatmaninabox

Skarro got blowed up in Remembrance of the Daleks. Not shimmy shammied, not catapulted into another dimension. It actually got blowed up, by Davros himself, falling into the Doctor’s trap with a stellar manipulator. Very kablam. It got better?

Ah? You mean you haven’t come across the ‘official’* explanation for t…[Read more]

@Whisht good spot re’ the hand. I thought that we were seeing the Doctor as a boy when that happened. Maybe that was an intentional parallel, the man who creates the monsters to destroy the universe and the man who saves the universe were both once frightened boys not dissimilar.

Also I am sure there is a scene where Baker jumps up and down…[Read more]

Also, why is the device so protected when Clara touches it. I don’t know why
its so important to use such extreme protections for a ‘confession dial’?
I think we are being distracted from the real purpose of the CD

@DenValdron The baby boomers ! Literally a huge group of fans
that grew up watching the 4th Doctor on PBS in the states or Canada!…[Read more]

@Bluesqueakpip @purofilion and @DenValdron

The ratings may not yet be fantastic news in the UK, but it was a result in the US:

http://www.doctorwhonews.net/2015/09/season-premiere-breaks-records-in.html

@purofilion and @DenValdron

To put Who’s falling overnights into context:

Downton Abbey also had a drop of 0.8 million. There’s some comment on how increasingly unreliable the overnights are becoming at the bottom of the article.