@bluesqueakpip  I think the post-Time War Doctor has been so traumatised by the destruction (at his hand!) of Gallifrey and its possible rescue that he won’t really recover until he can walk on its soil and talk to its surviving people. As Clara bluntly points out, he’s got survivor’s guilt.

Okay, that makes sense to me . . . and perhaps also,…[Read more]

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@arbutus  As to knowing why he left, I’d actually rather not. Hints have been dropped here and there, but it’s such a big mystery, so much at the core of the Doctor’s mythology, that it’s hard to imagine any showrunner really wanting to take it on. For one thing, the answer would never in a million years make everyone happy.

Well, *that’s*…[Read more]

@purofilion  Oh, oh, that’s four minutes I owe you — forgot that we’re trying to spell titles out more!  Apologies.

there was that woman who married a tree recently? Was it in your neck of the words (oh my, I’m on form today!) or was this in England?

Married a tree?  England.  That must have been England; it’s so English, isn’t it?  The Englis…[Read more]

@lisa   makes me think he always felt an outcast his entire lives.  That’s the mystery that most intrigues me. Maybe the scene in Listen of him sleeping in the barn was a tiny window into that?

Yeah, I get that too — and the talk of his doing badly at the academy . . . and hanging out with that kid who spectacularly flunked and who now talks…[Read more]

Everybody on the TLs — I’ve never liked them, found them repellent actually, partly because I never had a doubt that our rogue TL had excellent reasons to get the hell out of Dodge in the first place — even though at first he could be unpleasantly arrogant and dismissive just like a TL because he is a TL and wherever you go there you are, etc.…[Read more]

@juniperfish  hated Eleven’s comment about Clara being an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a skirt that’s a little bit too tight – ewww 

Me too.  That’s the kind of crap that turned me off 11, and also is fodder for the STFUmoffat haters who think our show runner is an irredeemable misogynist.  Just gets in the way in every direction…[Read more]

Oh, boy, goodies — getcher goodies here!  Found this this morning, Moffat on writing TWF of Davros/Doctor scenes:

Production Notes (Steven Moffat Q&A) for Doctor Who Magazine #492: "Davros is unique. He has a quality that’s possessed by no other famous villain I can think of." from gallifrey

I have to admit, the conflicting viewpoints part sailed *completely* over my head.  Yam an idiot.

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@gamergirlavatar  That’s when I learned that Eccleston was a great Doctor and I wish he didn’t need to leave so soon.

Yes, I thought he had a refreshing and welcome grittiness about him and great potential in general  — probably one  reason I never took to Tennant.  I’d wanted more of Eccleston, and felt cheated out of that and so resentf…[Read more]

@arbutus  Thank you!  I think in fact I lost interest, to some degree, with 10 and 11 *because* I was turned off by the heavier emphasis on those Doctors’ emotional investment in humans.  Yes, there were moment of Doctor-ly stand-offishness and even harshness, but the undertone of what us kids called “mushy-ness” in movies that had too much “r…[Read more]

@mudlark  Yes, it’s funny how people’s attention gets snagged, in a “but, realism!” mode, on this or that, in the midst of a parade of adventure stories about a regenerating alien and his time machine.  Thanks for the thoughts on what a rush of lots of water does.  In fact, I remember being surprised, seeing photography of tsunami flooding that lo…[Read more]

@mudlark  The foundations and parts of the walls of the buildings would have survived – enough for some of the outlines to be visible – which would have made it easy for the crew of Drum Base to locate the church, especially if they had plans of the base dating from before it was flooded.

You know, for some reason I don’t recall seeing the vill…[Read more]

@mirime  His conversation with Clara at the end showed it wasn’t a complete lack of caring.

Oh, I agree — he did care, but he closed that off and ran on his colder, more analytical, alien track — that callousness (see also, “She cares so I don’t have to”) that was the only way he could get to a solution and stop the dying.  It’s part of him…[Read more]

@blenkinsopthebrave  Good god, *more* activity?  It’s 8 pm here, and I still haven’t had my dinner!  Too busy catching up and noodling about . . .

@cumquat  I know this will be tough for you to take, but as a troll of course you *completely* deserve it — lovely to have you aboard, oh Mother of Bassets!

@mirime  I absolutely love Capaldi as the Doctor . . . I never felt that he was cold, callous, uncaring etc. or un-Doctorlike . . . I think he might really be the Doctor

Somebody over at -…[Read more]

@mudlark   I don’t think that this Fisher King could have been a water creature in any true sense. According to my recollection, he told the Doctor that his people, when they arrived, would have drained the world – presumably of water, implying either that they didn’t need it or had a use for it elsewhere.

He’s not meant to be a water creatu…[Read more]

@purofilion   for someone steeped in music, and as a visionary in his art, the idea of losing one’s hearing and livelihood would be an unbearable loss.

Reminds me of how in our own time Alzheimer’s and other dementias sometimes seem to target creative intellectuals, stealing over time the intelligence that they’ve built honored lives on . . . Ter…[Read more]

@pedant  So what is the soul in the Whoniverse?

@bluesqueakpip  . . . Because Doctor Who can’t really use a religious meaning, Moffat seems to be using ‘soul’ as shorthand for ‘copy of the individual which is so good you can’t tell it from the original’. . . .

There’s a concept of the soul in Buddhism and Daoism — a sort of discreet energ…[Read more]