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OK, so the 60th Anniversary Specials finally arrived at my library, and I have enjoyed my first outing with Doctor Who in quite some time. It was so wonderful to see Tennant Doc and Donna reunited, with all their old chemistry intact. It was as if they’d never been apart. I felt engaged by this episode in a way that, for whatever reason, I didn’t feel during most of the 13th Doctor’s run. It was a bit like Old Home Day.

I loved when the Doctor whipped out his psychic paper outside Shaun’s taxi, bragged about being Grand Master of the Knowledge, only to face Shaun’s correction that it said “Grand Mistress of the Knowledge.” His “Oh, catch up!” rebuttal felt so right. (It was also a nice nod to Whittaker’s Doc.) And, they’re back!

The Meep was, in the beginning, quite reminiscent of ET, right down to hiding in amongst the toys in Rose’s shed. The Meep was cute … until he wasn’t. I wasn’t expecting that!

But most of all, I was happy that Russell T. Davies finally rectified what I always felt was a terrible wrong done to Donna. She got her memory back of all the wonderful things she’d done with The Doctor. And it didn’t kill her! I really wasn’t expecting that. The solution coming through her daughter, Rose, was a bit of timey-wimey whimsy, but I rolled with it.

On to the next DVD!

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@winston Scary times, indeed. When current affairs mirror our most frightening fiction, it’s hard to remain calm. Where is Doctor Who when we need him?

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@thane16 Good to hear from you! Your hospitalization sounds serious. I hope that you are on the mend. I have not seen Severance or The Crown. The latter requires a time commitment I’m not willing to make. I don’t think I have heard of the former. Might have to do some searching around to see what it’s about.

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@janetteb @ps1l0v3y0u Entrance of the Gladiators seems like rather appropriate background music these days. Yes, I am avoiding the news … not completely, but as much as I can. I’m doing a lot of novel reading and watching, if not cheery material, then at least that which I find more believable than what real life is dishing out. So those Doctor Who DVDs can’t arrive soon enough.

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Hooray, I see the 60th Anniversary Specials listed as “on order” at our library! I just put a hold on the DVDs.

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@winston I think your call is the correct one. But even as buffoonery, it’s just bizarre. And he hasn’t even been sworn in yet. I hate to think how it’s going to be after he is … and without the people who were there before, putting up guardrails.

@dentarthurdent We’re about a three-hour drive from the Bay of Fundy. We go out to Brier Island pretty much every summer to go whale-watching. We love it there. It’s not that far away, yet it feels like we’ve really gotten away from it all whenever we go.

This is Crow’s Neck Beach (also referred to as Crow Neck Beach). In the summer, you’d swear you were in the Caribbean. The water is a gorgeous shade of turquoise blue, sometimes more aqua. The beaches are white sand. It’s only when you dip your toe in the water that you know you are definitely not in the Caribbean. Because it’s located so far southwest, and the area is sparsely populated, it just doesn’t get that much foot traffic … which is fine with me. I think the wildlife appreciate it, too.

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@winston Trump seems to think he made a new joke with that old “51st state” saw.

(Continuing from my off-topic reply on the “Joy to the World” episode, so as not to derail that thread.)

On the bright side: If Canada were to become the 51st state, that would solve my annual U.S. tax reporting issues. I kid. But as a point of information: Did you know that the United States is one of only two countries in the world whose federal tax system is based on citizenship, not residence? Most people don’t know that. In fact, I didn’t find it out until I’d lived in Canada for 14 years. It was not a happy discovery.

People say, “OK, so just fill out the tax return.” They don’t realize what that means. For people living outside the U.S., the tax reporting requirements are far more onerous than they would be for that person in the same financial situation, but living in the U.S. Many expats have revoked their U.S. citizenship for that very reason. I’m not there yet. But it’s the time of year when, faced with that dreaded pile of paperwork, I wish for an easy way out.

Having said that, it’s ludicrous and repugnant to me that Trump is braying on about this. But I guess that’s what autocrats do. In no way do I want any of it to become a reality. There are many reasons why I am happy living in Canada.

I’m reminded of: “May you live in interesting times.” We do … getting more interesting all the time.

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@winston Trump seems to think he made a new joke with that old “51st state” saw.

