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25 August 2017 at 06:53 #61800
On Clara and Xmas again: suppose she shows up, somehow, what would she say to CapDoc? That she’s on her way to Trap Street, because — been almost everywhere, seen almost everything, didn’t belong to any of it. “I miss my heartbeat. I miss the person I was before my death, so I’m going back for that last moment of being her. So long, and thanks for all the fish . . . ” Or something along those lines.
Fortunately, I’m not writing DW. I’ll need some good wine by me when Xmas comes, and I doubt I’ll be alone in that.
24 August 2017 at 10:56 #61792@hiker . . . I took it as ‘I won’t change again, I want to stay as I am or die.’
An echo of CyberBill, “I don’t want to live if I can’t be me.”
24 August 2017 at 10:52 #61791On the suggestion that Clara may put in an appearance in Xmas special — she, too, has a date with her ending. Suppose she’s stopping by on her way back to the Trap Street, and her attitude is part of what persuades CapDoc to embrace his own “ending”?
24 August 2017 at 08:49 #61790@hiker He does know Clara exists, which is more than we can say for Donna, and knowledge of that feeling is enough to prevent him from doing the same to Bill.
Yep; this is deep learning, to come from experiences no longer consciously remembered, so it is a signal itself that the Twelve/Clara relationship was a particularly powerful one. What made it more interesting, for me, than Clara/11 was that it was weirdly clear that she was addicted to his kind of life but not addicted to him as 12, not 11; but he became addicted to *her*, as Missy would have known he would, so it *had* to end in very gratifying (to Missy) a painful and tragic parting for him (Missy doesn’t give a hoot about Clara’s feelings, of course).
But — this being DW — the Doctor and his Doctor-like human partner worked out a different ending — one that rewards Clara for sticking with him but also calling him out on the Donna Ploy — and releases the Doctor from Missy’s Clara-trap while still leaving him the prize of that experience: the understanding that the Donna Ploy is demeaning and unfair to both him and his companion. Pretty neat.
@winston We have questioned his actions but never his motives which are clear- to help where he can and to be kind
I wonder whether, if the show were not “family viewing”, he might have added the rest of that nugget of wisdom (as I see it, anyway): “Be kind — because the universe isn’t.” It’s a grim thought, not suitable for young kids who have enough fears of their own as it is, when it’s dark and they’ve had a bad dream. On the other hand, there’s that line about the universe showing us its real face when it asks for our help. Does the Doctor really believe that? I don’t, and DW hasn’t convinced me otherwise . . . And let’s not forget, “Space — it’s trying to kill you!” Damn, I’m going to miss him, contradictions and all.
12 August 2017 at 03:40 #61700@thane15 Yes, the PC thing “but that doesn’t mean I’m a reactionary jerk” is one flag. Another is “virtue signaling”, a tern that’s been showing up from alt.right and the like, meaning “Oh, you *say* you’re for pay parity but you’re just saying/doing that so people will notice you and applaud you for it!” It makes me think of somebody who feels not noticed and applauded enough themselves, but is dang-nabbed if *they’re* going to give a beggar a buck even it the whole world is watching to get some approval. Liddle bit hyperbole there, but I think you know what I mean. Sort of, um — Scrooge McDuck-ish, in so many ways . . . That is, of course, an “if the shoe fits” comment.
But our Doctor Who club has actual members. First time that’s ever happened in the 65 year- old life of my school.
And that’s just *grand* — thanks for talking about it!
@janetteb . . . for the last couple of weeks people were discussing the news that never mentioned Dr Who before and not one comment I heard was negative. It was a good time to be a fan.
An excellent time! But also the kind of time that tends to shake out the less flexible, and it’s not reasonable to expect them to be happy about that. On the other hand, remember that poor little wretch who posted here briefly about throwing away all his (or her) DW memorabilia and never watching again because JW? Many of the nay-sayers haven’t exactly been cutting a fine figure on the boards where I’ve come across them . . . On the other hand, someday that might be me, more or less; you never know.
@dwispccrap In the 12 years of the new show the stories have become less exciting and less memorable.
To you, clearly, but not to many, many others. I’m the sort of fan who really doesn’t care about stories spanning 50 yrs being internally consistent with each other. As a writer of fiction myself publishing since the ’70’s, I have a pretty good idea of how realistic that expectation is, with all sorts of writers and actors and show runners on the show changing all the time. The result has been that some fans have taken it upon themselves to wrestle it all into a coherent whole after the fact, but that doesn’t mean current creatives of DW are, or should be, bound by those efforts.
I could have lived with a female taking on the part if they had got someone a little less bland and girl next doorish than Jodie. She just looks so dull.
As it happens, I share your trepidation. I too saw JW in Broadchurch, and it bothers me a lot that *I do not remember her from that show at all*. It’s also true that nobody much made an impression on me in Broadchurch — I found them all stiflingly dull and dreary and their story basically idiotic in any sort of real world terms, except the Woman With A Past living with her dog on the beach. So of course JW should get the benefit of the doubt, assuming a new role in a very different show etc.
Except it’s going to be with the same writer (and his team) as did Broadchurch, frequently referred to in various commentaries as “a safe pair of hands” — which doesn’t reassure me either, frankly. I wish they’d chosen a spikier woman, someone more challenging and a bit off beat. On the other hand, I suppose they feel they can’t afford to take that kind of risk right on top of the basic risk of a female Doctor: some fans were very vocal about CapDoc being “too unlikeable” in S8, and all a female character has to do to be called “unlikeable” is stop smiling, let alone speak up for herself and her opinions (C.F. Clara with Capaldi). We’ll just have to see.
@wolfweed Thanks so much for the Tennant clip! Speaking of “likeability!” I like him much better off-duty than I liked his Doctor. That was fun!
@bluesqueakpip maybe choosing to regenerate as a female Time Lady hinted that you had Sisterhood sympathies. It was a suspicious, possibly political choice. [There’s an episode in that one…]
Yes! It’d be worth putting up with the stuffy old TLs to have some serious time with the Sisterhood and their doings.
11 August 2017 at 20:02 #61698Not sure where to put this — a humor piece about time travel that (keeping in mind that JW’s Doctor will be a time traveling alien rather than a time traveling human) has a couple of interesting ideas (such as reverse infection) for your enjoyment:
Hope the link works.
