@Craig a bottle episode, indeed, and this is something I have noticed in the new RTD Who. Bigger budgets, but yet, I don’t think it’s affected the contents. And this is a big example of it, it could easily have just been filmed in the BBC sci-fi quarry without making any real difference. And this I think is a good thing – the effects budget is…[Read more]

@whohar I noticed in the babies episode as well wen he runs from the snot monster he says, he never runs – wasn’t ‘run’ the first rebooted doctor line? It seemed to be that he was saying he runs towards things not away but that’s… canonically untrue. Inconsistency? Or something about this character, he doesn’t get scared, he doesn’t run away, he…[Read more]

@janetteb I think Mavity was one of the readings on the screen, though I can’t be sure, I’ve not re-wathced yet.

But yes – so nice to speculate! I think, even when I enjoyed quite a few of Chib’s episodes more than I have these last two, they didn’t give me as much to think about and say.

@ps1l0v3y0u: indeed. But holy high expectations. I don’t…[Read more]

Another thought about this episode that actually makes me like it a bit more – the almost killing of the snot monster.

The space babies are on the whole, more so if you like that kind of thing, sweet, affectionate, don’t cry all that much, make intelligible sense, are clever, brave, are maybe something close to a platonic ideal of a baby that…[Read more]

@jimthefish I suspect that the drag aspect of the episode is another example of RTD going in hard. There are parts of the US I believe where there is a tremendous fuss about letting children see drag queens, whereas that’s just part of Christmas and often the first theatre they see for UK children. As signs go re: Disneyfication etc, the selling…[Read more]

@cookgroom yes a more logical plot might have been they turn up at Abbey Road, it’s not a recording studio any more or if it is the Beatles certainly aren’t there and then they track them down and… the way they did it is more logistically handy. You’ve got a location to base it around, a famous piano etc but it’s not entirely clear why people…[Read more]

@scaryb that would be OK by me…

@janetteb @scaryb re music – I think it is a part of the best of us. Though I’m reminded how, just to really drive home her psychopath status, when Villanelle in Killing Eve was asked was kind of music she liked she said ‘national anthems’ ;). I think it’s just tat – not only is it appropriated for war-like purposes, this, pretty universal aspect,…[Read more]

OK so this time – I’m just not that into the Beatles. I find Beatleworship irritating, but for all that, I did like it when Paul joined John at the piano and they finished the sequence of keys. I found the ‘we need music to make us us, otherwise disastrous war’ a little twee given that we are, on the whole, a reasonably warlike species that loves…[Read more]

Hello everyone!

so… I don’t know.

I came in with moderate expectations, remembering I wasn’t all that obsessed with Doctor Who under RTD the first time. On the other hand, I really liked the anniversary episodes and the Christmas episodes, much more than his original ones. So what about this?

It doesn’t help that I don’t find babies…[Read more]

So I’m as intrigued as anyone about who Mrs Flood is. Theories I’ve seen so far: River (Flood), the Rani (it’s never the Rani like it’s never lupus. Until it is?). The Master. Ruby’s biological mother. Ruby herself. What about The Doctor’s adoptive mother? What about the Doctor’s biological parent when it comes to it?

But why was she so angry…[Read more]

@wishit I agree. I actually really enjoy the Star Wars spinoffs- and as a rule, the further they move from the Skywalkers the better (though I liked that Hayden got a bit of a revival.

I think I just like spin offs, I like seeing the wider implications of the created universe explored. I never watched the Sarah Jane one, but I liked Torchwoid (up…[Read more]

<span class=”useratname”>@oblique To be honest, much as I’ve enjoyed him in these three episodes, Ncuti’s bounding energy made Tennant’s Doctor seem, if anything, ripe for retirement. (Don’t you think he looks tired?). And I don’t mean that in a snide way – he needs to rest and recuperate. If I’d known ahead of time how the episode would go I…[Read more]

<span class=”useratname”>@whohar Yes! I’d missed the Master comment.
</span>RTD definitely isn’t ignoring the timeless child etc, he’s making use of it – but he might not be tying himself to it completely in the form it is there.

sometimes I feel any new Doctor Who/time Lord information is picked up by the next showrunner  in the spirit of improv…[Read more]

@scaryb @juniperfish “you get a prize, honey” was just so beautifully delivered.

and also Rory at one point: “You know what it’s dangerous about you? <b>It’s not that you make people take risks, it’s that you make them want to impress you</b>. You make it so they don’t want to let you down. You have no idea how dangerous you make people to themselves when you’re around.”

And at this point, with Donna, the Doctor is right…[Read more]

@whohar yes, regarding the ‘I’ve seen her walking’ rant – my partner really liked that they put that in.

@whohar indeed, and in fact the puppet show scene kind of made a point about Moffat’s companions all dying but not dying. Seeing it all summarised like that did feel like quite a theme. And then… the Doctor doesn’t actually die at regeneration. And all the companions ended up with their own companions – Rory, Ashildr, Heather. And he gets to…[Read more]

So after a rewatch last night I noticed this line from The Toymaker: ‘I made a jigsaw puzzle of your past – did you like it?’

We know the flux stands, revelations about The Doctor’s origins and the genesis of the Timelords stand. But I wonder about this. Is this a little seed that can be used when needed? Something not dissimilar to the Time…[Read more]

And as for mr ‘I don’t want to go’ not going, I don’t know. He might become the Curator. He might get more stories. He might genuinely retire, live, work through the new dump of trauma , then die and regenerate into fifteen, wobbly wobbly etc. But meanwhile we see Fifteen adventuring around as a energetically zen madman in a box. And I think I’ll…[Read more]