@Arbutus  @purofilion  @ichabod

Curiouser and curiouser!  I was idly trawling through the Guardian archive and was more than a little startled to realise that Jonathan Jones, whilst doubtless deserving of all the epithets cast in his direction, is also an out-and-out Doctor Who fan . Whether or not his fandom comes with ARSE is not entirely…[Read more]

@ichabod    Agent provocateur is an apt term for Jonathan Jones, since that seems to be the effect he often has on readers.  I am not sure whether he adopts a contrarian pose because he gets a kick out of winding people up, or whether it is a kind of ‘everyone is out of step except me’ pretentious arrogance.  And you are right, he is not young. …[Read more]

@ichabod    To some extent I agree with your opinion of Mieville’s novels – a little too convoluted and baroque in style, although I don’t necessarily find such qualities, or indeed the length of a book, to be a barrier to enjoyment provided that the work draws me in and engages my full attention. So maybe the problem for me is that I am not entir…[Read more]

@lisa

They just seem less bothered by anything unconventional probably because in their young lives they’ve been bombarded with so much more then previous generations

That is a very good point.  A lot of things which children today take for granted would have seemed almost as fantastical as the Tardis to those of my generation – although as an avi…[Read more]

@ichabod    On the subject of human-alien communications of the non cliché variety, have you read China Mieville’s Embassy Town?   In TV and film SF it is obviously easier to opt for humanoid aliens and a compatible form of oral communication, extending even to the hardwired grammar; but I find it strange how relatively rarely, even in novel…[Read more]

@purofilion   My post yesterday was, of course, little more than a summary of points I made earlier in relation to this episode and on Kill the Moon, although I thought it worth repeating, on the assumption that @TheConsultingDoctor might not have had the time or patience to wade through all the pages of previous comments.  But I am enorm…[Read more]

@TheConsultingDoctor    This is a somewhat belated response to your post #42142, but the views you expressed interested me.  I did not dislike the episode to the extent that you evidently did, but although I found things in it enjoy and appreciate, it did leave me dissatisfied. Not, however, for the reasons you expressed.  The counterfactual ‘scie…[Read more]

@Craig   Thanks.  Consigned to oblivion as soon as spotted in my inbox, but I was wondering whether I should post an alert.

Oops!  ‘special coordinates’ in the above should read spatial coordinates.  That’s what comes of writing before caffeine intake has been sufficient to enable full brain function.

@supernumerary   The questions concerning the accessibility/non-accessibility of Gallifrey which were raised in Listen and in Time of the Doctor have not been answered explicitly in subsequent episodes, but I’m not sure that there is really any mystery.  My understanding, for what it is worth, is that since the removal of the time lo…[Read more]

@Missy    If it helps, the question of the toy soldier and its trajectory through time and space came up again recently in a discussion on the Death in Heaven thread, with @janetteB and myself offering different theories.  Janette’s explanation was the more elaborate and entertaining; mine a more boringly straightforward loop, and probably neit…[Read more]

@Craig  Thanks for pointing me to this, I would have missed it otherwise.  It made for interesting reading, as did some of the comments BTL (give or take the usual suspects).  One which made me hoot loudly enough to startle my next door neighbour was ‘Jon Pertwee’s Doctor was a perfect gentleman. CPO Pertwee might have been a different matter ..…[Read more]

@purofilion   @janetteB     The pyrolytic cleaning function is a built in feature, and I think that it requires a special kind of vitreous enamel oven lining and thicker than usual insulation.  There is no smoke and no risk of fire, unless you leave a dish towel or oven mitt hanging over the oven door.  I once ruined an oven mitt that way, though…[Read more]

@lisa

She/he has often not thought thru various situations and still doesn’t

With that you have just summed up the Master’s – and now Missy’s – fatal and abiding weakness.  He/she never thinks things through properly, which is why he/she never succeeds, however elaborate the plan, and why, in the past, he has so often ended up having to join forc…[Read more]

@janetteB  @Bluesqueakpip     I have only just started my pre-9th season re-watch of last season’s episodes, and had forgotten Seb’s remark.

So either Missy was less efficient than she claimed in harvesting the minds of the dead and some escaped her net, or Danny was a foundling, parents unknown.  If the latter, then either a) you were right,…[Read more]

@janetteB   That is a wonderfully convoluted and bonkers theory, but I am not sure that it works, since there is no way, legally, that Missy could have got her mitts on Danny’s belongings, whether or not he died intestate.  If he had died intestate, the rule in England is that his estate would have gone to his next of kin, however remote, and I kn…[Read more]