9 August 2017 at 20:03 #61681@bluesqueakpip Thinking about it, I see that my reservations about Chibnall are rooted in my negative reaction to “Broadchurch”, which implies a judgment on his team as well. But I’m clearly in a minority in disliking that show (and I haven’t seen the third series yet — Dish network kept switching my BBCA service on and off in an effort to get me to pay $30 extra per month to secure it, and I balked, but I’ve seen encouraging comments about the final series).
I’ll do a re-watch of “Broadchurch” on Amazon or Netflix, see whether that alters my opinion. I really want Chibnall and co to succeed with DW — first female Doctor, after all: high stakes!
9 August 2017 at 11:12 #61676@bluesqueakpip That’s a good reminder, and makes me feel more confident about the coming change. Thanks.
9 August 2017 at 06:16 #61672Oh, man, she’s got to keep the accent, in the show! She comes across, to me, as very fresh and energetic — a bit like Pearl Mackie as Bill Potts, in fact. And I like it. A lot. That will make missing Twelve easier, in a way.
I do read rumors, thought, that Chibnall has expressed no interest in inviting Rachel Talalay back to direct, and I don’t think that’s good news, at least not til we see what he comes up with instead.
5 August 2017 at 06:31 #61628@missy I do not hate JW, she can act – although always as herself – but she isn’t in the same class as Olivia Colman, Tilda Swinton or Nicola Walker, that’s my point.
Ha, funny — I don’t remember JW from Broadchurch, or in fact any of the other things I’ve seen her in; but I really didn’t like Olivia Coleman, and would have been grumpy if she’d been chosen to play the Doctor instead of JW. It’s nothing I can put my finger on, just a visceral reaction to a total stranger, but all actors have to resign themselves to the unaccountable fickleness of audiences. I thought Swinton would be an interesting choice, but never imagined she’d be interested at this stage of her career. Actually, I’d rather see her take on the role with another decade of age on her, but that’s all fantasy.
Missy, what do you mean by JW being “an activist”? I’d never heard of her being anything notably public on behalf of any political position, and all I can think of is that she did say early on after the choice was made public that she’s “a feminist”. Does calling yourself a feminist = being “an activist” in your view? Or is JW well known for displaying the “act” part of “activist”? Links would be appreciated, if you’ve got some.
And then there’s this, from @jimthefish: Not sure why JW being politically active should count for or against her. Quite apart from anything else, you could say the same thing for Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant for that matter.
Makes no clear sense to me, either.
5 August 2017 at 06:04 #61627@thane15 . . . people argue along the lines of: he has always been a doctor, he’s role model for boys
He’s also been a role model *for girls* — ask them at conventions and such, and while some will claim a companion as their inspiration, many will claim this or that Doctor even more so. If an alien with a time machine, a sonic screwdriver, a massively capable if somewhat dippy mind, who presents as male can be a role model for both boys and girls, what’s to prevent the same alien, presenting as female for a change, to still be — a role model for both boys and girls? The qualities you describe will still be there to inspire us, so what on earth is the problem? Looks to me as if there isn’t one — unless you’re a person who worries about boys who admire heroic women somehow catching “female cooties” through the TV screen and being “turned gay” (or maybe just — gay-ish?) by this “unhealthy” admiration for a gender-switchable alien hero who is sometimes (*gasp*!) female.
Or — something else, that I’m missing? I await enlightenment. Meanwhile, I know what attitude strikes me as unhealthy in just about every way possible, and it’s not the attitude of curiosity about seeing what a female actor will bring to the role of the Doctor. If that sounds a bit harsh, humor me; I’ve been poking around at reddit and Fansided, and the arguments against Whittaker that I’ve seen there are largely just — puerile.
But then, I’m probably spoiled from hanging around this place . . .
4 August 2017 at 18:40 #616184 August 2017 at 18:19 #61615Yes, I thought you’d enjoy it!
4 August 2017 at 08:48 #61602@wolfweed That interview at Supercon is one of the best I’ve seen — *good* questions and time to answer at some length. Thanks so much. And in the middle of it, there’s the answer to my earlier question: one way that PC sees himself as a “type” of actor is as a somewhat bigger-than-life figure in a B-movie, which I *think* means a natural for the big bold stuff like the Zygon speech, and the face off with the Half-faced Man, and the final battle with the cybermen; which de-emphasizes his skill and delicacy at doing more subtle work, often physical — gesture, expression — rather than verbal, which has been even more effective IMO, because I don’t expect that in heroic adventurers. There wasn’t, as I recall, anything subtle about, say, Stewart Granger in “King Solomon’s Mines” (I hope I’m remembering that one correctly).
But then, when you’ve got writers like SM and his crowd, and a hero with a big brain, two hearts, and a screw driver, there’s a sort of open invitation, I think, to draw that out of an actor who has it in him to bring in the first place. It’s interesting, too, that PC has the same trouble trying to describe what it is about DW that makes it resonate unusually deeply for different viewers at different points — I can’t either, although I suspect it has a lot to do with something in the story maps onto powerful personal experience for watchers who get caught up into it that way.
@thane15 Moreover, women are poorly rendered by non-Christians too who find pronoun creep hard to avoid and call, during the “is the Doctor a man?” discussion the actress Jodie Whitakker merely “Jodie” and yet frame the debate about Capaldi using his full name -which might be a cosmetic concern but is part of on-going equality issues.
Yes, this was very noticeable in some of the earlier reactions. The heartening thing is that the discrepancy in how their names were treated was pointed out by several posters (here and there), with no justifications offered, because it was so damned obvious that there are none.
1 August 2017 at 00:37 #615701 August 2017 at 00:36 #615691 August 2017 at 00:30 #61568@thane15 Mum’s birthday
Happy birthday to your mum! And to you too, @missy!
@bluesqueakpip the traditionalists have a very tricky line to walk. They have to explain what, exactly, is so gender-specific about the role of the Doctor that a female actor can’t possibly play the role. If they can’t explain it, they do lay themselves open to charges of misogyny – even though they might just not want their childhood hero to change sex. 🙂
Agreed; and so far, maybe there have been intelligently grounded arguments for “why the Doctor can’t be female”, in-universe or out of it, but I have yet to see any (“It’s always been that way” isn’t, IMO, an intelligently grounded argument). As for “role models”, it seems to me that not only can boys be expected to look up to female role models as well as male ones (as girls have had to do for decades if they wanted to be other than Angels of the Hearth), but it would greatly *benefit* boys and men in general for that to happen. I see that as a positive development, not a negative. And it seems to be taking, too, with young male children in households that are liberal in such matters, and maybe eventually in other contexts as well.