(I will take the rest of this to the off-topic forum, so as not to derail this thread.)

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@dentarthurdent We too benefit from the Gulf Stream. However, “warm” is relative … and the water is never warm enough for me to consider swimming in it. However, thanks to the Gulf Stream, we rarely get the frigid temperatures and deep snowfall that routinely hit New Brunswick and the northern U.S. East Coast. After watching the winter storm reports for New Brunswick, I have to remind myself that, as lovely as parts of it are, I don’t want to live there.

@winston Your beach on Vancouver Island sounds wonderful! I may have made the beach I found sound like a secret beach. It’s not. It’s actually quite popular, and a number of people were there at the same time I was on Boxing Day. It’s just that it was hitherto unknown to me.

I prefer the more secluded beaches where, most days, I’m the only person out there, or at most only one of a few. There are some secret ones here that I have been told about, but have yet to visit. One of my favorites that I do visit routinely is Crow’s Neck Beach, on the southernmost tip of mainland Nova Scotia. In the summertime, there’s an Arctic tern rookery, along with piping plovers and other shorebirds, so I enjoy watching them and experiencing the peace and quiet of the place.

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@dentarthurdent I think BBC has gotten wise to folks using a VPN. I have NordVPN on my phone and turn it on whenever I’m using Wi-Fi at an unsecured location. So I tried using it with iPlayer, and they blocked me, making note of the fact that I was using VPN. Such is life.

You are correct, the Atlantic Ocean is not currently swimming temperature. In fact, I pretty much never swim in it, regardless of the season. Because we’re along the North Atlantic, the ocean temperatures are just too cool for me, even in the summer. I’m fine with cooling my feet in the surf (in the summer), enjoying the scenery, smelling the scent of the air and logging whatever birds and other wildlife I see. That’s the beach experience I have come to enjoy.

Speaking of cooling my feet in the surf: My husband and I took a Boxing Day walk at one of our local beaches. I was standing there, shooting video, and a wave sloshed right over the top of my boots. (I had just been telling my husband about my previous experiences with this happening … and then it happened again.) When they say, “Fill your boots,” I think they mean something completely different!

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Happy New Year to all the good folks here! I celebrated New Year’s Eve by exploring a new beach, thanks to a friend who introduced me to it. I know most of the beaches west of where we live, but am less familiar with the beaches east of us. So this was a lovely discovery to end 2024.

I’m still waiting on the latest season(s) of Doctor Who to materialize at my public library. The month-long Canada Post strike did nothing to help, I’m sure. But while Doctor Who showed up in regular installments right on up through Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor, there seems to be a bottleneck with the Tennant Doc specials and Gatwa Doc season that followed. I’m not sure if it’s linked with the change to Disney+. I’ve contacted the library, and the answer I received indicated that these DVDs and Blu-rays are not available via their usual source. At any rate, I’m still waiting!

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Well, that was fun!

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@winston Your navigational skills are still needed. Google Maps and GPS don’t always get you there … as we discovered when trying to locate my cousin’s home in the mountains of New Mexico. My husband, whose navigational skills are vastly better than mine, could tell we were going in the wrong direction, and so he turned around. But even after that, my cousin had to walk out and meet us, because we couldn’t quite figure out where her driveway was (based on what the GPS was telling us).

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@dentarthurdent Wow, what an experience! You described everything so clearly. I’m glad that you were mostly uninjured, and also that once the rental agency knew where the car ended up, you were rebooked and on your way in fairly short order. Kudos also to the concierge at the swanky hotel who, on second try, found you a cheaper room. That must have been a huge relief!

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@dentarthurdent OK, you buried your lede. You must tell us the story of the Opel’s predecessor! I hope that you came out of that one unscratched … even if the car didn’t.

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Nothing to report, other than that husband and I recently returned from a nearly two-week trip to Minnesota and New Mexico to see cousins of mine and take in a bit of vacation. The American Southwest is a beautiful place to visit … but I wouldn’t want to live there. Too arid and hot. (I was amazed at how happy I was to see fall colors and bodies of water upon our return home!)

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@winston It was fun to have Jeff and his shady dealings remain a mystery to us, while being such a source of frustration for Sarah. Though, in the end, Jeff’s illegal weaponry did help to save the day.

