That has been one of the writers’ biggest failings this series. The Doctor is a bit flat. Doctors have usually had to blend a childish side with a darker side. Perhaps dark side is going too far, but a certain selfishness, irritability, condescension, pain… So far Whitaker has only been given the childishness and childlike admiration.…[Read more]

Meaning, Hero Girls, adventure, heroes who aren’t warriors but save the day, humor, exotic locales (including Sheffield), a quirky spacetimeship, random forays into living history (which I grew up to do a lot of), space the final frontier, aliens…

@drben I agree,…[Read more]

About the “timeless child” at first I thought they were talking  about that “daughter” the Doctor had, Jenny.

@DrBen and @ichabod  Yes, I think there’s a reason why Twelve doesn’t want to regenerate, beyond that he’s grown attached to this version of himself (that was Ten’s schtick). I do think he’s tired, and part of him would just like it all to be over.…[Read more]

Regarding the Doctor’s present state of mind (and I’m sure I’m not the only one to say it), couldn’t this have something to do with the number of regenerations he’s had? Maybe there is a good reason for a max number of 12 (or was it 13?). Maybe living that number of lives (and they are different people in my opoinion or reg…[Read more]

I’d say it’s not that he’s forgotten everything he’d learned — he certainly remembers what pudding-brains we can be, and scorns us for it — but that he seems cut off from the more positive understandings that 11 had gained.  Maybe that’s what a completely unexpected and wrenching regeneration can do to a TL.

Yeah, he “took a level in cyn…[Read more]

Steven Moffat said so early on — that this Doctor is “an exposed nerve” of emotion — and Capaldi played that beautifully.  It helps to have a face that reads like a contour map of the Highlands, of course.

@hiker  Each episode adva…[Read more]

Just for yucks, my favourite of his episodes would be:

1. Heaven Sent
2. World Enough and Time
3. The Doctor Falls
4. Listen
5. The Magician’s Apprentice
6. The Zygon Inversion
7. Kill The Moon
8. Hell Bent
9. The Pilot
10. Mummy on the…[Read more]

 I want to see his regeneration be much more peaceful — not fire and destruction like 10-11, or crash landing the TARDIS like 11-12.  Just a change, and 13 opens her eyes without confusion or dread, but in full awareness of her past and an eagerness to move forward.  Wouldn’t that be lovely?

Yes, it would be. I really like that idea.…[Read more]

To be honest, I’m ready for the Master to be gone for a long time. I’ve said this repeatedly but I want to see new twists and villains or even old ones we have yet to entertain in the new series.

Agreed- I think that as things stand, the Master/Missy, cybermen and Time Lords can all disappear for a season or more. The daleks are dou…[Read more]

no problem 🙂

@mudlark @drben @holodeckguy @rorysmith

I agree with Craig. I do hope she uses her natural accent. Whilst it might not be banned in the way it once was, we hear far too few accents on TV (or at least that’s how it seems to me living in London)

I hope she uses her own accent. Really only Tennant, of the new Doctors, hasn’t. But she seems to be good at them (well, she admits some of them).

@rorysmith and @drben — there is a definite point that old monsters can be re-used a bit too much. s10 had five of them this year and that could be considered a bit much — although I’d argue that all of them were…[Read more]

Your description of your reaction to the news made me smile.  Being less pessimistic than you I was half expecting it, but before the announcement I would have said that I wasn’t greatly concerned either way as long as the actor cast was up to the job so, although I didn’t actually yell out loud,  the rush and glow of satisfaction I felt…[Read more]

I also agree with @holodeckguy.

I think the “official” name these days is Wessex coast (The heart is Dorset). So a South 🙂 . I assume the accent was realistic for the area, but to be honest I don’t know.

She didnt in Broadchurch (although she did have a distinctive accent their too)

So my bonkers theory would be that the Doctor gets halfway through the episode before realizing she’s a woman

@drben I would seriously love it if that happened!

I wonder if Missy will stay female. Either way if s/he shows up while the Doctor is a woman I can see some mickey-taking of how s/he did it first.

Looool at Dad as a “daft mansplainer” – haha – I’m not sure CC is as much of a troll as Moffat, however, although I would enjoy this a lot.

I do hope Jenny and Vastra are revisted at some point. I love them.

My guess is that Doctor 12 will be with Doctor 1 at the time of his regeneration into Doctor 13. So we’ll get a very brusque, “Stop…[Read more]

@drben Your theory regarding the possibility of an earlier regeneration than expected chimes with my thinking. It is even possible Moffat will throw in an extra regeneration. I have often thought that one way to really introduce…[Read more]

Many things (apart from Clara’s amazing bravery) that stood out.  It really was quite stu…[Read more]

As for the question of why the Doctor didn’t offer to take the quantum shade, my interpretation of “The Rules” was that the obligation could only be given away once, not passed around like a hot potato.  Just a thought.

I agree. Also, the sense I got was that there’s a set chronology in which things can happen:

1. Ashildr/Mayor Me can remove…

[Read more]

@drben I have wondered, since the Doctor knew it was a trap, if the key was actually to the Tardis.  Darling Rigsby had time to paint his tribute…guess the plotters haven’t found the box….or they have the wrong key.

I do think they missed a trick here though. If it turns out this is…[Read more]

@Starla   Rasmussen might have been better off just embedding the eye dust inducing signal in…[Read more]

The thing we always have to remember with ‘experimental’ episodes is that Blink and Turn Left came out of Love and Monsters.

That is, if the then producer Russell T Davies hadn’t tried a ‘Doctor-lite’ episode – and then gone ‘okay, that didn’t quite work’ – they would probably never have worked out…[Read more]

@lisa @purofilion good sleuthing! Yes, I agree, the themes are strong and…[Read more]

I understand the point, but what purpose would be served by punishing Bonnie?

Dear me, it would seem I am clearly not explaining myself. Let me try again. I am not talking about the necessity for Bonnie to be punished. I agree wholeheartedly with the whole idea of forgiveness. What I am concerned with when I refer to consequences, are the…[Read more]

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…

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 @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]

@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]

@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]

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.