31 July 2017 at 23:01 #61567@missy Oh, I think it’s a safe bet that this (and lots else in TToI) goes in in politics quite a lot — people who willingly jump into a pit full of hungry tigers are rarely the best or the brightest, so shenanigans are bound to ensue. Also hi-jinks.
31 July 2017 at 22:56 #61566@jimthefish Capaldi has never been anything less than amazing. Jodie Whittaker has got some seriously big boots to fill when her time comes.
Wow, yeah — I wish her the best. If Capaldi’s run was contentious among the fans who post about DW on the net (although most of the actual hate-mail centered on Moffat’s work and Moffat’s personality as perceived by twisted minds, IMO), what’s it going to be like for Whittaker?! The yap-meisters are already foaming at the mouth over a story on Radio Times, I think, about contrasting Doctor 12 and Doctor 1 in the Xmas special by (presumably among other things) differences in their gender attitudes, and that’s re an episode that Whittaker and Chibnall barey have a hand in and that hasn’t been seen yet, but is already a hot potato!
Gonna be a wild time in the old town next year . . . a safe prediction, but also, IMO, a very interesting way of making DW a center of attention around issues that are legitimately hot and spiky in our reality these days (and, I suspect, for many many days to come). That’s a great way to rev up DW with modern energy. Lots of fans will hate it. Lots more, I think, will find those folks’ outrage anywhere from comical to incomprehensible. The times, they are a-changing, and as the man said, Not a moment too soon, my dear.
30 July 2017 at 05:13 #61543@mudlark a particular sympathy between his and Moffat’s vision of the role. Whatever it is, it adds up in my opinion to the quintessential Doctor.
I’ve felt that, too — two talented men with a background in “Scottish philosophy” pooled their gifts and gave us the Doctor in middle-age: old enough to be weary and cynical, but with flashes of youthful energy, humor, and optimism. Plus a consistent layer of that self-deprecatory wit that you see sometimes in gifted people from smaller, poorer nations. These two have all that in spades, and I suspect that part of Capaldi’s resignation from the role may have been an awareness that *that* relationship would never be as solid and mutually reenforcing as working with Steven Moffat and crew has been for the twelfth Doctor. I certainly can’t blame him for that.
@thane15 I think patient and articulate people should write this on your London papers in the comment section!
Yes. Don’t give the haters, the carpers, and the Mean Girls stuck in their cute-young-guys-or-nothing the last word about the gifts we’ve all been given.
I noticed something Capaldi said in an interview at ComiCon, I think, about having been such a long-time DW fan. He talked about having been shaped in his ambitions by the program, saying it was partly because of DW that he did become an actor himself — and, he added, “the kind of actor that I am.” I wonder what he meant by that last phrase? What “kind of actor” do you suppose he is? Operatic rather than “kitchen sink” or naturalistic (although playing the Dad in “Skins” contradicts that)? A light baritone taking the weightier tenor roles? Whatever it is, run-of-the-mill he is not, which is pretty much what SM said early on that he looked for in actors he asked to play the Doctor — quirky, a bit odd, but attractive.
26 July 2017 at 21:43 #61469@thane15 SOmeone once said that disliking that particular arc “stank of ageism and sexism” -ageism because it (the arc) was still being tied up with Capaldi but also there were people who, even though maybe they admitted Clara got better stories with PC, weren’t happy with Clara in any case. I thought her stories were rich and interesting.
Funny thing about that “stink of ageism and sexism” is that *liking*the “Impossible Girl” arc can also be seen as very sexist– since “Impossible” Clara is a “Mary Sue” character if ever there was one, so loving her IG perfection and sacrifice is loving a hoary old sexist stereotype closely related to the Victorian “Angel of the Hearth” notion of a “good” woman’s role. As for ageism — that’s Clara’s own problem, once she turns into a “real” young woman who wants her Chin-boy back, and that’s part of what makes her more real than IG in the first place, for me.
25 July 2017 at 21:50 #61438@jimthefish @wolfweed Yes, that speech is the iconic moment, to me. It’s where he’s come to, the penultimate self-realization — and gives him a stake in *not* regenerating [this is me, the kind of good man I am — I’m not giving me up now I’m found!]. Ground laid for Xmas story.
I also like @hiker saying that maybe more than 12 regenerations is more than even a TL can handle; that would be perfectly understandable. On the other hand, this is no ordinary TL, and he’s proven to be not just kind, but also brave, which he’ll demonstrate (under somewhat less extreme circumstances, I trust) in the end.
25 July 2017 at 06:26 #61409@janetteb . . . the Doctor calling himself Timelord when he rejects the elitism of Gallifreyan society. It does grate and I liked Danny making a point about that.
I appreciate the title as a character point: yes, the Doctor is a rebel, but he’s also a bit arrogant — and probably also a bit insecure, since he didn’t do well at the Academy, did he? It’s a nice little spot of confusion and conflict in the character that makes him more realistically human, IMO.
@missy Since the exodus of SM and PC, I feel that I have lost two dear and trusted friends.
Yes; it might be worth remembering that pretty much everybody is feeling losses of some kind here, which is one of the things that “the end of an Era” means.
@jimthefish How can anyone, outside of the most rabid right-winger, be against social justice? Quite apart from anything else it runs absolutely counter to the ethos of the show.
Truer words . . . and I couldn’t agree more about the idiocy of “Social Justice Warrior” as — a pejorative? Seriously? So the antagonist of an “SJW” would be — a slaver? A lynch mob? A man who throws acid in a woman’s face because she’s “disobedient”? Wow. Baffling.
@antaus You are so right about TV and movies rolled out like yard-goods, with only a few simple and predictable patterns to choose from. One of the forces against such dreary foolishness is, I think, lots of competition for people’s entertainment time from cable, dish, and internet sites with fresh content.
@wolfweed “and — all sorts of things (giggle) . . . ” Sure; Venusian aikido takes four arms, and didn’t the Doctor just claim that he had an additional pair?
25 July 2017 at 05:45 #61408@jimthefish But am I the only one surprised at how low Capaldi’s salary was?
I thought it sounded pretty good, until I saw comparisons with all the other New Who Doctors. What the heck? I am glad, though, that JW will have this level of parity.
I do find complaints of gender insult and unfairness regarding the casting of a female Doctor to be akin to a child who has been allowed to eat 100% of a cake for fifty years, now being asked to share 1/13th of it and throwing a tantrum.
