Came in this morning specifically to post the “Times Doctor Who Was Ruined Forever” link but @serahni beat me to it!  If you haven’t clicked yet (here it is again), do so – it’s a good laugh and a little historical perspective.

As for the conversation about the Doctor’s (apparent) age, yes of course all explanations are after-the-fact j…[Read more]

Something else that occurred to me – What a wonderful challenge for an actor, to inhabit a character who has been externally male for several thousand years, with all the memories that go with it.

New Doctors have always struggled with the “who am I?” question and, with the right writing, that could be so much more interesting in this case.

YES!!!

Yes yes yes.

Honestly, I didn’t think the Beeb had the guts to do it, but I’m so glad it decided to take a risk. The best part of DW is that it’s a show that constantly reinvents itself while also respecting its own history. I think this is exactly the sort of kick in the pants the show needs now.  (I mean, if Tilda Swinton was…[Read more]

@wolfweed – A+.  I laughed out loud.

Hello all!  I can’t really add to your excellent comments on this week’s episode (I loved it!), so instead, here’s my wish list for what comes next:

— A mid-episode regeneration (next week, not at Xmas) that results in a completely unexpected Thirteenth Doctor, and THEN, through bonkers plot necessity, the new Doctor has to go back in time…[Read more]

I’m chiming in even though I haven’t read all the comments, because otherwise I’ll never get the opportunity (absolutely slammed at work – never had the chance to comment on the thoroughly brilliant Heaven Sent last week).

I think this finale was wonderful.  It was not perfect — a fair amount of the story was unfocused, making it difficult to…[Read more]

@kharis – I don’t think they’re after the TARDIS itself (after all, it’s an obsolete model with a busted chameleon circuit); rather, they wanted to make sure that it would be the Doctor who wielded the key and put his arm into the machine, thereby getting the teleporter thingy.

@nerys – Yup!

@kharis — Very thorough!

If (as it now appears), Ashildr is in league with the Time Lords (how else could the trap involve the TARDIS key?), it could very well be that it is the Time Lords who create and deploy the Nightmare Child.

As for the question of why the Doctor didn’t offer to take the quantum shade, my interpretation of “The Rules” was…[Read more]

Oh, and also:  I liked how they treated Ashildr in this episode.  She was clearly playing with forces beyond her control, and her reaction when things got out of hand was great.  She was over-confident and it came back to bite her.

I only skimmed the posts here, cuz I wanted to get my own thoughts down quickly.

I loved this one, pretty much start to finish.  I fully disagree with those who say that Clara’s death was pointless or unnecessary.  Rather, Clara’s had a death wish since Danny died — that’s why she’s been acting so rashly, being so over-confident, taking so m…[Read more]

@geoffers – we had hardwired holograms* in ‘mummy on the orient express.’ maybe the rescue crew in this ep are those, as well?

This brings up a good point.  And thank you to everyone (@purofilion in particular) for all of your comments, which have forced me to rethink my opinion of this episode.  I still didn’t care for it, but I think now my rea…[Read more]

@nerys – Here’s the best I can work out about the ending.  The story we were made to believe for most of the episode was as follows:

— Rasmussen creates Morpheus Mk. 2 machines.  Something about the machines causes your eye boogers to evolve into Sandman creatures who want to eat people.

— Rasmussen is somehow under psychic control by these m…[Read more]

@pedant – The the Black Hats realise they can pulverise the glass to powder and spread it in crop dusters  to create an all pervasive surveillance system.

Part of my disappointment was that I was predicting something along the lines of what you mentioned.  The Morpheus pods reminded me of the sleeping drugs Soma in Brave New World and Somec in …[Read more]

@purofilion – I took no offense.  Even I reacted strongly to those who announced that they had joined the forum JUST to tell everyone how much this episode sucked.  Why would you do this?

Anyway, I didn’t *hate* this episode (the only DW episode I actually hated was “Fear Her”), but I didn’t love it either.  I know Gatiss is capable of better.  I…[Read more]

This one just didn’t work for me.  Much of the story seemed like a retread (two base-under-siege stories in one season?), and the found footage aspect was more of a distraction for me than an enhancement.

And really, can someone explain to me what the hell happened?  Rassmussen faked the whole thing in order to create a Blair Witch-style horror m…[Read more]

@blenkinsopthebrave – Ah I see.  I think we can assume that Bonnie/Osgood’s darkest days are ahead of her.  Nine was still able to be outwardly cheerful despite having just (apparently) slaughtered his entire race, but the guilt and remorse were there nonetheless.

I think we can say Bonnie/Osgood is “good” because of the choices she chooses to m…[Read more]

@blenkinsopthebrave – I understand the point, but what purpose would be served by punishing Bonnie?  Any action against her would cause more hostilities from the separatist Zygons.  The only path to peace involved a blank slate.

Something else I forgot to mention earlier.  The Doctor’s throwaway line of “that’s what you said the first 14 ti…[Read more]

@nerys – Agreed.  BUT, we re-watched Name of the Doctor last night after Zygon Inversion, and there is still some sort of connection between River and Clara that remains unexplored.

Completely brilliant and I can’t stop thinking about it.

Peter Capaldi has brought so much to this character, and his acting is revelatory.  As fond as I am of Ten and Eleven, neither could have pulled off that tour-de-force speech at the end of this episode.  Their Doctors were cagier, more used to hiding behind artifice, speechifying for its o…[Read more]

I wonder if there’s any significance to the fact that we had the Nightmare Scenario right on the heels of the Knightmare herself.