@jimthefish  I’m very much hoping that SM is planning a Writer’s Tale type book. I feel certain there would be very many interesting stories to hear from his tenure in the big seat.

Oh, I second that — I’d love to see it happen!  But if so, I doubt it would be published for a long time — he has (I hope) a long writing career still ahead of hi…[Read more]

@kharis I hadn’t even considered Paul McGann. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful redemption for him? I know he’s had other Doctor Who outings since that awful TV movie, but it would be so cool to see him fully realized as The Doctor. However, I suspect that given the unfair complaints about Peter Capaldi’s age, they’re looking for someone…[Read more]

@nerys  @redlemons  I never cared much to re-watching DW — until the Moffat/Capaldi team took over.  That was the point at which I began suggesting to the people who were uncomfortable with or unable to connect with or understand S8-9 that they wait a bit, and then watch again.  That stuff was layered as fine cake (dark; probably bittersweet cho…[Read more]

@kharis you are right, there’s Shakespeare too, on a different window silk.

@wolfweed @blenkinsopthebrave

I think Moffat wanted people to spot them. The painting hangs in the background and thin circles as they are in the oryginal could be missed.

@kharis the bust I’ve mentioned has a mane of hair and chubby cheeks. I think it’s Beethoven.

@kharis Actually, the EW article wasn’t a review, but rather got into some spoiler-ish territory about the season finale, which then, predictably enough, led to some “good riddance”-style Facebook comments from some. Those comments were what I was replying to, mentioning, among other things, Capaldi’s acting tour de force in “Heaven Sent,” along…[Read more]

@kharis

Thank you, that’s nice. I think this picture is significant (or maybe not, maybe Rembrandt is Moffat’s favourite painter and he wanted to pay him tribute, it definitely tells something about his excellent taste). But Rembrandt throughout his life painted plenty of self-portraits, as a young man, as a middle-aged man, as an old man, as a…[Read more]

Well, I (we) loved this to bits.  Bill is brilliant – funny and gorgeous in a non-bland way, something of a Rose vibe, but not just a re-working of any previous companion.  OK, she’s an orphan/semi-orphan which is a recurrent theme, but I think of that a bit like the convention in children’s fiction going back to Victorian writers whereby being o…[Read more]

@kharis

The heraldry design is by Matthew Clark.

Rachael Stott is a Dr Who comic artist for Titan.

I’m guessing that the other names on the study windows are other Dr Who alumni ‘getting an Easter egg’.

There’s also, another window (find it in this link:)

dr’s study heraldry

@kharis Doctor gave Bill her mother’s pictures. She didn’t look at all like Donna.

@Kharis

the Doctor was interested in her because being confused, having questions, LEARNING made her smile.  It was that she DIDN’T get it and smiled that made him interested.

That is another, valid way of looking at it, and in the end it amounts to the same thing.

I agree with you, in that increasingly I get the impression that learning and a u…[Read more]

@Kharis

“Not supposed to get involved”

I took that to be a general principle.  The Doctor is supposed to concentrate on the job in hand – whatever that is in the context of the gizmo he is monitoring in the vault – and not to concern himself with individuals.  But when has that ever deterred the Doctor when something or someone engages his interes…[Read more]

@kharis,

not sure I am doing this correctly. Hopefully you will see my post. I do agree one of the best of  his(Peters) episodes was the husbands of River Song.   It made me smile. Bad writing? Yeah I guess that could be part of the issue but I guess I am a face person and I recieved very few expressions from him. Does that make sense? I miss e…[Read more]

@phaseshift, @kharis, @juniperfish et al — and of course Bill and Heather is a nice little tribute to (the) Hartnell(s)

@everyone- incidentally, the Guardian thread not too bad.
After Moffart doubled down in Sherlock, I did wonder how he was going to approach this last season. I love the complicated stories, the mysteries and insane theories they generate. But I also loved the freshness of this.
@kharis– though of course complicated theories can still be found!…[Read more]

@kharis:  I don’t know what you mean?  Did you like it or hate it? If the latter, watch it again. My OH did, and got it.

Missy

@kharis I like your theories on who might have written on the chalkboard.

During Series 8 I wrote a poem playing with this sort of thing, in which the Doctor — having lost Clara for good — is alone in the TARDIS and brooding but then senses an invisible presence.  He believes it must be the “Hider”, though it could just be his imagination…[Read more]