That’s part of what made this such a fun episode (fun, yet the threat felt real). The humor and whimsy are not forced, a rarity in the Chibnall era. The Doctor doesn’t babble … a frequent problem with the way Whittaker’s Doctor was written. Also, as the story progresses, the characters gel believably into a team, which leads to their success. I also appreciate that time is such a fundamental part of this story. Highly appropriate for a Time Lord!

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@dentarthurdent The Weeping Angels episode was the best, I agree. That’s what made me think we were headed toward something special. And then … splat.

I liked Dan, but I also felt that he was shoehorned in. I never quite warmed up to him because he, like the other companions, felt more like caricatures than fleshed-out characters. It was something I had not yet experienced on Doctor Who. Between that and Whittaker’s Doctor being so chatty, with the chatter never seeming to lead anywhere, it left me feeling disappointed. Especially because there were times when things seemed to be pulling together, only to have it all unravel in the next episode.

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@winston My recollection with this season is that I thought they were heading in the right direction … and then blew it with the ham-fisted finale. Maybe I’m due for a rewatch!

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@dentarthurdent I do love Last Christmas – sarcastic dwarves. Santa pointing out how unlikely he is. Dreams within dreams. Unlike you I absolutely loved Hell Bent, particularly the diner scene where you’re not sure which of them actually knows, until the last moment – Moffat does those multi-layer scenes so well.

It’s not that I don’t like “Hell Bent” … but somehow I didn’t feel the catharsis I was expecting, given that it was Clara’s last episode, so it was a bit disappointing in that way. I liked it more on subsequent viewings, but it still didn’t quite come together for me the way it did for you and others.

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@ps1l0v3y0u the challenge are to find the best episodes NOT written by Moffat.

Ah, OK, thanks for clarifying! Often I am slow on the uptake.

That really is a challenge for me, because obviously those Moffat episodes are my favorites. The only ones I can think of are:

“Smith and Jones” – March 2007 season opener introducing the Doctor’s new companion, Martha, written by Russell T. Davies (Our Doctor Who viewing had been interrupted because, as I recall, the channel we were watching it on kept switching its time slot, so we never knew when it was on. We watched this episode on the plane while flying to Denmark. We liked it so much that we vowed to search for Doctor Who‘s time slot when we returned.)

“The Fires of Pompeii” – April 2008, second episode of Season 4, written by James Moran (This is when I began to warm up to Donna, because she shows genuine shock when she realizes that the Doctor can’t save anyone … though, after she pleads with him, he relents and saves Caecilius and his family.)

“Vincent and the Doctor” – June 2010, 10th episode of Season 5, written by Richard Curtis (This may have been the first episode I watched featuring Matt Smith’s Doctor and his companion, Amy. I so loved David Tennant that I had resisted watching this new Doctor for quite some time. But once I started, I was hooked.)

“The Power of Three” – September 2012, fourth episode of Season 7, written by Chris Chibnall (one of the few episodes of his that I genuinely like)

There’s a nearly 10-year gap, because I simply can’t find any non-Moffat-penned episodes in the interim that rise above the rest.

“Eve of the Daleks” – January 2022 New Year’s special, written by Chris Chibnall (surprisingly, given his writing overall for the 13th Doctor)

P.S. I’m reminded that another favorite episode is “Last Christmas” … but, of course, it’s a Christmas special, and it was written by Moffat. And I loved “Heaven Sent” (also written by Moffat), but not so much the “Hell Bent” conclusion. Oh, and “The Angels Take Manhattan” … yeah, Moffat again.

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I feel like this series of posts may have been somehow redirected from The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances thread?

@dentarthurdent Season 4 – I’d say, Midnight, very narrowly edging out Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead. (I think this is the ONLY season where the best ep was not by Moff).

Season 7 – Asylum of the Daleks (Moff again, as was The Snowmen and The Name of the Doctor, and does The Day of the Doctor count as part of this season?).

You just named my other favorites: Midnight, Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, Asylum of the Daleks and The Day of the Doctor 50th anniversary special, along with the two-parter The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances mentioned up top. If I have only those episodes to watch, I am a happy camper!

