@pedant

 Moffat has stated repeatedly that the original intent was to cast someone older, but they were won over by Smith’s audition as old in a young body.

And how right they were!

I hadn’t come across any of Matt’s earlier work, and the initial publicity photos didn’t impress me: he looked so impossibly young. It just shows the folly of ju…[Read more]

@ichabod

1. Moffat didn’t cast Tennant, RTD did (and had worked with Tennant before – like Chibnall with Whittaker, he went with someone he knew he could trust);

2. Moffat has stated repeatedly that the original intent was to cast someone older, but they were won over by Smith’s audition as old in a young body.

@tempusfugit @ichabod @janetteb I pretty strongly identified with and sympathized with Twelve’s grumpiness in Series 8 because I could see where it came from.  I am on the autism spectrum, and I understand what it is to have no interest in small talk, to be grumpy, brusque, and blunt in the heat of trying to get things done — being too focused…[Read more]

@tempusfugit @ichabod What’s funny is that I couldn’t really get into Tennant — I’d really enjoyed Eccleston’s one season, but Series 2 just came off as too focused on character angst for me, the sort of problem I’d had with the expanded universe novels, specifically the ones from the 1990s — they seemed more interested in analyzing and…[Read more]

@ichabod

The men, yes.  The young women, however, were doing something else (on tumblr and The Mary Sue at least) — complaining that Moffat’s female characters aren’t “feminist” *enough*.

I refer the honourable lady to the comments I made some time ago

[It can work the other way. Sometime ago I engaged with someone on the Graun, who asserted t…

[Read more]

@ichabod

I do agree about cats, by far my animal of choice. When a cat has been fed, had a wash and decides to jump on your lap, they like you.

Also agree with you about religions of any kind.

Thank you for the history posts everyone really, really interesting.

Missy

@thane16

There is also a St Sexburga, cause of much sniggering among young adolescents, who was abbess of another double house at Ely. The -burg, or -berg element derives from the word meaning ‘protection’, ‘stronghold’ or ‘defended settlement; ‘wer’, I think, is as in wergild or werewolf, meaning ‘man’ in the inclusive sense of ‘human being’;…[Read more]

Veering off topic here but Agora is an excellent film. there is a good breakdown of the history in the Guardians, now long defunct “Reel History”. You will need to search to find it. It does indeed seem that it was more politics and religion behind the demise of Hypatia and not sexism though that was certainly a factor with the christian…[Read more]

@ichabod

Woah — an Abbess, in charge of monks?

Yup.  There were a number of such double houses founded in the 7th century in England; exactly how many is uncertain, because the records are relatively sparse.  The majority were in the northern half of England, which may reflect the influence of the Celtic/British church and associated tra…[Read more]

@ichabod

Those Vikings were *everywhere*.  What a mob!

Indeed they were.  What we had stumbled on was in fact the winter camp of the Viking Great Army, documented in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle in 1873/4.

The Saxon church was adjacent to a monastery, a double house of both men and women, ruled by an Abbess. The Vikings sacked the monastery and b…[Read more]

@ichabod

The person you are thinking of is Hypatia of Alexandria and, although no surviving writings or commentaries can be attributed to her with any certainty, she was an eminent and highly respected Neoplatonist philosopher, mathematician and astronomer in the late 4th/early 5th century CE.   Alexandria at that time was still a great centre…[Read more]

@ichabod

A female doctor isn’t fine – not to me. One might as well have  female Jesus – why not?

Yes, he was real, but so what, let’s try something different.

Why she has three companions is beyond me.

Anyhow, that’s my opinion for what it’s worth. *sigh*

Missy

@ichabod

(moving the conversation here, since it doesn’t really belong on Spoilers)

I had the pleasure of working with teams of volunteers from Earthwatch over several seasons during the 1980s. The excavation was one in which, as a glutton for punishment, I took part in during my annual leave from my official paying job. It began in 1974 when I…[Read more]

SPOILER, SPOILER, SPOILER...

@ichabod  I can understand you’re doubts about Kris Marshall, but I’ve seen him in a few things and he is definitely not light weight. In fact, he can come over as quite ruthless, as well as funny and compassionate. Still, that’s my opinion.

@oswald  I feel the same as you about Peter Capaldi and Bill. Although I had great affection for Clara a…[Read more]

@ichabod and company: I’m not too worried about Mackie.  She did some theatre in London this past spring and has been getting lots of conventions under her belt otherwise.  I hope to meet her at Chicago TARDIS this Thanksgiving.  Whovians take care of their own!  😀

Capaldi definitely has been taking it easy.  Aside from the David Copp…[Read more]

Welcome, @hiker & @oswald !  (:

@gamergirlavatar @thane16 @janetteb @missy @ichabod So nice to read all your posts, I also “disappeared for a while” and yes, the limelight moves at the traditional 670616629.3844 per hour for sure, for good and for ill.

I was feeling pretty lackluster after watching the new trailer, which prompted a sad rewa…[Read more]

SPOILER, SPOILER, SPOILER...

@ichabod

Sorry Miss Ichi I forgto to tag you in the conversation.

I read what you wrote on the other thread about where people get their sources from which then shapes their opinion in a world of echo chambers where egregious errors have been made in the information processing part of our brains, perhaps.

And I don’t see the Capaldi period as a…[Read more]

SPOILER, SPOILER, SPOILER...