Precisely, and nicely put.
25 July 2017 at 03:46 #61407@lisa So I’d very much like to see her as a sort of “Orlando”. Throw in some episodes where the Doctor meets some historic figures. I like those particular episodes very much! Oh- and give her a very Bloombury outfit and a visit to meet Virginia and Vita 🙂
Oooh, you really have it in for the haters, Lisa! You want their heads to *expLODE*? I like your Bloomsbury idea for at least an episode — it could be delightful! And thanks for such an excellent example of the fresh kind of thinking that having a female DW can let loose. (Which is, of course, what sexists and haters fear most — all that new thinking, which of course isn’t new at all, what new times might it lead to?!!!)
@nick Whether Jodie is a success or not playing the Doctor, she’s a fine actress and I don’t see this harming her career at all. In fact being the first (and taking all the crap) will probably have the opposite effect.
Exactly — she’s heroic for just taking it on, but I don’t expect her to ever say so. As another commenter commented on another page (sorry, can’t think who or where just now), men tend to do all the knickers-knotting and show-boating that they accuse women of indulging in, while women, once the see what job needs to be done, set to doing it.25 July 2017 at 02:21 #61406@missrori I think the defining characteristic of Twelve is his rawness of emotion, even when it’s concealed
Steven Moffat said so early on — that this Doctor is “an exposed nerve” of emotion — and Capaldi played that beautifully. It helps to have a face that reads like a contour map of the Highlands, of course.
@hiker Each episode advances the Clara /Doctor relationship (and I’m realizing now that’s what I’m here for, not necessarily in a full-blown Whouffaldi way, but the interaction between the two is a primary attraction for me.).
I felt a personal investment in their story too, primarily I think because it was never going to be a kissy-wuv kind of thing (pace those who insist that it always was) but promised to be something much more interesting. Relationships between essential unequals have always have always been fraught with a particularly vibrant power for me (well, not just for me: Jane Eyre, Beauty and the Beast, Cupid and Psyche; hell, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Emma Peel and Mr. Steed, Holmes and Watson, Timmie and Lassie — okay, I’ll stop there — wait, Scaramouche and the Marquis de la Tour D’Azure, Billy Budd and Mr. Clagget). I picked up on it because Capaldi pointed it out, quite early on, when someone asked whether CapDoc/Clara was a love story, and he said it had romance in it all right (implying a larger dimension that our standard ideas about boy/girl/boy/boy/girl/girl attraction), but “sex — is just sex”.
Nobody on the team ever came back to that remark, but why should they? After all, the whole Doctor and Clara story *showed* us what that was, and why it’s not “the Impossible Girl” that’s impossible, but their situation itself. The draw of that kind of thing for me is the struggle to somehow balance the equation against all odds, and the degree to which that is achieved, and what the results from it (usually brief) achievement. That, for me, brings to life the central human dilemma — the fight to reach beyond protective individualism (with its burden of loneliness) to true intimacy with others (with its burden of risk, the risk — and the certainty — of pain). I mean intimacy in the sense of acceptance and trust (“Do you think I care for you so little . . . “).
In some ways, of course, Clara becomes — a Doctor-like figure by the end; just not *the* Doctor. They can feel equal, and act equal, but they’re not and never could actually be equal. Except in stories, maybe.
He starts out seemly unable to remember anything he learned previously about human interaction, and builds his way back to a real relationship with both Clara and Bill, not to mention Missy.
I’d say it’s not that he’s forgotten everything he’d learned — he certainly remembers what pudding-brains we can be, and scorns us for it — but that he seems cut off from the more positive understandings that 11 had gained. Maybe that’s what a completely unexpected and wrenching regeneration can do to a TL. Clara managed in hang in for the harsher edges of that, for which she does not get enough credit, seems to me, and helped him to do the rebuilding, as you say.
You’re gonna love “Flatline”!
@drben You can generally function, as long as you keep moving and don’t think about things too much, but sometimes the effort gets to be too much.
Gosh, yes, for situational depression. Been there, at any rate, like anyone who’s every had anything both crappy and irreversible happen in their lives. Isn’t depression a part of PTSD? Some vets re-up for war so they can have that necessary, adrenaline-spiked action again, I’ve read.
And I like your prediction for Thirteen!
23 July 2017 at 06:04 #61306Thanks everybody, for (pre?) ComiCon clips — I was away for the weekend and out of touch. Can’t say I’m surprised that PC says he plans to just “vanish” for a while. I think he’s got a lot to think about from this experience of getting his dearest wish from childhood, and having to deal with the many realities of actually doing it — it’s never entirely what you expect, is it? And there will likely be some brooding time too (Scottish, you know). It can’t easy or quick to come down from a high like that, and let go of the inevitable lows as well.
Sheesh, gonna miss this crew no matter what comes after . . .
22 July 2017 at 07:25 #61282The Hair — that early, short look went with the stripped down, peeled raw character who began S8 — a soul that’s been through the thresher and is staggering around trying to patch together its true nature again, which was *supposed* to have died with Eleven: “Here’s a crisis — what do I do in a crisis like this? What *should* I do? Why?” kind of thing. Robin Hood carries the heroics off with such idiotic panache and weird naivete — Doctor doesn’t like it, too flourishy (banter! he hates it!), but can’t help but admire Robin’s aplomb, and his equable acceptance of becoming a story-book hero with the passage of time because, don’t we all, at least for a while, to someone? And so it went . . . “What’s my style? What’s my function? What are my limitations? Who is this other person I need to have by me although she shouts at me?” I found the series rich and scrumptious in a particular way — keep thinking in terms of — jewelry? Armor? Like this (hope the link works):
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1912525632345978&set=pcb.1912527202345821&type=3&theater
S9 — balanced again, hair in robust rock-star style, a bit of swagger, and the unfurling of his rebel flag — “If anyone watching doesn’t like it, the Hell with them!” Yes, Ashildr was a bit half baked; too much of her story was left out between their talk in the tavern and their talk in the ruins of the Citadel, but these things don’t bother me. The nature of the show itself, as convoluted as it sometimes became during Moffat’s reign, is funny, serious, deeply tragic, and constitutionally *untidy*. This character who lives thousands of years never has time to clean up anything, deal with everything, there being so damn *much* of it packed into most of these episodes. Part of CapDoc’s charm is playing that messiness, half-cocked improv on the spot, with sudden pauses in which we can hear that almost-sound of that doomsday bell.
