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]

Oh, and @Mudlark – it was really difficult to tell the colour of the Doctor’s T-shirt this week, because of the lighting, but I think it was her reddish maroon one as opposed to her blue one.

That means any plotting of red for past (relative to the Doctor’s companions) and blue for future, with reference to cosmological red-shift, is out the…[Read more]

@Pedant “So Pting has proved spectacularly popular on Twitter. Watch out for the cuddly energy-sucking toy coming to a Christmas stocking near you.”

Yes, I’ve seen lots of positive comments about the Chibnall era more generally on Tumblr too. And Tumblr tended to be a space with a sizable audience which absolutely loathed Moffat’s Who (largely…[Read more]

@Bluesqueakpip

Yes, I like the idea of the P’Ting as an escaped bio-weapon.

Clearly the hospital ship and the General meant the Doctor and friends had arrived in some kind of a war-zone, that and the sonic mine. Not to mention the alarming fact that the ship was programmed to transmit a signal to base concering the P’Ting breach which would have…[Read more]

Well Graham and Ryan’s dynamic continues to be the emotional heart of the narrative.

Their interactions at the birth were lovely, nuanced, funny. And we explored Ryan’s feelings of paternal abandonment, and grief at losing his mother so young as a result. So yay for added companion character depth.

This is still leaving Yaz as a bit of a third…[Read more]

I really enjoyed the exchange between Yaz and the Doctor when Yaz’s Mum asked: “Are you two seeing each other?”

The Doctor: “I don’t think so…. Are we?”

Yaz: <frowning at her Mum’s question> “We’re friends!”

Doctor <giving a silent “Oh, OK then!” look, of general agreeable cluelessness, in the background>

I love it both for leaving the new…[Read more]

@Bluesqueakpip I am now completely sold on the Whittaker Doctor.

Yes, me too, I love her.

And you’re right there were some decent comedy-horror moments.

The bit that made me laugh was all the spiders legging it double-quick towards the Stormzy track Ryan was blasting out. How did he know they were going to love Grime?!

I really wanted Jack…[Read more]

@Craig – ahh that’s a cracking good story, Planet of the Spiders, Metebelis III and the blue crystals etc.

Giant spiders have also featured rather marvellously in Tolkein, especially the menacing Shelob we all know and love, and then there’s Aragog the flesh-eater in Harry Potter.

Arachnids in the UK (apart from the Sex Pistols title) didn’t…[Read more]

@Blenkinsopthebrave Sorry you are having to wait, friend, to watch along. I can recommend VPN . A reputable one is ExpressVPN but you do have to pay a monthly fee. You can cancel anytime though, so you could just have it for Doctor Who’s run.

https://www.expressvpn.com/

@anduril @pedant @cathannabel

I’ve had a look at the Doctor’s T-shirt and…[Read more]

@pedant and @anduril Have I been summoned by costume bonkerising!?

(@anduril – my icon is an old reference to the red/blue bow-ties of SmithDoc and the elaborate, some might say obsessive, theorising thereof, in our former home on Dan Martin’s recaps at The Guardian, before @Craig created the Better Place).

In face I’ve been chewing my tail…[Read more]

@JimtheFish

Yes, my fishy friend, we swim together.

Understandably, however, the reviewer is feeling raw and vulnerable about their minority situation in the US right now, and therefore very anxious about not having active allies, hence their take on the ep.

I too am very angry about the attack on trans rights, because it is a nasty and…[Read more]

@Jimthefish

Thanks for that – I enjoyed watching the above human give their take (not sure what pronouns they prefer).

They seem like a thinking person and I empathize enormously with the upset felt by trans/ non-binary people in the US right now, as the Trump administration seeks to trample on their rights to “feed” the festival of reactionary…[Read more]

@Troygorsline and @mudlark and @kevinwho and @margaretblaine

Krasko was also, with his “bad boy” smirk and haircut, very like some of the current alt-right leaders, like Richard Spencer, for instance.

So I don’t think he was lacking in nuance @kevinwho , just written with a different kind of nuance.

Alt-right ideology wants to turn back time.…[Read more]