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Looks like we have finally reached a North American release date for the 60th anniversary DVDs and Blu-rays: July 30th. Hooray! I will keep a lookout at my library, where they have been regularly updating the Doctor Who collection.

Surely the new season will be soon to follow … I hope!

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@winston Somehow when I watch Doctor Who I miss loads of stuff and that is why I like it here. This is where I find out what I missed from the more attentive Whovians and wonder how I didn’t “get it “.

I am exactly the same. As I noted a long time ago in this thread, these two episodes are among my all-time favorites, and I think they really are what made me a Doctor Who fan. There was the eerie menace of the first part (but punctuated with that inimitable wit), followed by the Doctor’s unbridled elation in the second part. His joyful reaction made me feel such hope.

Being able to talk about that here with fellow Whovians, and also to tease out so many of the clues and storylines that often eluded me (especially in the Moffat era), are what I find so rewarding about this forum.

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@craig Just a heads-up: Looks like a couple of spammy posts in The Winchester.

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@winston @dentarthurdent Thank you for your kind replies. Yes, my in-laws appear to be safe from this wildfire, which thankfully did not spread in their direction and is still 25 kilometres away from them. It is now classified as “being held” (meaning that given the current resources and anticipated weather, the wildfire is not expected to grow beyond pre-determined boundaries).

It’s so sad to think about Jasper, the community, and also the national park. I was somewhat relieved to learn that the entire town wasn’t leveled (which I had feared). But it’s still devastating for those whose homes and businesses were destroyed. And then there’s all the destruction to the larger home for the wildlife. Heartbreaking.

@ps1l0v3y0u Responding to your comment from On the Sofa 11:

The pictures of Jasper are horrific. When the UK had its record breaking day (40 degrees) 2 years ago about a 1/4 of a village called Wennington went up in flames. Tiny place. The fire started in an over-heated compost heap. Many years before I would cycle down the high street on the way to work… just a row of Victorian cottages and a 4 square medieval church. But it was the first rural place outside London. Familiar. Very much of a shock. Homes visibly destroyed. Horses running in panic. Nothing to what a Mediterranean country faces most years.

The reality of climate change is dwarfs the relevant debates and political manoeuvrings around what ought to be possible.

This conjures up horrific images, and a far more horrific reality for the people who lived through it. What you describe is very much what we here on the South Shore of Nova Scotia experienced last summer. When we moved here, I never imagined that we would face drought, much less wildfire, in such a moderate climate. And yet it has happened. In 2016, our drought was so severe that many wells (most of which had never run dry before) dried up. Most small communities in Nova Scotia have no municipal water supply, so people rely on their well water. It was surreal. We’re surrounded by ocean, but many people had no water in their homes to drink or cook and clean with.

Last summer’s wildfire was almost unimaginable. Because our groundwater supply was still diminished by the 2016 drought, we were already behind. Add in a hot, dry spring and human stupidity, and you’ve got the recipe for wildfire. We were saved by rainfall that started about a week after the wildfires erupted, and then didn’t let up. So we were fortunate in that way. It could have gone so differently. Firefighters here told me that if the rains hadn’t come, they couldn’t have stopped the fire. Most of Nova Scotia’s interior is forest, so they guess that without the rain, the wildfire would have burned across the province to the Bay of Fundy on the other side. It’s a terrifying thought, not only for the humans but for all the animals.

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Re: the wildfires in Canada, I’m heartbroken to read the latest news about Jasper, Alberta. My husband and I vacationed there in 2002 and loved it. But it looks like the town suffered devastating fire damage, and the beautiful national park may be a charred ruin, as well. As @winston noted, the threat to wildlife is awful to think about. One can only hope that many animals can outrun or outfly the fires and escape to safety. But where is safe?

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@dentarthurdent A quote in a BBC News story captures the contrast between Harris and Trump about as clearly as it can be stated: “US Vice-President Kamala Harris has gone on the offensive against Donald Trump in the first rally of her White House campaign, portraying November’s election as a choice between a former prosecutor and a convicted felon.”

I’m feeling much more hopeful than I was on up through Saturday. John Oliver is going to have to change his tagline from “It’s been a busy week” to “It’s been a busy day”! His latest episode, filmed Saturday, was already outdated!