He doesn’t need Clara so much now — but she needs him now, she’s the one at loose ends. He’s taught her to be a “Doctor”. She still has things to teach him, though, big things, as they fall into the black hole of impossibility. The man who wanted to protect his “pet” more than anything submits to her instruction instead of addling her wits, and surrenders his memories instead of hers. All of this worked wonderfully well for me; Capaldi’s Doctor shared his stories and their risks with his human comrade-double, and the stories were fun. I saw “Sleep No More” as a failed experiment, but an experiment with a function — we needed to see the Doctor *fail* and be reminded that he *can* fail, because he fails big time in Raven, with dire consequences for all concerned.
S10 — Moffat says in an interview that he wanted to start off with the kindly grandpa side of the Doctor, via his professor role, so that Bill isn’t just hurled headlong into roaring danger at headlong speed, and the viewers who’d been missing his kinder self would be reassured and made more comfortable. It worked for me, but as my tastes lean toward the darker, more dramatic stories, I also found “Smile” and “Thin Ice” satisfying but a bit shallow. I loved “Knock, Knock”: Bill and her little mob of roommates, the wooden mother/daughter, and David Suchet, who I thought was wonderful in this; no worlds at stake, but a Gothic family tragedy and a haunted house. The monks — great start, fizzled ending for reasons that Moffat firmly took responsibility for in his comments on the ending episode. Mars was a silly pudding, but very cheering, and I liked the blue-ish, chilly look of “Death by Scotland”.
The Hair, of course, took off and became a wild, out-of-control lion-mane, what my sister calls “conductor hair”, carried off majestically by a guy who once said on an early panel when asked what he was afraid of, “I’m afraid of ma hair; ma hair is a nightmare! Nobody can do anything with it, so they just leave it up to me”, which is probably not entirely true, but that look sure fits the figure he cut in S10.
The resolution — more wild and wonderful stuff, the hero who’s “not a hero” expressing exactly the kind of heroism that the Doctor is made of: making it up as he goes along, utilizing whatever’s at hand, and making a last, desperate pitch to Missy. Nothing works out right or perfectly, except that Bill gets compensated for her sufferings (though I hated to see her go). This time this Doctor doesn’t try to prevent or remedy the changes around him (Cyberbill’s death, Nardole’s despatch to a different saga), but change in himself. He’s reached the end of his Doctorly resilience: The Doctor Falls No More. He *won’t* regenerate; he’d rather die.
And suddenly the Tardis takes us to a landscape of the past, where the “original article” looms out of the darkness and snow. Great! Loved it.
Through all of it, Capaldi’s Doctor navigated challenges from every quarter (blindness, two Missters and neither willing, as far as he got to know to help, the loss of Bill), on every scale, but when it comes down to the final one, the biggest one — No. He will not regenerate. He’s won through to this version of himself — heroic in practical terms and without witnesses (a far cry from, “I’m nothing without an audience!”), his emotions unshielded so that everyone *does* matter to him — and he balks at giving that person up some “some other bloke”(!) can “walk away” with his life. He’s even re-learned kindness; I do wish he’d gotten a chance to say something about how the thing about kindness is that it’s not just a feeling, it’s also a choice — and you can be a kind person and still fail at that sometimes, or fail to back it up with action (Bill into CyberBill). It’s not *automatic*.
Well, I don’t want to give him up either. I’ve loved and admired his work in this show, and that’s in spite of the fact that as a general rule, I’m not really a fan of this particular style of acting, which I think of, weirdly, as both broader and bolder than his work in “realistic” drama (TToI, sort of), as befits a larger-than-life character who is, in his own specific way, a “superhero” or at least a “super being”; and almost microscopically detailed, in the modulations of voice, the expressiveness of little muscles I don’t think most people even have in their faces, the way he put on the burgundy velvet coat or drank — and appreciated — his stolen coffee in the orphanage. This made him fascinating to watch. Capaldi’s Doctor is my Doctor, even where the writing or the editing didn’t completely support him or actually let him down (The Lie of the Land).
Time for some deep breaths, and other things; and then some binge watching of the whole deal (gosh, what a chore!). And I’ve loved the company of all of you here, too, with great comments and discussions — it’s made everything even more fun than it would have been without that.
20 July 2017 at 20:54 #61189@serahni . . . What I’m actually hoping for, after all this outcry, is that The Doctor asserts the identity he’s always had and demands to be considered male, despite appearances.
I think I’d rather have JW’s Doctor casually accept both pronouns, him and her, because now it’s established that TLs (including Doctors) can regenerate across gender lines, so (to an extent to be determined — or left open and fluid) the potentialities attached to both genders are accessible to her from within. Or not? To me, it’s an intriguing question, and I hope Chibnall follows its possible implications instead of just assuming some “rule” that shuts down questions from the get-go.
There’s only so far I think he can go within the “family viewing” remit, but for pete’s sake, now that we’ve been let out of the house, let’s play a little with this new freedom!
18 July 2017 at 08:17 #60990@wolfweed @pedant @jimthefish @juniperfish Great! Love yous, for the jokes! And confirmation that we’ll get enough of the new Doctor for Rachal Talalay to direct. Oh, this is going to be good.
@mirime Good point about your mum. I’m within uncomfortably more than squinting distance of 80, myself, and the more I think about it, the more I love the idea of HW following Capaldi (an older Doctor, unstable, real ice as well as real fire); no point shaking up the dice if you’re not going to throw the things!
18 July 2017 at 08:05 #60989@gwladys24 My only issue is whether this development is consistent with the Doctor’s backstory, as far as we think we know it.
As we know it, though, has been expanded to include possibilities not previously made explicit: when CapDoc tells Bill about the Master as his “man crush”, he added that he might have been female then, can’t remember; and was he female, or some kind of veggie-sexed person when “There was an algae king who fancied me once.” The Doctor’s backstory is by its nature (TV fantasy fiction) infinitely expandable and variable, provided that he retains his core values of doing right for its own sake and being kind at heart(s). Seriously, I wouldn’t worry.
The question of just *how* the new Doctor will be a female person is going to be hugely controversial no matter how it is handled. If JW were to play a flirty, moody, openly sentimental, impulsive (etc., all the assumption, both pos. and neg., of sexual essentialism) Doctor, feminists (like me) would be up in arms (is that all you think there is to being a woman, you dolts, that sexist caricature, that trivializing cartoon?). If JW were to play a “mannish” woman, some would charge that she’s a masculine idea of a lesbian or even a dominatrix, with the Tardis as her dungeon. If JW plays the Doctor as asexual — that would be very interesting, since male actors have done that previously with nobody squawking much about it that I’ve seen; and female fans (not just feminists, of whatever gender) might well object, “You’re cheating — what’s the point of having a female Doctor if she’s exactly like a *male* Doctor?
