@blenkinsopthebrave   My daughter is on the west coast of the island and she says it is either people freaking out or acting like all is normal but here where I am people seem to be staying home if they can.We went for a drive, just to get out of the house without being near other people, and the town streets were eerily quiet. We have 6 cases i…[Read more]

@nerys

You have all my admiration for working on the “front line”, as it were, at this time. I totally agree with you about the idiots. Out here on Vancouver Island, which is generally a laid back and civilized sort of place, there was an item in today’s local news about the police having to break up a crowded house party that had been organized…[Read more]

@whisht – Thanks for your good wishes – yes, being able to type to someone is definitely one of the strengths of online!

Advice from others that I’ve found useful two-and-a-half days in: the government advice is to keep well ventilated and having a through breeze definitely feels less ‘locked in’. So unless they change that advice, open a couple…[Read more]

Hi @bluesqueakpip – sorry to hear you’re having to self-isolate.

Its being referred to as “social distancing” but is more accurately “physical distancing”.
We shouldn’t socially distance ourselves and thankfully that is one of the strengths of online (and this forum!).
Hope you feel better soon.

And @nerys – although your symptoms do sound…[Read more]

@nerys

Let me agree with all your wise words. And my sympathies for the irritations you are experiencing. We live out on Vancouver Island, and had planned on attending a friend’s wedding in Seattle next month. Well, that won’t happen, of course. And back in Toronto, we have family members of a similar age to ours with worrying symptoms.…[Read more]

@nerys

I would say there are two possibilities. One, given that a big thing was made in Spyfall about encoding hidden information in pictures is that ‘Brendan’ is an encoded version of the Doctor’s/Timeless Child’s life. Should anyone not in the know look at it, they’ll see a fake memory (a ‘legend’) of the Doctor’s life as a Division agent, in…[Read more]

@blenkinsopthebrave @nerys

Just popping in. My brain may be fuzzy as it’s been a long day and I’ve had a couple of after dinner G&Ts. But I think he was called Yana – which stood for “You Are Not Alone” (a running theme that series).

Why that makes any sense whatever, I have no idea. But it was a great reveal.

@nerys

Yama was the Professor, played by Derek Jacobi, who turns into the Simm Master back in “Utopia”. (I think the spelling was Yama.) He says at one point in the episode that he was found as a baby.

Agree with pretty much all of what you both said @psymon, @nerys.

It was a 50 min trailer tbh. We’ve still got the same questions we had at the start of the episode and more.

And yes I thought that too regarding Cybermen, they get their hands on the Cyberium so are in reality able to rebuild their empire as it was in ruins… but there’s only…[Read more]

@nerys   Very sorry to hear about your cat. Hugs!

@nerys I’ve done some digging and it seems there was a throw away line from Capaldi in Extremis that the Time Lord killing weapon would “stop both hearts, and all three brainstems” which could indicate they have 3 brains or at least 3 connections to a single brain, but it’s not exactly conclusive as there is also a reference to Missy referring to…[Read more]

Well, I surprised myself by actually enjoying that! I thought all the characters (and there were a lot of them) worked really well. For me, the married couple were great, the companions worked better than any previous episode, and even the blogger (who came in for a lot of flack upstream) was ok, I thought.

The “lesson” (ie, plastic is bad) was…[Read more]

@nerys

Or it could be that Chibnall decided to riff off what Moffat originally saw as a joke.

@nerys   Yes, I forgot to mention that I also liked the connection Ryan made with Miss Skeritt, their mutual experience of how meeting someone extraordinary can change your outlook forever.

I don’t disagree with most of the criticisms that people have made. But while I watched the episode, they were nowhere in my view. They didn’t take me out of…[Read more]

@nerys

I did mean to post a response to your question earlier, but things happen.

In the BG episodes the mindwipe never happened. Well, once, but in a different way. And is wasn’t the Doctor who performed it.

When we finally meet the Timelords at the end of Patrick Troughtons’s run (The War Games), they mindwipe Jamie and Zoe (the companions)…[Read more]

@nerys

No worries, Nerys, this wasn’t about you, or about anyone disliking or feeling something. It was a thought, mainly to do with something else I should’ve been clearer about.  I do have a history, I must admit, of  worrying about the ‘internet.’ My main concern was with how clear Yaz was regarding her emotional state. And how people don’t o…[Read more]

@Craig Thanks – and yes it was my fault – I was trying to copy and paste too much Wikipedia about DNA separating techniques!

@claire54 My overall take is, now that we have a female doctor, the writers don’t know what to do with her.

Yes, unfortunately I do not think Chibnall has been equal to the task.

Elements which I’ve found jarring in the w…[Read more]

@nerys

Television viewing habits confession:

We have never subscribed to cable. This means we watch very little TV. Technically, we watch no TV, only shows or movies that we have on DVD (and we are lucky enough to have one of the few remaining DVD rental shops left in Canada; one that specializes in quality stuff).  Occasionally, I hear of a…[Read more]

@nerys

One of the ongoing problems we have in Canada is the disruption of the episode’s flow, due to commercials. That has always interfered with my enjoyment of Doctor Who, and I believe that’s probably the case with these two episodes. When I can watch them all the way through, sans interruptions, my appreciation for the work as a whole may grow…

[Read more]

@Claire54

maybe I’ve been sleeping through some episodes,

I think probably so. 😉

@mudlark

It is perhaps significant that the Master’s words evoked a flash of visual memory for the Doctor, suggesting some kind of embedded, perhaps racial memory…

Agreed. I think as @blenkinsopthebrave suggested that there’s a deep seated memory, hidden from suc…[Read more]