@JimboMcMaster

I’m planning to reply to you in the Flatline forum. I am planning to reply, but I should probably point something out. I’m dyslexic.

Which means that any post which is three pages long has to be put to one side until I have an hour or two of spare time. It really will take me that long to write a reply.

No problem @ScaryB, I managed to gloss over the post when I saw Flatline mentioned.

However, on re-reading @JimboMcMaster‘s post #33916 is a lot worse for spoilers.

Hopefully a mod can sonic that one a bit too (@JimtheFish, @Phaseshift, @FatManinaBox )

@ScaryB, @JimboMcMaster, Would you mind not referring to ‘future’ episodes in the previous episode posts. It’s kinda like crossing your own timeline!

I haven’t had a chance to see Flatline yet, so trying to avoid any mentions of it! 🙂

@JimboMcMaster @Bluesqueakpip

It’s an interesting discussion! A thorny problem!

I do think that Day of the Doctor showed that choosing the bad option (as opposed to the worse option) isn’t good enough for the Doctor. He has to find a third way that doesn’t involve killing all the children. The option he found isn’t necessarily a great one either…[Read more]

@JimboMcMaster

The Doctor didn’t cause Ross’s death. Ross accidentally caused his own death, by trying to damage the Dalek and setting off the ‘anti-bodies’. The decision is to not use his death (thus killing others) or use his death (thus saving others).

Likewise, if you want to look at the best outcome in Mummy, see the death of the Captain -…[Read more]

@FlirtingDinosaur  @JimboMcMaster    The thing about TARDIS physics is that the whole central premise is outside of the everyday physics that we (or I) understand. There was a wonderful, physical demonstration here of the hard-to-grasp fact that the inside of the TARDIS is essentially unconnected to the outside. It is a different dimension, and…[Read more]

Lots to process, not least that so much of our recent discussions in here have bubbled up to the surface.

Clara’s lying is definitely a “thing”. And not a good thing. And it’s different from the Doctor’s thing when he lies!

You were an exceptional Doctor Clara, goodness had nothing to do with it

That line gave me chills! Anyone else think of…[Read more]

@JimboMcMaster– good points, all. Obviously, I disagree. 😀

Firstly, because I think it would make good drama.I think a television show should try to explore as many facets of its premise as possible.

But the aspect of its premise that applies to Doctor Who has already been explored on-screen – in The Fires of Pompeii and The Waters of Mars…[Read more]

@soundworld   The next of my notes was to say how very much I enjoyed your little essay on myth, metaphor, and reality. My reality is always a lot more interesting with a bit of the other two mixed in! And then I looked, and you are off again, this time about the Cyberiad. Very well played.  🙂

@Mudlark   I completely agree about the Doct…[Read more]

@JimboMcMaster

Re the Doctor having to choose between 2 bad options, and having to choose for the “greater good” –

He’s already done that, at the start of AG Who, when it was established that he had pressed the button to destroy Gallifrey. The choice was to kill everyone, including all the children, on Gallifrey by pressing the button or let…[Read more]

@JimboMcMaster

I wanted the show itself (ie the writers/producers) to accept that sometimes in the Doctor’s adventures he would have to commit these terrible acts for the greater good….only be able to choose from bad choices, eg kill one person, or let five die.

Why?

Who benefits?

Who benefits from teaching kids a moral viewpoint that s…[Read more]

Not so mello after all, what a shame …

Anyway, I have my bucket of exclamtion/question marks at the ready so hear we go.

Despite the later showing we got to watch this one live! What a fun episode. We had the lights off and my 10y/o was clinging on to me from the start 🙂 It was almost Scooby Doo!

@Oblique: “Mummy on the Orient Express, the…

[Read more]

@JimboMcMaster

I find the conversation at the end about addiction strange, because they both seem to have forgotten about the fact that the Doctor did give up traveling for ages and ages –

But the conversation wasn’t really about the Doctor. Clara tried to make it look like she was talking about him when she brought the subject up, but actually t…[Read more]

@JimboMcMaster

I’m not actually disagreeing with you – I like this darker take, with lots of shadowy greys, and I agree it’s being played up more by Capaldi. But he’s always done the difficult choices.  Ten would have let history take its course in Pompeii if it hadn’t been for Donna;  Eleven in the Beast Below was making the “wrong” choice t…[Read more]

@JimboMcMaster

As I’ve posted before, Clara has been lying her socks off to both Danny and the Doctor throughout this series. At the end of this episode she tells Danny (on the phone) – “mission accomplished” (implying she has told the Doctor that was the “lst hurrah” and she’s done with timetravel.  She then tells the Doctor that it’s OK,…[Read more]

Don’t really see why people generally find it easier to suspend disbelief for a teleporting mummy on the Orient Express (IN SPACE!!) than for the moon’s an egg scenario, but happy people are generally on board for this epi 🙂 (Especially @Bluesqueakpip – we’d be lost without you!!)

@JimboMcmaster The Doctor’s always had difficult decisions -…[Read more]

@Barnable and @JimboMcMaster

I think we’re thinking along the same lines with the notion of “wrongness” about the Doctor’s behavior as it appears in the surface.

I like the idea of it being a Timelord kind of test.  Except…  the stakes would be too high if she failed the test.   unless we assume he would have intervened had she the wrong de…[Read more]

@JimboMcMaster

Not everyone agrees with me, but this is my take on it –

Kill the Moon

The dilemma is whether or not to kill a new life, possibly one of its kind, IN CASE it proves harmful to the earth. The right decision is to let nature take its course – the moon returns,…[Read more]

@Spider @JimboMcMaster – Children of Earth flashback, check!

@JimboMcMaster

I’m confused why she phoned him, presumably she felt guilty about the Teller’s mate in the cell, wanted him/her freed.

I was a bit disappointed about her motivation – I was hoping that she had had some sort of change of mind about her clones, and that she was going to ask the Doctor to rescue them one-by-one as they were each abo…[Read more]