And many finer shades of discontent in between, as things develop. Frankly, I think this is excellent. This sort of conversation (within the program, and among its viewers) is exactly what the knee-jerk-I’mnotasexistbutt brigade want NOT to take place, ever, anywhere, but especially not on Their Show. But it’s the conversation humanity is, at long last beginning to insist on having, because the old essentialist assumptions are starrting to crack and lose their authority at last, in the real world. The idea that they can (or should) still be applied to stories about a universe populated by sentient fluids, zygons, and gods know what, let alone travelers among them all, is just ludicrous, IMO. The change in rigid divisions and attributes to this or that class of persons is part of the future that was waiting for us, and now it’s here — with automation, cyborgs, genetic modification and science, nano tech, and all the rest.
DW stays vital and relevant by engaging with it, not by closing its eyes and pretending that nothing has changed. I came across a comment recently to the effect that this change has already happened, and is spreading globally, but that very old, deep-rooted patriarchal values are sure as Hell not going to give up without a fight. Well, we’re in the middle of that fight right now (very obviously in the US, given the knuckle-dragging crew in the White House, but similarly elsewhere if you keep an eye on the international news). How can DW mean anything to modern people without acknowledging that basic change, not ducking it? They don’t have to wade in gun blazing (the Doctor doesn’t like guns), but there are other ways, and yes, they have; the moment has been prepared for.
I’m proud of the show and its people for jumping in the deep end of the pool. I didn’t think the BBC had the guts to really go for it, to tell the truth. However they manage from here on, I salute them for proving me wrong.
Great post, @greyhoundjon, and welcome!
18 July 2017 at 07:08 #60988@cathannabel ” . . . the Doctor should never be a figure for sexual fantasy, to which the response from a woman was ‘Mate, I’ve got terrible news for you…’
Ah, what laugh! Thanks for that. Isn’t it strange, when some men still think that not only is sexual fantasy their exclusive playground, but that TV exists only to cater to the boys in that playground. You’d think fanfic had never been invented . . . Remember Capaldi reading out loud from a bit of fan fic and checking, “There’s nothing — sassy in here, is therer?” which got a huge laugh from the audience, because . . . well — I was just at a panel on fanfic in Boston, at which the point was made that one of the things that fanfic does (among many others) is to declare the legitimacy of female’s sexual fantasy as equal to that of males.
18 July 2017 at 05:58 #60984@missrori @mirime YES, with you on that — the only way to follow Capaldi was with something as cool in its own way as the wild-haired Scotsman with the hearts of two lions (well, a lion and a lioness, clearly). And this woman looks up to the job, though I know nothing about her.
For those cut to their own hearts by this choice, here’s an opportunity to follow the style of our hero — open minds, hopeful anticipation, and, above all — kindness.
18 July 2017 at 05:37 #60982All — I was in Boston over the weekend for a convention snoozing and going to SF panels, and only found out today, when I opened the papers this morning on the way to the airport. I wasn’t sure how I really felt about the possibility of a female #13 — apart from a somewhat distanced, probably stuffy approval on gender politics grounds, before, because I didn’t think there was a snow-ball’s chance in hell. But this a.m. I found out how I *really* feel.
You could have heard my “Yippeeeeeeee!” all the way to Albuquerque, before I ever got on the plane.
Just the idea that the BBC did it, and by Garm kept it a secret, was a thrill. They’re not the Gnarly Gnomes of Edwardia after all!
Thrilled. Absolutely. Wow!
Just got home, will read everything tomorrow, but I just wanted to say how absolutely chuffed I am by this, and eager to see what everybody else has had to say. Night, night!
13 July 2017 at 06:55 #60583@craig If they announced a “controversial” casting now, there would be 5 months of carping before what should be a glorious send-off for Capaldi, and all the focus would be on the new “controversial” Doctor and not Capaldi’s farewell.
I hadn’t thought of that, but it’s a fair point. Gawd, the logistics of this show — !!!!! It’s a wonder, sometimes, that anybody survives a long immersion in making it.
9 July 2017 at 21:33 #60494@serahni Here, have some nice grapes. I can’t stand the damn bleating either, so I’m in your small minority (which I doubt is that small any more). Too much romantic goo for me with Rose and Ten. I think Moffat has done much better with the Twelve/Clara story (full of difficulties, and ultimately destroyed by its own success, as excess of attachment so often is); and even more so with Bill as a companion of the “ordinary young woman” variety. I don’t pine for more of Twelve/Clara, because that story was so thoroughly told; done and dusted, for me.
I’ve certainly never wanted to see more of Rose; but then, I wasn’t a teenager when I first saw her, and I never got sentimental about her. I would like to see more of Bill, though. I wish she were staying over into S11. Hers isn’t nearly a saga, as Clara’s story was, so it feels as if she could have another good story about her, and maybe another after that, interacting with another Doctor and filling out a bit more as a character.
9 July 2017 at 03:13 #60482@nerys Yes, that’s the beauty of it — she “played” the “two minds” she was in, one physically, the other verbally, at the same moment. So good . . . (and bad). Being “of two minds” about it is a neat marker of just how far along the Vault experience has brought her, when you compare that line with Simm’s “I will NEVER stand with the Doctor!” The Doctor succeeded changing her, so much so that SimmMaster had to kill her to preserve his own integrity as a bad, bad guy.
So does Simm now regenerate into Missy again, as she was long before the Vault — only to still end up here, in the big ship? Isn’t this a time loopy thing with the MissMaster stuck in it (but with lots of possible other stuff happening between)? Or will Missy 0.2 somehow avoid ending up right back here, dying on floor 1057 or whatever it is? Gah. Time loops make me stupid, every time, every time, every time . . .
@brewski Man, you’re on fire! Love it.
6 July 2017 at 21:54 #60441@tardigrade Somehow I find it difficult to imagine Missy preparing a confession dial, but perhaps she may have, in the lonely hours in the vault, particularly towards the end, when she began to feel that she had something to confess.
