@purofilion   Many thanks for the good wishes and the offer of a virtual drink.  You did in fact wish me happy birthday before, in your post #45888, but twice is twice as nice. Coffee would have been inappropriate at the time you posted, which over here was 1.37 pm, as you surmised .  I was up and about until 00.30 am. but an hour later was tuc…[Read more]

@ichabod

I think they hit it just right, myself.

So do I, but perhaps this wasn’t entirely clear in what I wrote  🙂

@Mersey

This is still tv series about funny alien.

If that were all it was, I doubt whether I would still be watching after all these years.

I understand your point of view, but I do not see why serious issues should not be addressed in a popular show which reaches a varied audience with a wide age range, because this can, if handled…[Read more]

@nerys  @Avaris   A minor point to note in passing also: the gravestone we saw must mark a cenotaph, not a grave with a body in it, since the Osgood zapped by Missy was reduced to a small pile of dust which would have been dispersed to the winds when the plane disintegrated.

@janetteB    I had as close a look at the carving on the pillars as the brief glimpses allowed, pausing the recording at the appropriate moments, and can say with reasonable confidence that it was modelled on Viking era wood carving – probably Urnes style, to be more precise.  I doubt also whether the episode was filmed in a reconstructed Angl…[Read more]

For those interested in real Vikings, rather than those in the Whoniverse, some years ago I spent around 10 weeks supervising excavations on the site of an Anglo-Saxon monastery – a double house of nuns and monks, ruled by an Abbess.  The Viking army which was in the process of conquering much of England in the 870s had sacked it and set up t…[Read more]

@janetteB   Many thanks for the birthday wishes.

I’m not sure whether I would have had much to say about the Vikings in The Girl Who Died, even if I hadn’t had to wait more than a week to watch it, thus ensuring that I came very late to the party.  In the way they were depicted they were very much story-book or cartoon Vikings, horned helmets and…[Read more]

As a postscript:  The name of the country in which the Zygon occupied village was located, Turmezistan, suggested that a mosque rather than a church would have been more likely, but I’m pretty sure that was the whole point.  One should not make assumptions.

@purofilion   The switch was signalled by the cut following the appearance of the Zygon…[Read more]

I relish the more subtle and multi-layered episodes which have featured under Moffat’s aegis but, as must have been apparent from my brief post yesterday evening, I thoroughly enjoyed the change of pace and mood in this, and disbelief did not need to be suspended; it was nowhere to be seen (maybe slipped out for a pint at the local). I did wonder…[Read more]

@pedant  @PhaseShift   Well, the first thought that leapt to my mind in the first 10-15 minutes was ‘Those who complain about Doctor Who having a socio-political agenda are going to be really pissed off with this one!’

Apart from that … Whoof!  Edge of the seat stuff, even if I am well beyond hiding behind the sofa.   Wonderful how many threa…[Read more]

Re life expectancy in the 17th century.  I have just done a quick check and about 12% of children in England died in their first year. The mortality rate for all children was higher than I remembered – about 60%.  For someone reaching the age of 20 or so, average life expectancy was 59/60 – and of course there were plenty of people who lived in…[Read more]

@CountScarlioni

the writer was careful to get other facts correct. Ashildr/Lady me tells the Doctor, for example, that the life expectancy in England in 1651 is 35.

Another interesting and perhaps significant point;  I don’t think that anyone in 17th century England would have considered mortality in that statistical light.  Lady Me, who had s…[Read more]

@Mersey  I was simply picking up on something others had discussed earlier.  My tongue was firmly in my cheek 🙂

Just a few more random thoughts and observations before tomorrow and the next episode.

Firstly, the resemblance between the outfit worn by Ashildr/Me in the background of the selfie, and that of Clara’s mother which sharp-eyed @Kharis spotted.  It probably is just the writers tweaking our tails – as @pedant said, ‘Beware the chain yank’, and the…[Read more]

The above ended up a great deal more long winded than I intended, and a lot of it is essentially riffing on points already made by others.  So apologies for length and for lack of adequate acknowledgements.

@everybody

It is late in the day to be joining in this discussion and I don’t feel that I have much of substance to add to what has already been said by others, often very eloquently.  But for what it is worth, here is my ha’p’orth on both The Girl Who Died and The Woman Who Lived.*

On the whole I preferred the second episode.  The Girl Who Die…[Read more]

@Arbutus  @purofilion.   Many thanks for your good wishes  🙂

Arbutus  My knowledge of Early English is just about good enough for me to have been able to understand Raedwald’s greeting and self-introduction, but no more than that, so I was relieved when he switched to the modern version of the language.

I’m not so sure about ‘Forever Youn…[Read more]

@purofilion

I’m flattered to think that anyone missed me on these boards!  In fact I didn’t have time to watch The Girl Who Died until yesterday, and haven’t yet finished reading through the comments.  When I have done so I will see if there is anything I can add to the discussion, though I rather doubt it.

Yes, we had a delightful time.  As a…[Read more]

SPOILER, SPOILER, SPOILER...

@ichabod    It seems a bit strange to be debating the credibility of such details in an episode of Doctor Who, when most of us managed to a greater or lesser degree to swallow so much that was counterfactual in the last series. On the other hand, when it is a question of what does or does not allow suspension of disbelief, why not  🙂

You were…[Read more]