@pedant My husband and I watched Chernobyl a few weeks ago and were absolutely blown away by it. As @miapatrick noted, they never descended into preachiness. And their portrayals of the effects of radiation on the human body were excruciating to watch … but important to see so that we understand the gravity of the situation. There was so much I…[Read more]

@miapatrick  I watched it and then I waited 3 days and watched it again. So good! @janetteb I watched the first few episodes of Stranger Things while visiting my son and I really liked it but I have to wait for the next visit to watch more or hope my library orders it.

@craig @blenkinsopthebrave @mudlark @devilishrobby @miapatrick

Apparently, Elizabeth thinks we’re a dating site. Are we a dating site? I didn’t know we were a dating site.

I’ve been doing this all wrong….

😉

I don’t recall the Doctor ever leaving the earth permanently in classic Who.  I think a good mix of earth based and off earth stories works best.

@miapatrick I agree that Chibnell needs to find his Moffat. What this most recent series lacked was those moments of brilliance. there were no absolute duds though.

Cheers

Janette

@miapatrick and @peladon1972

Doctor Who is a mix between sci-fi and fantasy. Where, exactly, each story places on the Mohs Scale of Science Fiction hardness depends entirely on the writer, and has done from the beginning. Generally speaking, we’re talking really, really soft as the story becomes SF-in-name-only. We want a horror story about a…[Read more]

@cathannabel @miapatrick @whisht

That apparently random text is to try to evade spam filters. You see that sort of thing in spam email quite often (although less than you used to).

@cathannabel @miapatrick @whisht

Many thanks – have marked them both as spammers. It does seem to be the case that, because there is “Doctor” in the site name they think we might be interested in their dodgy medication. They take the time to sign up, and add a profile pic. But they don’t take the time to work out what the site is about!

@rougecyberman

Hello and welcome.

@miapatrick

As you know, I too am a Moffat fan. However, I don’t dislike CC because he isn’t Moffat, but because he is Chibnall and I never liked his writing. SM’s sometimes complex stories were right up my street, they made me think and didn’t preach politics, or what I should believe – unless it was subtlety…[Read more]

@archaicwhovian

I think the cyberman (wood) was a long, long time ago on Trenzalore? The cybermen sent many different things to stop Trenzalore so the Doctor simply never left.

@kevinwho

I think a lot of us ‘make up’ things as we see the consequences of something that’s occurred. I liked Sherlock & the way we saw the first thing which happened…[Read more]

@miapatrick

I think you said that really well. & I would agree, personally.

Also, as we’re on the Sofa, Mum was asking how your study is doing? Have you finished & do you have a lot more to do?

T16.

@miapatrick

Elsewhere in the episode a waitress tells them to leave. All we can be certain of the other customers is complicity. Are they silent out of shock for who has walked into the place? Or out of tension for what they know is about to happen? The episode essentially shows three attitudes: overt racism, complacency/indifference to racism,…

[Read more]

@miapatrick
If you read my original post that was my point…. American Syfy can turn out up to 22 episodes a season and Chinball complaining about 10 being to much work.

@kevinwho @miapatrick

The reason the story works so well  is that it never once loses sight of what the story was about just so that it could pause coddle the hurt feelings of whiney white boys.

But consider me a lost cause please, and don’t try to convince me.

Or, for that matter, those whose understanding of format-constrained storytelling is…[Read more]

@miapatrick Well … I thought I understood the bit about the Doctor’s and River’s timelines, but now that I’ve read your description, I realize I don’t. And I’m too hopelessly mired in my own linear thinking to understand it, so I won’t even try. Just enjoy their story on its own merits, and leave it at that.

As for this episode, I actually…[Read more]

@Miapatrick  @ScaryB

Yes, that ‘So I’m told’ was freighted with a lot of potential meaning, and in ‘Listen’ the situation of the boy in the barn suggested that, if not actually orphaned, he had been separated from family for purposes of training in some kind of elite academy.  On the other hand, also in ‘Listen’, we saw the Doctor putting young R…[Read more]

Thanks for the clarification on the length a  Rel, @countscarlioni, although I also think @pedant has a point that it’s as long/short as it needs to be for dramatic tension, haha. (And thanks also to Pedant for the extension to my vocabularly – so a cruft is a bit of a shaggy dog then…? )

@Miapatrick – I agree that the dads being…[Read more]

@kevinwho

Chibnall doesn’t want his show cluttered up with things people loved in the past; he wants it cluttered up with things people will love in the future

That’s a splendidly tendencious way of phrasing it. It was an exercise in cruft-clearing:

RTD used the Time War to sweep away the Time Lords;

Moffat used the cracks in time to sweep a…[Read more]

Happy New Year all. I hope that 2019 is a good year for all and a better year for this poor, beleaguered world of ours.

And we have a Dr Who special to look forward to.

@thane16 We went to Sweden in February, from a heatwave in S.A. so from 40c + to -17c and heavy snowfall. Australian winter clothing just isn’t designed for that. Luckily we were…[Read more]