@jimthefish <waves at old fishy comrade> I also loved the BBC’s Dicken’s adaptation. I thought it was beautifully shot – amazing use of light and shadow. Guy Pearce was excellent and it was great to see Vinette Robinson again (who played Rosa Parks in Rosa last season of Doctor Who).  Bringing some of the darker Victorian issues (around abuse) to…[Read more]

@missrori I absolutely love Nausicaa and I totally agree – it wasn’t the Dregs’ fault that they were the way they were – a broken eco-system had resulted in their genetic mutation, so it’s a shame the Doctor couldn’t communicate with them more as a species.

I agree with you @Rob , it wasn’t clear what level of sentience they had. Were they…[Read more]

@Spider Yes, the, “Bat’s aren’t real part” was definitely funny – I enjoyed that.

@Mudlark and @Miapatrick – Perhaps it was a combo of nuclear and environmental catastrophe, as you say. The nuclear element might better explain the genetic mutation of humans into Dregs, which did, you’re right, somewhat resemble the Alien (also an apex…[Read more]

Well, that was a kind of Planet of the Apes AU wasn’t it – only this time it’s environmental apocalypse rather than nuclear apocalypse which is (very much) on our minds.

I quite liked the Doctor’s blunt speech about humanity needing to change, and it being up to us. I wish she’d completely broken the fourth wall and just looked straight to…[Read more]

@Phaseshift Sounds like a good book 🙂

I haven’t seen Moffat’s Jekyll and now feel compelled to get hold of it, as there’s obviously quite a trilogy going on there – Jekyll, Dracula and Sherlock. 

Did you see Penny Dreadful (UK TV series for Showtime a few years ago)?  That was a really interesting mash-up of a number of Victorian gothic n…[Read more]

@Mudlark I think Lucy was depicted as both self-absorbed, as you say, and depressed. She was obsessed with being “pretty” but she also recognised that people reacted to her superficially because of her looks, so her sense of self-worth was actually quite disturbed, which, sadly, led her to be attracted to death, as an escape.

Really the poor…[Read more]

@Craig Thanks – and yes it was my fault – I was trying to copy and paste too much Wikipedia about DNA separating techniques!

@claire54 My overall take is, now that we have a female doctor, the writers don’t know what to do with her.

Yes, unfortunately I do not think Chibnall has been equal to the task.

Elements which I’ve found jarring in the w…[Read more]

@lisa and @bluesqueakpip

Ahhhh – thanks re the fish!

I just Googled “CO fish” (combining “C” and “O” code-names) and found this on Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q-FISH#CO-FISH_(chromosome_orientation-FISH)

<b>”Fluorescence <i>in situ</i> hybridization </b>(<b>FISH</b>) is a molecular cytogenetic technique that uses…[Read more]

OK I’ll have to try and say this in a different way!

@lisa and @bluesqueakpip

Many thanks re the fish!

I just Googled “CO fish” (combining “C” and “O” code-names) and found this on Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q-FISH#CO-FISH_(chromosome_orientation-FISH)

Perhaps there is a DNA “joke” going on here on the Master’s…[Read more]

@craig I’m having trouble posting as the website thinks I’ve ghost-posted already?!

@miapatrick  I felt as though the 7% not human DNA was a big part of Barton’s coldness here.

Yes, true. But there was a bit of an odd discrepancy there, as Barton seemed fully intellectually functioning with his 7% alien DNA (if not morally) but others “infected” with the alien DNA became simply “shells” and “memory sticks”, like his poor old M…[Read more]

@spider haha I loved your dalek riff.

@craig and @mudlark – dammit, now I fancy a G n T too!

Well, Spyfall was a romp I grant you, and I wish I didn’t feel this way, but it left me kind of cold, sadly.

I felt Chibnall chucked the kitchen sink at it, from cameo Stephen Fry, to new Master, but that I couldn’t find the emotional beats, the pulse o…[Read more]

Also on the subject of Dracula, I should add, that in some vampire lore, since Bram Stoker, vampire blood has supernatural properties, including as a curative for injuries.

So, it’s possible that Agatha/ Zoe was, in fact, regenerating from her cancer, thanks to drinking Dracula’s blood.

In which case, Dracula would not die from feeding on…[Read more]

@pedant @fatmaninabox @miapatrick

Oh good, we are discussing Moffat and Gatiss’ Dracula!

I said this on T’Other Place, after seeing Part 3:

“I think it played with the source material quite beautifully (“bloofer lady”) and found a way to incarnate the Victorian gothic themes of sublimated carnality, purity, corruption and death into the…[Read more]

Waves Happy New Year at everyone – lest auld acquaintance be forgot etc 🙂

Good to finally have some new Who to muse upon!

I love the idea that “O” is the incarnation between Simm and Missy. Certainly would explain why “O” is in a snit.

I’ve been wondering about the significance of Barton’s search-engine VOR. VOR is (apparently) I discovered…[Read more]

@Bluesqueakpip

The question is whether this highly automated world is going to be like the Industrial Revolution – temporary disruption that eventually ended up in a much higher standard of living for everyone – or a permanent state of mass unemployment.

Well, that’s the thing I didn’t like so much about this episode. Nice-ish mid…[Read more]

Well, a satire on Amazon can’t be bad, although their inner workings hardly need satirizing, they are so dystopian all on their own.

Charlie was essentially a Luddite and I can’t help but have a lot of sympathy with the Luddites, who didn’t wish their traditional crafts and skills to be undermined in the labour market by industrial machine…[Read more]

@nerys and @bluesqueakpip

On the subject of Yaz not looking back…

That sense of wanting the Doctor and Yaz to look back, wanting them indeed, to rush and save Prem, is created there deliberately (furthered by the fact they don’t, indeed, look back).

It echoes the moment on the bus in Rosa when, in particular mirrored for us through the eyes…[Read more]

Well, like @bluesqueakpip and @Sontaran2589 I loved that.

Vinay Patel did an amazing job as the script-writer here.

And the music was wonderful, with all its Indian melodies and notes.

I loved the Vajarians. I mean, look at them withe their tusks and pointy ears and fabulous rows of eyes:

And of course, they weren’t the demons of the Punjab at…[Read more]

@Bluesqueakpip – Ohhh nice on the meaning of Tsuranga – so that means the title of the episode could be understood to be “The Salvation Connundrum” which makes perfect sense, given the pre-programmed self destruct in the hospital ship in what must, surely, be a war-zone, as we have a sonic mine, a General and a hospital ship combined….

For…[Read more]