Sadly, even though we in Nova Scotia are not directly impacted by wildfires so far this year, my husband’s youngest brother and his wife, who live near Calgary, Alberta, are on evacuation standby. A wildfire 25 kilometres west of their home has been deemed out of control. So their precious possessions are packed up, their horse trailer attached and the dogs are going to their grandparents’ home.

As for climate change, consider me woke … a long time ago. I remember that years ago, there was some type of global action taken on climate change. Probably the Paris agreement. So I was feeling hopeful that maybe we could finally turn a corner on this thing. When I said as much to my mother, she gave a reply that I found very cynical. Now, I’m sorry to say, I fear she was right: “I think we’ve screwed up the planet too badly to ever be able to fix it.”

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@janetteb Thanks for asking. We’re fine here. I’m in eastern Canada. We haven’t had a recurrence of last summer’s wildfire, thank goodness. The worst fires are out west, which is how it seems to be every summer … and getting worse.

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Anonymous, I think you missed the point. No one is “forbidden” from discussing what they want. Simply choose an existing thread that pertains to your topic and then post your thoughts. I believe you were looking for K9 sound files. There are plenty of existing threads in which to do that, and you did. There was no censorship.

And, as @dentarthurdent pointed out, many of us go off-topic plenty of times. The Winchester is the perfect place to do that, but we also do it in other threads. I’m certainly guilty of it, yet I have never been admonished. But I do try to be careful and not overdo the privilege.

However, limiting the number of threads does make life easier for the administrator, and I think it also adds a level of discipline for us members so that we are not randomly starting new threads when existing threads will suit our purposes. This system has worked well for many years, and those of us who have stuck around appreciate it.

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@janetteb I second that. I have always been impressed with how well managed this forum is. The rules encourage members to be respectful and stay on-topic. Many other forum administrators would do well to take a page from @craig‘s book.

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@adrian1 I could be wrong, but I don’t think we forum members can post new threads. Rather, we reply to existing ones created by @craig. So you might search the forum for the thread most suitable to your topic.

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@mudlark Spot-on analysis of Project 2025 and Trump. You explained that far better than I would’ve. Thank you!

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@ps1l0v3y0u I think you’re right about this tracing back to the ’80s. Margaret Atwood wrote The Handmaid’s Tale in reaction to that very thing. Scary to think how prescient she was (and still is). It doesn’t matter to me if Trump is the author of any of this. I highly doubt that he is. But he’s happy to ride on its coattails and enable whatever brings him the power and attention he craves.

As for the climate, we here on Canada’s East Coast seem to be enjoying a fairly nice run of summer weather. Today is a bit warm and soupy for my tastes, but as long as it doesn’t stay that way I can handle it. We haven’t had abundant rainfall, but we’re not in a drought either. And no wildfires in our neck of the woods this summer. That’s a relief. We did not want a repeat of last summer.

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@ps1l0v3y0u It’s not the chronology that worries me, so much as the reality we face. The thought of a far-right autocracy is scary. What’s worse is that even if Trump is not elected in 2025, Project 2025 will be waiting in the wings until a Republican is elected. So it’s not going away.

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@mudlark Project 2025 is terrifying. It’s as if the Self-righteous Right read “The Handmaid’s Tale” and took notes. People think the president doesn’t have that much power because of the balance of power between the three branches. But if you can reclassify thousands of federal civil service workers as political appointees, then those employees will do what the president wants, thus creating an autocracy.

That doesn’t even address making appointments to the Supreme Court, whose justices can serve for a lifetime and make legal decisions that support a particular individual (as we just saw). And, as for Congress? Whatever balance they have provided in the past seems to be teetering toward veneration.

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My Canadian husband is very much in favour of proportional representation, and was pleased when Trudeau promised that his government would replace “first past the post” with proportional representation … then disgusted when Trudeau dropped it like the hot potato it was. Reportedly there was and is no consensus among Canadians about electoral reform and which system to chose, so we remain stuck with one that few seem to like.