Great point — A Simm Master Confession Dial would have nothing but snarks and boasts, and I don’t think Missy pre-Vault would even bother — but after the Vault, maybe. As to your question, yes, it’s the interaction with her past self, and a fatal intereaction at that, that makes me question the outcome of this Master/Missy encounter and wonder whether she has killed of herself — as she is after the Vault — for good. As it were. But as I’ve said, I’m pretty hopeless with keeping these time-loop things straight.
@janetteb Missy does “come good” thus rewarding the Doctor’s faith but he never knows because he has stressed that reward is not required, he does not need to know because he does “good” simply because it is the right thing to do.
I like the little reach-back there to Missy in TWF (I think), jeering, “No, I have not ‘turned guid’!!”
The Doctor’s penchant for averting or resolving a crisis and then skipping off to a new adventure (leaving the survivors to clean up) could be partly because he doesn’t need to know that his gains from his “good deeds” endure (or, for that matter, devolve into much grimmer consequences than foreseen) because it really is the good-act-for-its-own-sake, as an example to encourage others, that he’s about. He does like a bit of “witness” for his amour propre’s sake, but he doesn’t want rewards or stick around to collect them. As for hope — he’d rather not have his hopes re the effects of his help killed by unintended consequences.
“Am I a good man?” The Doctor enacts his answer: based on outcomes, it’s impossible to know because in hindsight there are as many judgments of his acts as there are points of view, all down the future. Based on his intentions at the time, he’s clearly doing his best, so we *can* have an answer: yes, his intention is to help, not harm. Clara says he tries to be, and that’s good enough. Good enough for me, too.
So his M.O. is “Do good and disappear” — good grief! The Doctor is a NUN! [Remember that old movie with Audrey Hepburn, “The Nun’s Story”?]
@thane15 I think the Tardis was nervous of the Doctor’s ‘wish’? That he not regenerate? If he doesn’t then the Tardis sits and dies maybe?
Great question — could the Tardis “die” without its Doctor(s)? It was dormant before Doc 1 stole it, so he sort of woke it up and has bonded with it over time. Maybe, by now, in a way that’s beyond normal (for Tardises), so that it really doesn’t want to have to got back to sleep, on its own, in Antarctica, for an unpredictable period. In fact, maybe the bell is ringing to attract the attention of Hartnell’s Doctor: “Come quick, there’s a future You wrestling with regeneration too, over here — you need each other’s help!” kind of thing. Or maybe the bell is tolling to remind CapDoc that it is time for him to change, willy-nilly. The Doctor is a good nun, and the Tardis is a mean one!
@brewski Applause for your version of the Xmas special — you may have hit the jackpot with this one.
@missy Scottish writer, Doctor and Missy, yet Scotland has trouble with sound?
“Death by Scotland.”
@wolfweed “I mean, look at me — I’m a Hell of a catch!” Wonderful! I’m so gonna miss Missy.
6 July 2017 at 20:23 #60439@blenkinsopthebrave Oh, bravo! I’d forgotten that the Doctor called the Master “that jackanapes!” How delightful.
5 July 2017 at 09:42 #60389@winston I am wondering if Missy gave the Doctor her confession dial when she held his hand?
Great idea — a whiff of true feeling between them from the past — but I think the dial design is too big not to have been seen. But there was a long beat, holding on that hand-clasp, so *something* was sure going on.
If Master Simm does achieve regeneration once he’s in his own Tardis, could he simply regenerate into Missy again, since in the Black Hole story that regeneration hasn’t happened yet? Weird echo of CapDoc’s circle of (real or imaginary) regenerations in Heaven Sent. I’m just having this — reaction to the idea of Simm going on with his timeline while our Missy becomes a sort of closed-off diversionary dead end immaterial to that timeline. Damn. If Simm regenerates into someone *else* now, Missy has been effectively obliterated. Especially if she didn’t pass the Doctor her Confession Dial. *She* gets no regeneration, but Simm does and Simm’s successor continues the line of Master regenerations as if Missy had never been.
I don’t like that. Good god, I’m growling over injustice to an imaginary character, and a villainous one at that! I want Missy back. And I want the middle eight back, too, damn and blast and while I’m at it.
5 July 2017 at 09:25 #60388@miapatrick I’ve wondered before if the twelve regenerations limit is for psychological reasons? We now know that more regenerations can be granted, why is the limit set at twelve? What is the effect of carrying so many sets of memories in your head?
For us, destruction. For a TL, maybe not so much — big mind. But it’s an interesting question. Have we ever seen a Doctor plagued and confused by too much memory of his own pasts?
@nerys How many times has he fought the Cybermen, but like the bird, keeps chipping away till he breaks through? I’m not sure if that was Moffat’s intended symbolism, but it resonated with me.
Oh, yeah, caught the “Heaven Sent” musical echo but I hadn’t linked it to the never-really-ended battle with the cybermen. Gave me the chills.
5 July 2017 at 09:04 #60385@tardigrade We did get the answer to the question “Missy, would it kill you to be kind for once?”. That answer appears to be yes :). It wasn’t only Bill who was unwilling to live if she couldn’t be herself. It seems the Master felt the same and didn’t want to become what Missy was becoming.
Indeed! All that “things end because they have to” is being thrown at these characters (and at us) with a vengeance in this finale. Xmas will be about acceptance. Maybe.
@juniperfish What if the TARDIS has taken Capaldi to visit Hartnell so they can defeat the Valeyard together?
Oh, that’s super — fighting off the Valeyard by — er — a thing happening! Yes!
@jimthefish . . . perhaps a Master trying to be evil and suffering constant pangs of conscience, of the influence of her past incarnation might be interesting.)
That is a delightfully twisted idea. And I also like the stress on regeneration having its punishing side, too, that CapDoc is fighting. This is his more characteristic final battle (although the fight with the cybermen was great) — an internal one, with the terms of his own existence. He’s been an internal warrior at least as much as an external one. Maybe One can be a Doctor to him on this subject, or the two of them Doctors to each other (in Clara’s sense, “Be a doctor!”
3 July 2017 at 12:06 #60260Well, Missy’s hardly the most stable of characters . . . and she might have died laughing because she knows that very well, herself (who better?), so being killed for throwing her lot in with the Doctor even though there’s no telling how soon after she might become that monster again might seem like a pretty good joke. It’s not as if the Master decided to be a bad guy, is it? The Temperamental Schism kinked him up, so it’s a given, I think, that any “guidness” on her part is strictly temporary. Her baseline is destruction.
