Yay @Craig <does a dance of joy with you> 🙂

@Lordwindowlicker – Welcome and blimey, you asked! Prepare for a lot of irrational spleen in response… I can already see a bunch of people have joined up simply to vent/ rant etc.

One common (generally frothing) complaint that gets to the heart of the matter, is that boys (and men) have now <sob>…[Read more]

I am fricking delighted!

Like others, I enjoyed Attack the Block but haven’t watched Broadchurch.

It’s not as if we haven’t been prepared…

The Time Lord known as The Corsair preferred to switch about on a regular basis, as told to us in The Doctor’s Wife. We’ve enjoyed a great outing for the Master as Missy, thanks to Michelle Gomez.

This…[Read more]

Well I’m late as usual – just reading through everyone’s comments!

I love the Missy passing her ring to the Doctor theory @Wolfweed . I have no doubt the Master will return in future Who by some means or other – there did seem to be some unspoken communication passing between them. And like you @Nick I am still hoping for a Valeyard story -…[Read more]

@Phaseshift I am horribly late responding to this – got side-tracked by work – but thanks for the lovely considered response.

I did know previously about the reds and blues as a deliberate part of the costumery and did a public fishy victory dance somewhere lost in the threads of time 🙂 But I didn’t know all the other elements re Clara and…[Read more]

Hi folks – missed a couple of episodes with you all, so will have to catch up! Has the painting and ship thread diappeared? I certainly spotted the ship this episode (Doctor’s fake prison ship – couldn’t really miss it) but was there a painting? I guess there was a painting of a monk in Bill’s apartment?

This is turning out to be my favourite…[Read more]

@mersey and @jimthefish

The “meaningless clues” vs “extra level of detail” debate re Moffat and teams’ work (on Who and Sherlock) does get to the heart of one of the elements of his work which can be both wonderful and infuriating.

Sometimes the clues have really gone somewhere, narratively speakng, like the build up to ganger Amy – first…[Read more]

@Mudlark

Fair enough – true the last frost fair was twenty years before Victoria ascended the throne.

I wonder if the Doctor is going to run into River (or most likely, see her from a distance – ouch – clutches heart). She returned to the Storm Cage after a visit with the Doctor to one of the frost fairs in A Good Man Goes to War.

Nice spot in…[Read more]

Bit late to the party – was out listening to Cosi Fanni Tutti last night (the experimental musician/ artist, not the opera).

Great catch @Pedant @Mudlark and everyone on the Vada as proto Vashta Nerada.

@Mersey now that is interesting – second self portrait. I wonder if the Doctor’s 13th incarnation (The Valeyard) is locked in that vault?! Which…[Read more]

I did also notice that the words “Marie Celeste” were on the walls of the vault as Bill crept down the stairs to see what the Doctor and Nardole were up to.

A mysteriously wrecked ship…. Time-lordy perhaps.

But interestingly, one Arthur Conan Doyle apparently (thanks Wikipedia) published a re-telling of the story of the Marie Celeste in 1884…[Read more]

Hi everyone <waves excitedly>

Well Peter Capaldi is giving the best Doctor of his life.

I love him as a university tutor in his musty old-skool office (blimey I don’t think it’s that posh at Bristol) with photos of River and Susan his grand-daughter on his desk (awww  – emotional progress!) playing rock guitar in the back. Heh – bet he doesn’t…[Read more]

To return to our discussions about the Hewlett interviews on Radio 4 with Eddie Mare @Craig @thane15 and others – sadly PM announced today that Hewlett died this morning in hospital.

Lots of moving tributes from his journalist colleagues, as well as an outpouring from R4 listeners on Twitter.

He would be pleased, I think, that his last…[Read more]

@Craig

I’ve been listening to it too – Mair is an excellent interviewer striking just the right tone for Hewlett I think.

Apparently the Royal Marsden has been flooded with letters for Hewlett from R4 listeners.

Hewlett talked a little bit today about being aware of the impact of his PM interviews and what it’s like to  be part of what has…[Read more]

@Phaseshift

Did you miss me

Yes, obviously…

Delighted to have you back… glad things feel a bit less grim, despite the new world order of “alternative facts”.

Interesting re Moffat’s Sherlock and Who as written in parallel and their inter-textual relationship with one another.

Hypertext is specifically a word from a digital text context, so…[Read more]

aqua @ichabod – solidarity from this side of the pond.

I was very impressed by the Women’s March, and the Science March on DC planned for Earth Day (April 22nd) is an excellent way to oppose the global impact of Trump’s pro-oil climate change irresponsibility. There are sister marches in a number of other countries planned already. I will try…[Read more]

@ichabod – ah –  it’s certainly a time for choosing sides – I can’t help (in a time-travelley way) thinking about the historians of the future, and how this period (of Brexit, resurgent nationalisms, and Trump) will be viewed from their place in the space/time continuum.

@TheConsultingDoctor – that’s a nice take on Sonnet 40 – it’s also about a…[Read more]

@ichabod – well there is a Conan Doyle story called The Lost Special so Moffat and Gatiss are the ultimate fannish Conan Doyle audience.

The “Great Game” or the “Sherlockian Game” of trying to resolve anomalies in the ACD canon – was begun by scholars in 1902:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlockian_game

Essentially – bonkers theorising…[Read more]

@TheConsultingDoctor and anyone else still on the trail of Moffat and Gatiss’ recreation of Conan Doyle’s Reichenbach-ing in a modern setting:

Have you seen this?

http://thelostspecial.com/solveme/

There’s dancing man code on the page (as there was in the last scenes in Baker Street in The Final Problem) which someone smarter than me has…[Read more]

@TheConsultingDoctor

Mmmn – all the evidence points to The Final Problem as – well – a problem – a puzzle – a connundrum – a fake-out. But here we are…. waiting.

Mark Gatiss is on Peston on Sunday tomorrow morning (not sure which country you’re based in – it’s a UK television Sunday politics show). Gatss is fairly politically outspoken and…[Read more]

Oh no – Peter Capaldi has just announced on Jo Wiley (BBC R2) that he is leaving at the end of the next series.

Is this breaking news?

I think it’s breaking news.

So we’ll be saying goodbye to Capaldi and the Moffat era at the same time.

Peter Capaldi is on Jo Wiley on R2 hosting an evening of music right now! I’ve just joined (half an hour to go)

The track listing is here http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08bqzvd

and no doubt the whole thing will be on i-player afterwards.

He’s lovely to listen to.