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@winston @ps1l0v3y0u Trump appeals to a segment of the population who feel they have been ignored by the liberal elite and/or big government. There’s certainly a fair bit of truth to that, but what they don’t seem to realize is that Trump is not their guy. He’s only using them to get what he wants, which is power at anyone’s expense but his. He’s very good at telling people what they want to hear, so they genuinely believe he is connecting with them. Trump is hardly the first politician to achieve that, but he is certainly one of the most baffling at being able to achieve this con job on such a massive scale.

Trump is a grifter and a snake oil salesman. Sadly, those occupations have a long history of success in the United States. His fans don’t seem to care that he completely lacks any moral or ethical code, and that he’s willing to ignore or break laws to get what he wants. (“But he was framed!”) If anything, findings of ethical or legal wrongdoing seem to endear him to his fans even more because he’s defying conventional mores. If we were a society of substance over style, then none of this would matter. But we live in an age of “reality” TV … and this show is playing out in real time.

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I was just grateful for a distraction from the political mess in the United States. It now looks dreadfully imminent that the path to the White House is cleared … and not for the incumbent. It doesn’t bring me comfort to know I haven’t lived there since 1996. We share a border with the U.S., and I have family and friends living there. It’s all deeply troubling.

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@blenkinsopthebrave Thank you, I will look it up!

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@thane16 To follow up on the rest of my “avoidance of collecting more stuff” comment:

I’m taking a painting class and mostly coming up with more stuff that either has to go into a storage bin or in the garbage. So, while I like the process of painting, so far I’ve only been happy enough with one that I’m willing to hang it on a wall. Which means I’ll probably drop the painting class. *sigh*

@winston I’m glad that you’re healing, but sorry that you have had to go through this. I know what you mean about wishing for a time machine to enable us to go back and avert a life-changing event. Sadly life doesn’t give us those do-overs.

Currently I am wishing for a do-over on the last band concert I was able to perform in earlier this month (our director is retiring, and concert bands are few and far between in our area). I have been blaming my arthritic right hand for the problems I had during our concert. And it may well be the culprit. But, after having sent my clarinet off for repairs (third time now, to address the same problem), I’m wondering if these repairs might take care of it. However, I won’t know until I get my clarinet back from the shop.

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@thane16 Yeah, I’m just at that point in my life when I’m tired of acquiring more stuff, especially something that for me is only for temporary use, and then having to figure out what to do with it all when we move yet again. It really makes me want to just not get more stuff.

(See the rest of my reply in The Winchester, so as to try to keep from going too far off-topic here.)

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(Moving this reply from the BBC Approved Spoilers thread, since it’s an off-topic discussion.)

@winston I’m sorry you had to deal with the extreme heat. I’m glad it didn’t last. How is your leg doing? I hope your healing continues and you make a full recovery.

And, I’m sorry about the Oilers. It just didn’t go their way in that final game.

The move went OK, but we had to do it hastily. The timing was bad, as I’d just returned from two weeks away in Indiana visiting family and friends. As moves go, it was easier than most. We moved, literally, across the hall. So we never had to load a vehicle and drive our stuff someplace else. But even though it was a short distance, we still had to move everything from one place to the other. Basically we were asked to move in order to facilitate other things that needed to happen in the building. We weren’t forced to move, but I got the sense that we were expected to move, to make way for these other changes. So we did.

We were fortunate in that we had only a few days of heat and humidity. Now we’re back to more seasonal temperatures, and fortunately we’re getting some rain. May had turned quite dry, and I was worried that we were in for a repeat of last year’s horrific wildfires, or almost as bad, the severe drought of 2016. But with some much-needed rainfall occurring in the past couple of weeks, I think we’re OK.

I have seen plenty of spoilers because I can’t help but read what the good folks here have to say about all things Doctor Who. Maybe enough time will have passed, by the time I get to see the DVDs, that I will have forgotten all about it. I suppose that’s an advantage to waiting.

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@blenkinsopthebrave It’s less about the cost of the player and more about having more stuff. And not just the player, but I’d have to buy the DVDs, too. I wouldn’t mind renting them, but after having to move again (and in a situation that wasn’t our idea), I’m trying to minimize our accumulation of stuff as much as possible. The only way I buy books these days is if they’re digital. If I buy a hard copy, an old copy has to go. If we don’t do that, our limited living space starts to overflow.

