@drben Completly agree about Peter Capaldi.  What an outstanding Doctor!  He gives me chills, cracks me up and then makes me cry.  Every Doctor I go through the same grief process: swear I will never like the new Doctor because no one will ever be as good as the _____ Doctor, and then being shocked that each Doctor really is amazing and brings so…[Read more]

@drben Makes so much sense.  Clara was purposeful.  I have often wondered if Charlotte Lux wasn’t chosen to be Clara after River having shared mind/hardrive space realised her brilliance, mind capacity, loyalty, and ingrained need to protect.  She is the perfect candidate to save the Doctor.  Maybe River helped engineer Clara to save him?  Ma…[Read more]

@drBen OMGosh! I seem to be tripping over my fingers lol
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@DrBen

I believe this has been noted before and, of course, there was Zygon!Osgood’s tormenting of Human!Osgood with talk of her prettier, more successful, sister…

Still loving this episode–and, in part, because the message was laid on a bit thick (sorry, @DrBen).

But in terms of story-telling, there is something that has been nagging at me, and makes me wonder if there is something we have all missed–or misinterpreted.

It is when Clara (so we assume) goes back down under the city with Jac and the UNIT…[Read more]

@drben  Oh Master Blenkinsop, what a beautiful thought. For the Doctor to be in a position (yet again) to save Clara’s life, and for Ashildr, with her (by then) 1100 or so years of life, convincing him that the kinder choice is to let her go rather than prolong the inevitable. It’s poetic – bravo.  I also envision this as being part-an…[Read more]

@blenkinsopthebrave

@DrBen @Cybercat @Ichabod

@everyone So since we know that River’s library is a universe where there is a
kind of immortality or a place like the nethersphere, (although that is shut down unless
UNIT or Missy help with that) then how likely is it Clara ends up in 1 of these
places even with…[Read more]

@blenkinsopthebrave

@drben

Awesome way to finish!

Its always been about the doctor. Not the companions – as much as they play a fundamental role..  it’s about the doctor and that should never be forgotten.

With the ‘poetry’ as you put it – of the Doctor having to accept his role in the fate of his companions. Leaves room for growth for the D…[Read more]

@pedant    Thanks for the Ashildr/Arya meta pointers.  🙂

@DrBen     You make a lot of really good points, particularly the one regarding Maisie Williams. I hadn’t thought of it, but you’re absolutely right, that she is really deliberately playing two different characters in this, and in that respect, she pulls it off. I agree that I also found…[Read more]

@drben—

Presumably the X-rated Doctor Who outtake would also include Capaldi employing some of the language that made him so famous as Malcolm Tucker.

It never gets old, so here it is again. Not for the easily offended obviously.

@drben  Yes, not sure if it means she is Clara’s mother or she is making a point that she is in control of Clara’s mother.

The face being different with Ellie/Clara’s mother that the Doctor saw could easily be manipulated by technology.   Her voice sounded more like a speaker when she faked a man’s voice as the Knightmare.  Not saying she use…[Read more]

@purofilion  @drben

Sometimes DW leaves me with far more questions than answers, and the thing under the bed was one of them. And who is Orson? Maybe we will get answers someday but till then it’s bonkers theories.

I try to tell myself ,like the Doctor , that it is fun not to know.

@countscarlioni   if he gives her the chip, Clara too has the potential to become another destructive tidal wave. The Doctor, as he shouts at the end of The Girl Who Died, can do anything, but here he grasps, after Ashildr has hugely sharpened his understanding of this, he shouldn’t save Clara. No wonder the Doctor has to go off by hi…[Read more]

@DrBen Although I found this episode in some sense a bit unsatisfying still
I see Mathieson can write good stories that cross over to very different places extremely well.

I also wondered about Ashildr’s youth. She is at least not as young child as in the “Interview”
movie. She seems to me about the age of Clara when she met…[Read more]

Shades of “Time Lord Victorious” in this episode, but with a wholly different feel.  While Ten in “The Waters of Mars” was basically completely unhinged by the thought of letting history take its course in that particular instance, Twelve views his predicament as freeing in a way — as an old rebel, he is used to breaking the rules and getting aw…

[Read more]

@DrBen I will google the Tarot and try to see as you say ‘what’s next’. Thanks!

@drben  Wow!  What a handsome line-up of tarot and S9!  That’s a teensy work of art all by itself.  Now let’s see what happens — S9 is delightful so far, IMO.

@jphamlore  Kate Stewart could be the victim of office politics at some point. That would give her time to have an adventure or two as the Doctor’s temporary companion.

I would so like t…[Read more]

@DrBen      I absolutely love that book, almost more than Hitchhiker’s Guide in many ways. It’s hugely quirky and clever. The thing about Bach there, as I recall, was that it came from the alien ship, and was saved, taken to the 18th century, and given in some way to Bach, and only after that did it exist in the future. It hadn’t actually exis…[Read more]

@DrBen I also noticed that the tarot references in this season are meant to be noticed and almost put out as clues.  If they were there before that was just good sleuthing on your part.  But the titles in this two parter alone are almost a request to pay attention.  This whole two part episode seemed to be the Major Arcana 1&2 plus the Minor Ar…[Read more]

@kharis @juniperfish

Hi – the Tarot came up in a response to a site blog by @tommck during series 8 and we were discussing the identity of Missy. I thought series 8 was loaded with the major arcana archetypes and placed Missy as Death. There was a great response by @drben on the fools journey after it.

Nothing to stop you developing and…[Read more]