@ichabod: I’ve watched it twice; found it satisfying and nourishing, and largely sufficient to its purposes.  Hell.  I think I loved it.

Me too.

@idiotsavon: I’ve nothing smart to say. I just loved it, and I’ve got snot on my sleeve. What a great way for a fine writer and a fine actor to bow out together.

As did I.  Although  I won’t see 70 aga…[Read more]

@ichabod @mudlark

They did what they could in the time given, but I wish the touch had been a bit lighter.

But my point is that the touch was light (and the “smacked bottom” straight out of canon – a thing which sparked a million slash fictions, apparently). The other stuff – whether casually assuming no Polly meant no cleaning, or the key to the…[Read more]

@thane16 @ichabod

I may have been a bit harsh in my judgement, because it is difficult to convey to people who didn’t experience it how things were in the 1950s and 60s, and it was perhaps asking too much of a Christmas special to convey the difference between then and now with the subtlety it really requires.  What is today in the open,…[Read more]

@mudlark @Ichabod

Alright! That’s awesome. I mean your response, Ms Mudlark. I don’t think Mum saw it that way (or she might have?) and actually I didn’t either and what was really good in your response was the bit in bold:

the basis of my criticism was, not that it was done, but that it was done rather clumsily in what was otherwise an anything…[Read more]

@thane16

On the issue of over-egging the sexism I thought it was ironic and necessary.

I agree with everything you and @ichabod say about the importance of the issue, and that it was useful, in the context of this episode to illustrate the differences in attitude between the original Doctor and the Twelfth – who seems to have learned a lot from…[Read more]

Away from the party for a few days…There are some very moving posts above, and am especially grateful to @ichabod and  @cathannabel for sharing their stories.

I was fortunate enough to get to a cinema show last week, and thought Rachel Talalay’s direction was even more impressive on a big screen than on TV. The shots up and down the sta…[Read more]

@ichabod

I don’t think that I have ever come across the variety of pear you mention but I will look out for them, assuming that they are available in the UK.  The ones in my fruit bowl (actually an old brass preserving pan) at the moment are Conference, but I like most pears, including the ones my parents used to refer to as ‘slaverchops’, which…[Read more]

@Ichabod

Other people have said to me before that the Doctor finds you/you find the Doctor when you need him most. For me the worst was during Smithy’s era, when my mum’s memories were disintegrating rapidly (my mum who watched DW from 1963 with me, including the episodes I had to miss, and would then remember them and relate them back to me); at…[Read more]

@Ichabod @cathannabel

Thanks for sharing your RL experiences of dementia. It’s a horrible thing to watch in a loved one. And yes, it does focus one’s thoughts on what is “self”. Very often personality changes come in too. We hang on to the little flashes in the eyes that suggest the person we knew is still in there, somewhere. Hugs to you both.

@ichabod Very moved by your comments relating the whole theme of memory and identity to experience of dementia.  It’s something I think about a lot these days, as we spend time with mother-in-law with Alzheimers.  It’s obviously often very distressing but when one can distance oneself sufficiently, it’s fascinating. Someone on Twitter was p…[Read more]

@ichabod — well said. Although I’d have said innovatory rather than gimmicky. Who survives by trying things out — regeneration, Earth exile, etc. This is just the latest.

But @Scaryb is right. This really has very little to do with companions past or present. We’ve had a long and varied 13th Doctor discussion and there doesn’t seem much to add…[Read more]

@Ichabod – Agreed

@Missy

“There is a part of me that wonders whether they should have  ‘rested’ DW for a couple of years. Then start afresh”

That’s pretty much what they’re doing, is it not? Last Capaldi/Moffat epi – July 2017, next one (bar the Christmas “Coda”), with completely new team, not till Sep 2018. That’s a long enough gap for me!!…[Read more]

@ichabod:

I understand your point of view and can, as a rule, be  objective. This time I’ve found it too hard.

There is a part of me that wonders whether they should have  ‘rested’ DW for a couple of years. Then start afresh.

It’s been done before, and ending – for a while – with the 12th Doctor might have been a better idea?

What do you all t…[Read more]

@karenmarie;

That’s fair enough. Not everyone liked PC. You cannot help how you feel.@nerys:

@nerys

I realize that for most, this question doesn’t have a rational answer, because our love for the series isn’t imbedded in the rational, but in the emotional. So it’s hard to pinpoint why we want and need certain things from whatever it is we love,…[Read more]

@bluesqueakpip  There’s an interview with the vision mixer for the regeneration on the Tenth Planet DVD.

Many thanks for the extra information and the correction!

@tardigrade @ichabod  @ichabod “These are my memories so this is me”: I might be making a mess of this, but the Countess Scarloni has explained to me (by talking very slowly) that this…[Read more]

@ichabod

That red TARDIS is on Sauchiehall St and is usually a coffee kiosk. And yes it is annoying in its wrong colour. (Though could be worse, the one on Buchanan St was a hideous lime green for a while….)

@ichabod:

You put it so much better than I, but then I never was good at writing down my emotional response to anything. I simply feel.

Great face for this particular Doctor; I’m going to miss it like blazes.

So am I ici, so am I. Lovely post.

“But I’m delighted to report he’s in Glasgow and texting me pictures of Tardises he finds in the str…[Read more]

@ichabod:

My sentiments almost exactly.

Fantasy. Simply a children’s programme, which has captured millions of hearts and imaginations.

For all I’m old enough to know better, never has a work of fantasy captured mine so completely, especially the past

three series with the perfect Doctor, writer’s, companions and music.

If it’s possible to…[Read more]

@janetteb:

Seconded.

@ichabod;

Truthfully, I am full of dread. But that doesn’t mean I’m right.

Missy

@ichabod:

Blimey it’s been a while. I’ve been too caught up in out ‘foster dog’ to join you all.

You know my views, whether they make sense or not to everyone else, they do to me.

Female Doctor, JW in the role and Chris Chibnall in charge? No wonder I’m so negative.

However I do agree with you about, floppy haired young men, Steven Fry or…[Read more]