If there was a way to rent Doctor Who on its own, without having to subscribe to Disney+, I’d do it. And yes, I tried VPN, but BBC iPlayer seems to have wised up to that and won’t allow me to watch if VPN is turned on. Of course, if VPN is off, I’m in the wrong region and can’t watch anyway. So I’m stuck.

@winston (see The Winchester for my reply)

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@blenkinsopthebrave Given their limited budget, I doubt it. It’s just sad to me that in an era of supposedly unlimited choices, we are limited in this way. Yes, I could subscribe to Disney+. But for one show? I don’t think so. Our monthly cable budget is bloated enough.

@whohar We just moved. Always great fun. We’ve had limited space for the last dozen years, and so I really don’t want more stuff.

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@bunface Oh, I do keep wanting to say that I find the death of death thing intensely maddening. Not only because, as others have said, it’s nonsensical, but beyond that I find any cultural inability to accept death offensive and troubling. So it alarms me that RTD seems to be pushing the idea that we can all live forever, even if he means through imagination and art and memory.

I feel a bit odd chiming in here, given that I am in Canada, refuse to subscribe to Disney+ and seem to be in for a very long wait until DVDs/Blu-rays are released in Region 1. But I read your comment and was instantly reminded of, “Everybody lives, Rose! Just this once, everybody lives!” I think the Doctor grows so weary of his humans dying on him that he can’t help but celebrate when he is able to save them. That is one of my favorite moments of Doctor Who, and is actually the two-parter that made me a fan.

But I take your point that in general, our culture is so distanced from death that we don’t know how to deal with it. Hopefully that’s not RTD’s mindset for Doctor Who. It’s normal to want to avoid death, if we can. But none of us are getting out of here alive, so as unwelcome as death is, we need to come to terms with the fact that dying is as natural as being born. I do like the idea that as long as there is someone to remember us, we live on.

[nerys @replies]

I’ve been waiting for the 14th Doctor specials DVDs/Blu-rays to come to my library, but I guess I’m in for a very long wait, since those media have been released only in Region 2, and I don’t see a release date for Region 1. Not only that, but there are no Region 1 release dates for the 15th Doctor specials and episodes. Just Region 1. Makes me wonder how long this is going to take. *sigh*

[nerys @replies]

@pufferfish There are two tabs atop the upper right of the posting window. If you paste text, switch from the default Visual tab to the Text tab. That way you won’t get the formatting code interspersed with your text.

[nerys @replies]

I’ve been checking in every now and then, trying to be careful to avoid spoilers and failing miserably. But I have enjoyed reading everyone’s comments. As @janetteb says, feels like old times. I’m still waiting for the specials DVDs to arrive at the library!

[nerys @replies]

@ps1l0v3y0u If you listen to the stacked vocal harmonies, overdubbed by Karen and Richard and sung perfectly in tune, that’s a result of Richard’s vocal arrangements. It was as characteristic of their sound as Karen’s solo voice. And, because I have hearing loss that started in childhood, I think those vocal harmonies were part of their appeal to me. Because of the overtones created in the vocal harmonies, my brain caused me to hear more sound than was actually there.

Karen’s eating disorders are well known, sadly. Richard had his own issues and had to enter rehab for Quaalude addiction, which is when Karen recorded her solo album, which A&M shelved, which led to her disastrous marriage, worsening her anorexia nervosa and bulimia … though she made a halfhearted attempt to get treatment. Anorexia nervosa wasn’t well understood then, but anyone who had experienced it knew, even then, that it couldn’t be cured through an hour-long outpatient session.

People have forgotten that, besides being a remarkable singer, Karen was also a good drummer … at a time when it wasn’t really accepted for women to play drums. I have always believed that Karen having to largely give up her beloved drums, in favor of sending her to the front of the stage as the star singer, is part of what led to her descent into eating disorders. The sheer joy on her face as she played shows me how much she loved it. This is one of my favorite clips of her singing and playing live: The Ed Sullivan show

@winston Yes, Karen could sing it all. It’s sad to think of what might have been, had she lived. The music she could have made? But beyond that, I like to think that her life would have been richer and more rewarding. Such a tragedy.

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