• janetteB replied to the topic Smile

    Oops sorry I think I should have referenced @tardigrade rather than @mersey. Apologies. I don’t watch much ABC  but am happy to keep paying for it because, like libraries, I view it as a invaluable public resource. If the money was not taken out of tax however I simply wouldn’t pay for a service I so rarely use. However if our weasel government…[Read more]

  • janetteB replied to the topic Smile

    @mersey In my experience commercial = rule by accountants with a “profit first” mentality. Quality is invariably the first victim.

    @blenkinsopthebrave I too think that the promise the Doctor made to Susan is going to be significant this series. One of the themes of Pilot was promises, those that must be kept and those that are best broken,…[Read more]

  • ichabod replied to the topic Smile

    @mdlark  Stories in which every meaning is dictated, every t crossed and every i dotted, and in which nothing is left to the imagination of the reader or viewer are seldom very satisfying.

    When an artist says (or thinks) “I hope my work survives for a decade or two after I’m gone”, he or she is usually talking about hoping that the work has…[Read more]

  • JimTheFish replied to the topic Smile

    @tardigrade

    I wouldn’t overstate the strong position of the Beeb. It’s been on the ropes politically for a decade now and if the next general election goes the way it’s looking it’s going to get worse. But Who is one of its strongest properties, that’s for sure. I think it will definitely become a streaming property at some point — it’s…[Read more]

  • Mudlark replied to the topic Smile

    @Mersey

    Some of the clues we perceive no doubt exist only in our overactive imaginations, but some do prove eventually to have significance within the narrative. On the other hand, one of the examples you cited, the toy soldier in Listen, is a clue in the strict Ariadne sense, because it was one of the tangible links in the somewhat conv…[Read more]

  • Juniperfish replied to the topic Smile

    @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]

  • JimTheFish replied to the topic Smile

    @missy

    Last week I thought the presenter was rather silly and not a true DW fan. He was just doing a job. That was my impression anyway

    Think that’s a bit unfair. Christel Dee is a long-term YouTuber with serious Who tendencies and was doing really rather good fan vlogs for quite some time now. That the BBC has taken on her show as the…[Read more]

  • Juniperfish replied to the topic Smile

    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]

  • wolfweed replied to the topic Smile

    “…I can be back before we left!” is very similar to the end of Meglos:

    EARTHLING: … I’ll be in trouble back home.

    DOCTOR: Oh?

    EARTHLING: I told the wife I’d be in from work in twenty minutes.

    DOCTOR: Well, don’t worry about that. We can get you back before you leave.

     

    Rosemary was considered sacred to the ancient Egyptians…

    Perhaps…[Read more]

  • janetteB replied to the topic The Pilot

    @Mersey  I am with you entirely re’ Nardole. Perhaps because I have never seen Matt Lucas in anything else so have no prejudice against him, (it was the same with Catherine Tate and James Cordon) so I reacted purely to the characters in the series. I think he, the Doctor and Bill are going to be a great team.

    (I am reading up at the moment…[Read more]

  • Mudlark replied to the topic The Pilot

    @CountScarlioni

    Re the bird on the Doctor’s desk; if it is meant to be a raven it was modelled by somebody who had never looked at one.  The size appears about right as far as I could tell, and it appeared to have a heavy beak similar to that of a corvid, but the legs and the neck are much too long, the body insufficiently chunky, and the ov…[Read more]

  • CountScarlioni replied to the topic The Pilot

    Wonderful episode and very stimulating comments, as usual. Coming late to the party and absorbing 167 comments in one sitting is tricky, so apologies if I’m repeating points already made….

    To follow up @wolfweed on Shada echoes, the Doctor tells the students in his lecture “time is an illusion,” which is the first part of the Douglas Adams…[Read more]

  • ichabod replied to the topic The Pilot

    @mersey   Thanks for your comments on the Rembrandt — love the line of descent to Fabritious!  So, you’re seeing the portrait as a statement of entirely justified pride in his accomplishments?  I’d see that as, “Here I stand, a fat old guy with paint on my hands, but I know that I am top of my class and that posterity will not forget me!”  T…[Read more]

  • Whisht replied to the topic The Pilot

    phew !

    LOTS of great comments – and far to many names to @ back to but really loved reading all your thoughts.

    I’ve only seen it the once (last night) and will re-watch now that I’m armed with what you’ve all seen, but some thoughts…

    If my memory from last night is not faulty… I loved how Bill got into danger in the end, ignored the…[Read more]

  • ichabod replied to the topic The Pilot

    @thane15  I am *so* glad to hear that your mum is doing better — have never forgotten her comment here that she’d be, er, tits up in a matter of months, so the doctors said, yet here she is still!  That’s great news.

    And in one sense I’m in a similar situation to hers — I’ve bought S10 through iTunes, downloaded it today, and got — only the s…[Read more]

  • Kharis replied to the topic The Pilot

    @mersey Oh!  I didn’t see that one, I will go look.  You are probably right because the Doctor had a bust of Beethoven in the Tardis in season 9

  • Kharis replied to the topic The Pilot

    @wolfweed @mersey @thane15 Found some articles that highlight the similarities between Shakespeare and Rembrandt. A really great quote form one, “Élie Faure, the French art critic and historian, wrote this of Rembrandt and his work: ‘His humanity is truly formidable, it is fatal like lament, love; change continues, indifferent and dramatic,…[Read more]

  • Kharis replied to the topic The Pilot

    @mersey and @wolfweed

    Now I am looking up all kinds of things about Rembrandt.  Very interesting guy.

    The bust is Shakespeare.

  • wolfweed replied to the topic The Pilot

    @Mersey

    This is the picture but it seems to be altered in the show to make the circles recesses…

    rembrandt

    Very interesting.

  • Kharis replied to the topic The Pilot

    @mersey Your Rembrandt musings are anything but boring, please keep them coming.

    @nerys The reviews are always so far off base.  It makes you realize how vastly different people are.  Seriously, I often find myself wondering if they even watched it they are so far off from my personal feelings on an episode.

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