@missrori  Thanks for the review.  Sounds about as expected, unfortunately.  Yesterday’s NYT had a long article on a new musical being planned for Broadway — a musical version of the film “Groundhog Day”.  Well . . . who knows, I guess.  IMO, the best movie ever made about reincarnation.  I don’t give much for its chances on a stage.

@pedant   No book that I could find, and the TV series was apparently supposed to show up on Amazon several years ago, but never did.  DVDs are available, but not for US players.  Drat.  The obstacle course of life.

@pedant  Okay, I might just have to wait for Ashes to Ashes to surface someplace accessible to me; thanks!  Is there a book as well, or is it strictly TV?

@whisht  Wow — I was going to grab a quick nap, but now — nope.  Is okay, I’ve got more damn tax papers to shuffle, and miles to go before I sleep anyway.

@thane15  I’m glad to hear you have such good taste re crime drama (and “The Leftovers”, which had better not let us down next month!).  But I loved “Life on Mars”, though it didn’t get as quirky as I’d have hoped, given that it’s a time-travel plus “fish out of water” story.  You might like the mystery stories of Reginald Hill, if you don’t al…[Read more]

@pedant  with season 3, Broadchurch has very much got its mojo back.

Well, that’s a bit of hope, I suppose.

@thane15  “oh no, not this again….Rory the priest, the woman with the husband who wanders in and out (the couple who’s child was murdered) and then Tennant going: “Millllrrrr”.

On the other hand . . . Yep, that sounds just like my own…[Read more]

@missrori  rewards that sometimes seem like “small potatoes” compared to the ones he’d reap if he chose not to be the Doctor (i.e., if he took command of the Cyber-army of the dead and conquered the universe).

What “rewards”, though, would the Doctor have gained by conquering the universe with Missy’s Cyber-Army — rewards that would have had so…[Read more]

@alexwho  Why hasn’t he been on Doctor Who????

Glad you found that!  He’s probably not been asked to do something on DW, assuming they could afford him (or, if he’s a fan of the Doctor, he’d do it for less just for the fun of it).  Acting is a very unpredictable profession; who knows!

@missrori  You might try doing something completely diffe…[Read more]

@thane15  Well, I was walking around the paradox problem to look at a different problem with the idea of using time travel to fine tune the past and/or the future.  To me, it looks as if we are all flying blind most of the time, since we can’t possibly know beforehand (or afterward, for that matter) most of the consequences, small and large, of o…[Read more]

@alexwho  A knight in shining armor . . . I’m going to see “Logan”, the new movie about Wolverine, solely because sir Patrick is in it . . . His recent appearance, with Hugh Jackman, on Graham Norton was pretty funny too — I got it through FB, but maybe it’s on Youtube by now.

@pedant    just a[n] intellect reflecting on things.

A particularly capable intellect, at that.  And I see that “echo” (that face, this face) as the recognition of a thematic connection, not some sort of deliberate structural one, so there’s no “designer” behind it (well, except Moffat & co, of course!).  The theme is, IMO, “You can’t save eve…[Read more]

@missrori  . . . Titan Comics miniseries Supremacy of the Cybermen (which ran last year) shows the Doctor’s mercy in banishing Rassilon to backfire badly.

I haven’t thought about that as “mercy” — in Hell Bent, the Doctor seems to me to be far more intent on rescuing Clara than on vengeance.  What he does to Rassilon is simply carry enforce his…[Read more]

@missrori  I don’t see how the Doctor was turned from a sword to a plow through his ordeal in this story.

The Confession Dial was the forging fire, but remember, the Doctor is now, per Moffat, one half of the Hybrid.  He acts as a sword carried by the strength of his anger and his determination.  It’s not until he rejoins his “other half” that…[Read more]

@thane15  Om right back to you, fellow red-face!  Just what you’ve said helped to get me to the place where I could duck out from under the grim dark of realizing the metaphorical meaning of that law — is it the first, or the second law of thermodynamics? If I stop to look it up, I’ll lose my train of thought, such as it is — and bask instead i…[Read more]

@thane15  We are trained to look for huge discoveries and enormous loud lines and act but Moffat, Gattis and the rest write with such economy that you are required to look for the good. Why?  Because that’s exactly how it is in real life, not the movies.

What a great way to look at it!  Nicely put, too.

I think physical life is harsh by its natu…[Read more]

@thane15  ”mum will run me over even if I’m dead” (source: one of the Chinese Australians

Oooh — a Tiger Mom!  As if life weren’t tough enough . . .

@missy @thane15  My sister’s favorite dog (of the many she’s had) was a Great Dane that died ated 12 yrs, apparently a very unusual age for such a big dog.  They usually only make it to around 8…[Read more]

Hey, some good news out of Texas, for a change!

Even The Boy Scouts Are Fans Of Doctor Who Because Who Isn’t?

So sad that DW is always so ruined but all those annoying creative people, eh?

@blenkinsopthebrave  Excellent example — thanks for reminding me.

@pedant  Sorry to hear about the Fisher King . . .

@pedant  All kinds of progress, yes.  What time-binding abilities are good for is tracing back effects to causes, and making corrections to get different, better effects from now on.  Maybe that’s what “sapience” is, at least in its practical manifestations?  Seeing those connections in time between “cause” and “effect” because you can rem…[Read more]

@mudlark   A new project — super!  I’m still ruminating on my dreams these days, feeling that, yes, there’s a new story in there someplace, trying to get out . . .

@blenkinsopthebrave   I’d love to see more historical adventures, keeping in mind that the research and costuming must be pretty difficult and expensive to do on the sort of sc…[Read more]