Yes, you’re right!  I remember that one — I saw both versions, and frankly I can’t remember what, if any, differences the differences made.  But of course that says more about me than about the movie . . ,

Yes, I’d love that — maybe some day, but I doubt it — unless BBC thought they could make Big Bucks from selling that on DVD.  There may be contractual problems with coming around later to do that, too?  At any rate, I doubt they’ll bother . . . maybe some day after the whole program ends.  But I rather have the program keep going, and just im…[Read more]

@kevinwho  My thought was maybe Graham could have articulated it. I know when I used to watch TV dramas, they’d almost always let the hero express moral superiority over the villain during the climax. So maybe some of us were wishing we’d get something like what I made up over on the fan creativity thre…[Read more]

@bluesqueakpip  . . . series 12 is on its way and will be returning to BBC One in early 2020

Good!  Thanks.

@bluesqueakpip  . . . the BBC has said ‘early 2020,’ so it’s not two years at all.

Are you sure?  I’ve only seen “2020”.  If it ends up as September 2020, that will be a pretty long wait.  I hope you’re right, and I hope BBC is being realistic, not just optimistic.

@magickinn  The Doctor has companions who have killed before and that has not been a problem for earlier one.  I can see  several of the incarnations having no problem if Graham did it.

I thought that, too, and it’s bugging me.  I’d accept “no killing the bad guys” as a new rule, a result of what the AG Doctors have learned in their more let…[Read more]

@kevinwho   . . . in this last season I’ve sometimes felt that whole episodes aren’t showing me a life lesson, they’re telling me what to think.

Yes, sometimes — because she’s telling her companions, our stand-ins, what to think, but with no detectable (to me) emotion and personally-felt experience behind it.  Good grief, maybe my feeling a…[Read more]

@thane16  Puro  . . . a few people thought “the Doc, on a TANK wearing sunglasses and playing an electric guitar?” That’s not gravitas! That’s baloney!” Except we describe him like this: proud and noble, dignified, dutiful, lofty enough to shit marble when I don’t think 12 was like that much of the time. @ichabod -would you agree?

G…[Read more]

@pedant  Talking animals crop up a lot in Studio Ghibli animations, and this story had a bit of a Ghibli feel to it, with an ending that was honest, rather than shoe-horned in sentimental. Spirited Away? Princess Mononoke?

Gad, yes!  “Spirited Away” sticks with me as the best animated fantasy film I’ve seen — I rarely miss a chance to see it a…[Read more]

@kevinwho  . . . too much standing around and talking

Well, likely true for some people, and that’s part of the supposed SJW “issue”.  Grounding your action, when it’s imminent, in establishing clarity re why we’re going to not-kill the creature trying to kill us — that’s got to slow things down a bit (another reason that the “Bad guy!  Q…[Read more]

@craig — JEEZ!  One look at your Xmas card, and I almost called the bomb squad!  At least now I’m awake, though, so thank you, and merry thingamabobs to you and all right back!

@rob  This is one of the good things that has come out of the regeneration it makes you think about equality,  hopefully it will make me a better person just by making me think about it.

I’d say so — one of the clear signs of a knee-jerk reactionary is automatic outrage at the fact that The Contentious Issue *has been raised* — “SJW!  …[Read more]

@blenkinsopthebrave  Mrs Blenkinsop and I just watched the last episode of series 10 . . . Looking back on that episode, I feel that Moffat could not simply do grand emotion, but grand emotion that was almost operatic.

Nothing “almost” about it — I think it’s the operatic intensity that really caught me up in the Moffat era, because I am a…[Read more]

SPOILER, SPOILER, SPOILER...

@miapatrick To me the high concept of this series is that the monsters are not just monsters.

Yes, that seems to be a theme here — consistent with a Doctor who’s “heroic” on a deliberately smaller scale, so her companions can share in the heroics on a human scale, instead of having to stretch hard to help rescue a  planet, a species, a u…[Read more]

@kevinwho  Yes, I think that’s part of it.  I’m not picking up cues of reflection; thinking (except about how to solve the immediate problem); or really remembering rather than just ticking off a box from the past.  So maybe it’s more a matter of the pacing of the episodes (for those who share this reaction).  They’ve set it for youth, new…[Read more]

@thane16  You make a good case; and I’m not really looking for an extension of the Moffat/Capaldi tone.  I agree that that was taken as far as it could go within the parameters of the show, and wrapped up pretty well in Season 10.  I don’t miss it, certainly not pining for a repeat; I’m just missing a sense of emotional continuity between that an…[Read more]