After seeing episode 2 I’m getting Shape of Water vibes. Tovey is going to boink the gender-fluid fish lady in the Mariana Trench, isn’t he.

Hello All, I’ve only watched one episode of The War Between the Land and the Sea so far, but it’s quite good.

Jemma Redgrave’s Kate Lethbridge Stewart continues to be very believable. You just know she comes from a family with an aga and the smell of wet dog in the kitchen in the morning.

The least believable bit is having a sane and functioning…[Read more]

@ScaryB – dammit! I now have the song, and the expression “What a load of dugga-doo” stuck in my head 🙂

On yours and @Whohar ‘s mention of “hasty rewrites” – yes, when you think about the first Gatwa series and how much it focussed on the Doctor and Ruby both being abandoned and adopted children, I wonder if Poppy was planned out, at the…[Read more]

Returning, in a marking break, to chew over a couple of things regarding some of Ncuti’s Doctor’s characteristics.

I liked this more emotional Doctor, but I wanted his weeping to be addressed as having some meaning, seeing as he cried in almost every episode, beyond – eh, this incarnation is just more emotional.

On the other hand, I have not…[Read more]

Hello Everyone,

Your cinema experience sounds fab @ScaryB .

That was a true emotional rollercoaster, and RTD totally pulled off the surprise, for me at least!!!

I spent the first part of the episode thinking – jeez this is a LOT of exposition, but hey, I’m in love with Archie Panjabi’s Rani.

I wasn’t a fan of Mad God Omega or the Bone Beasts -…[Read more]

Wow, I’m very late to the party and have clearly missed some excellent bonkerising!

@Mudlark I love the catch about the Rani turning the 7th son of a 7th son of a 7th son’s Mum into flowers and his Dad into an owl, a la Blodeuwedd. That’s another duality (like the bigeneration) as Blodeuwedd has the dual form of owls/ flowers. Hers is also a very…[Read more]

Sheesh, first Belinda’s coercively-controlling boyfriend Alan, now Ruby’s deceptive fake-romancing boyfriend Conrad.

Both are young men filled with deep feelings of inadequacy who use AI and social media respectively to try and make themselves look and seem important – RTD is truly savaging the Silicon Valley tech-bros this season. I wonder if…[Read more]

@Mudlark and @WhoHar – I also  realised that the yellow and blue of the Doctor and Bel’s outfits in this episode look like Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (1991):

https://people.com/movies/disneys-1991-beauty-and-the-beast-fun-facts/

Could the fact Belinda Chandra is called “Bel” for short, and Belle is the name of the heroine in Beauty and the…[Read more]

@ScaryB

I loved it, but my brain is completely tied in knots with all the meta bits! 😛 (In a good way).

The Doctor and Mr Ring A Ding have lots of visual (and other) parallels – bow ties anyone? Blue suit? Picking up a (simpering, Betty Boop-alike) female companion (in a yellow dress!) as he starts an adventure…

I think I n…

[Read more]

I want to love this era, I do, but I really dislike the Disney 8 episodes per series formula.

In fact, I really dislike the death of the long-form television show, where you could fall in love with characters over 5, 6 or 7 years.

I’d barely begun to know and love Millie Gibson/ Ruby Sunday before she was gone.

Gatwa continues to be an…[Read more]

I just realised (and apologies if someone has already pointed it out) that when Rose looks into the heart of the TARDIS in The Parting of the Ways and scatters the warning “BAD WOLF” all over the universe… we can now read that as a warning about Sutekh, which the Doctor completely failed to spot for several regenerations!

RTD must have been so…[Read more]

@WhoHar – yes, sorry – I’m not sure how Douglas is Cancelled is being distributed outside the UK.

Eeek – I know there’s a new season of The Boys out – I could barely deal with the gross factor previously (and struggle with its “ironic” sexism) and I hear this one is even more revolting – will wait for a strong-stomach day. Anthony Starr is…[Read more]

I’ve just watched Moffat’s new drama (available on the ITVX app UK) Douglas is Cancelled – Karen Gillan, Alex Kingston, Hugh Bonneville and Ben Palmer were  all absolutely superb.

I won’t post anything too spoilery about it, because it’s really worth watching pre-spoilers.

But episode 3 in particular was heart-in-mouth gripping. Karen Gillan…[Read more]

@Blenkinsopthebrave

 I suspect that many of us feel that to some extent, we have been “played” and are left clutching at straws (or the one remaining straw–Mrs Flood)… Am I being too harsh?

In one sense, that’s fair – and interestingly, the final season of Moffat and Gatiss’ BBC Sherlock did the same thing. Created a puzzle it did not cash,…[Read more]

BBC APPROVED SPOILERS...

@mudlark

The problem, for me at least, was that after all the previous build up which misled us into thinking Ruby must be special in an extraordinary, possibly timey or extra-terrestrial way, and overpowered by the apocalyptic events earlier in the episode, it fell rather flat.

Yes, I did think it would have been awesome if Ruby’s eyes had turned…[Read more]

Also – “there’s always a twist at the end” and Moffat has written the Christmas special…

So my guess is – yes, it’s true that Ruby is an ordinary person with ordinary parents which fits with RTD’s very wonderful recurring message for Doctor Who about how every ordinary person is valuable and meaningful.

However, it’s also going to be the case…[Read more]

@ps1l0v3y0u

The arc is VR. The VR is created by someone who knows The Doctor as well as they know themself…

Why does Ruby snow? The VR snows…

I really like this theory – which might lead to the Great Intelligence, as others have previously theorised, given the snow connection. Or alternatively to a Time Lord using a grand-scale version of The…[Read more]

@BlenkinsoptheBrave – I’ve had The Tempest in mind as an inspiration for this season because of the magic entering the universe since Wild Blue Yonder.

The Tempest has been ripe for modern discussion in the context of colonialism – Prospero seems like a cool magician aristocrat but he sets about enslaving the spirits of the island he and his…[Read more]

@cathannabel @devilishrobby  I did indeed think about Thanos’ big Snap from Avengers. 

Thanos vs Sutekh – Sutekh would presumably win, as Thanos *only* wanted to depopulate the universe by half, not slaughter everyone.

It also made me think about Torchwood: Miracle Day when Jack Harkness’ blood is used to abolish death on earth (with p…[Read more]