3 July 2017 at 08:28 #60258@missy . . . the other Scottish actor – his offsider I think – I found to be offensive, not a bit funny. Why?
Because PC is a miles-better actor than that guy, and can carry obscenities off with such heartfelt, yet casual panache? The other “comic Scotsman” felt forced in performance, and completely superfluous to the story, to me. PC’s scene with James Gandolfini was priceless, though. I miss JG. Which reminds me, sort of — Iannucci has something new coming down the pike, I read somewhere — the NYT, today’s Sunday edition, arts (July 1).
@blinkycaryn Hiya, welcome, and glad to hear that you are properly hooked. Same to all the rest of our new addicts — er, members!
3 July 2017 at 02:37 #60240@bluesqueakpip It’s not a selfish desire to remain this personality; it’s an existential crisis caused by becoming effectively immortal – which we first saw in Deep Breath. He wants to stop changing and be true to himself. But the only way he can do that, with his shape-shifting biology, is to not regenerate. He wants to be the man, and play ‘The Doctor’ as a role. But if everyone sees his true name as ‘The Doctor’, has the man been lost, becoming nothing but an ever-changing role, always changing, always dying, always a story rather than a real person?
Yes, this! That makes excellent sense. That whole business of the impact of 11 being regenerated against his own expectations into 12 was, IMO, the backbone of S8 — the floundering, the character, tone, and situation volatility — but I’d have to watch the whole Capaldi run again (oh, gosh, poor me — can hardly wait!)) to see whether, as I suspect, that never really got revisited and expanded upon afterwards, probably because of the “dark” nature of issues that could have been raised more explicitly.
an ever-changing role, always changing, always dying, always a story rather than a real person?
“. . . Be sure to make it a good one!” Per RoS, CapDoc looks back and sees — not a person, but a collection of short stories . . . Where is the present, fully awake and aware self find itself in that succession? Passing through, helping out. I think Doctor 1 won’t have to keep CapDoc in seclusion 1000 yrs to bring him round to accepting the snake-shedding-its-skin nature of the Doctor life.
The end recalling the beginning was most striking, for me, with CapDoc on his back, still-faced and dirtied up, with Cyber-Bill kneeling beside him. Like Clara at the start of DB — “How do we get him back?”
@arbutus I felt that I really that I understood why the Doctor would be resistant to regeneration, that after so many, many changes, he would just have had enough. Particularly as the adjustment this last time was so difficult.
There’s a lot here about the necessity of change, and (vain) resistance to it: Nardole must stop being a sidekick and take on his own leadership position; Bill has to be a Cyberman, and that opens up to her a whole universe of possible changes. The Doctor has to change from nimble genius to “Action Hero” to play his most effective role in this story. And the Master kills his future self, deleting her from his own future life-line — ? Well, depending, of course, on what Chibnall wants to do . . .
Loved this episode; what a whirlwind! Left me pretty breathless, pulse up, wanting to watch again right away — but, you know; life etc. Soon as I can! Sorry for long posts, but I’m getting this Season via a Season Pass through Amazon, so I don’t get to watch a new episode until the following Sunday (sometimes not til Sunday evening). By the time I get here afterwards there are so many great comments already, which means most of what I’d say has been said, better, by others; and to catch up I have to string responses together starting several pages back.
But surely it bears repeating this: I loved it, was swept away by it, and it was great to see Peter C. swashbuckling around like — well, like Burt Lancaster, who, he says, taught him to swear while they were filming “Local Hero” (yeah, Glasgow Boy, that’s a likely story!).
3 July 2017 at 00:35 #60235@bluesqueakpip I actually think it’s the complete opposite.
Yep, well, that’s Moffat for you. It’s DW, so Missy could come back *somehow*, but Simm-Master did say, after shooting her again, “That’s both blasts, so you can’t regenerate.” On the other hand — it is DW.
You’re probably right, though; I’m recalling Moffat talking about having to persuade Chibnall to take the show on, so chances are part of that negotiation was a promise not to slam too many doors too hard, or not nail them shut, anyway.
2 July 2017 at 21:03 #60224Oh, and thanks for the 2-Doc picture — it looks as if Doctor 1 is thinking, “You really need to get a grip with that hair, mate!”
2 July 2017 at 21:01 #60223@wolfweed Thanks for the clip — I think she hit him with her umbrella, plus a hell of a Kung Fu wind-up. I wonder if this ending of Missy is SM saying, “So, I couldn’t do a female Doctor and I did a female Master instead — *I* did it, and now I’m ending it, so if somebody else wants to take a crack at a Doctor OR a Master who’s not just another guy, *they’ll have to have the guts to up and DO it* themselves!”
And I’ll admit it, I’m one of those who didn’t take to “Missy” at the beginning; too, er, broad for my taste, as it were. But what a great finish for her!
1 July 2017 at 18:45 #60110@janetteb Aus’ energy price rise today
Ouch — my electricity bills are double and sometimes more in the summers! I could do some solar — it’s not as if we get no sun here. But I think I’d have to give up my shade trees . . . ugly trade-offs all over the place.
1 July 2017 at 07:47 #60075@jimthefish . . . I’m probably being a doom-meister here but sticking a floppy-fringed white dude in the TARDIS and getting Chibbers to produce something that resembles Who By Committee is the quickest way to ensure that it doesn’t make it through the next five years.
Absolutely agree — except that in fact those choices might just work very well in overseas markets, and maybe even at home in the UK with a larger, more general audience. This be parlous times, and going for the reassuringly familiar might actually work very well — for a bit, anyway — for lots of people with the (completely justified) jitters.
Just when we all *need* to be thinking boldly, not self-medicating with Sugar Pops. Personally, I don’t see Marshall as our man. IMO, he’s a pretty good example of “bland”; maybe even “blank”. I don’t see anything interesting there; but maybe that’s the point, if they’re intending to back off character work. But does Chibnall write rip-roarin’ two-fisted action tales no deeper than a superhero comic page? That’s not the impression I’ve gotten; dullsville, rather (although Broadchurch 3 has just been announced in the NYT today as starting in July, with blurbs suggesting that it’s good). Who Nose.
Anyway, I’ve had my fun; three years’ worth, and it’s been damn good fun, give or take a few sinkholes here and there . . . in no small part due to having this excellent venue for discussions of it.
@nick Agreed; I’d watch for Bill, even if the Doctor himself becomes somebody I can’t give a hang about. I hope Chibnall has changed his mind and asked her to stay on.
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