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@dentarthurdent That’s interesting. I really preferred “Heaven Sent” to “Hell Bent” … which fell slightly short of the mark, for me. Despite Moffat’s wonderful writing, and superb acting by Capaldi and Coleman, what should have been an emotionally intense sendoff for Clara didn’t quite come together for me. I’ve never been able to pinpoint why. I appreciated the episode, but never found myself fully immersed in it. I think it’s just one of those highly subjective things.

Sorry to hear about Mrs. D’s accident while the two of you were on holiday. I hope she is fully recovered, physically and emotionally.

@janetteb We just watched Layer Cake last night. As good as Daniel Craig was in that, Michael Gambon almost stole the show, as he did in nearly every performance I’ve seen by him.

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@janetteb I agree with you about Mother Nature. Sadly, things have felt apocalyptic here this summer.

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@winston Thanks for the thumbs-up. We just started watching the third season of Breeders … not realizing that the fourth season is also available. So we’ve got some catching up to do. After that, we may start with Annika. I think you’re right, and I will like it.

(Post-tropical storm Lee was not as bad here as I’d feared. We had storm surge, but not devastating, thank goodness. And the wind and rain turned out not to be as severe as we were warned it might be. The damage from this massive storm actually turned out to be far worse northeast of us. So we lucked out. But others in our province did not.)

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We’re halfway through Season 5 of Unforgotten, and I’m finding it every bit as engaging as the previous four. I was afraid they would be heavy-handed with the interpersonal conflict in the void left by Cassie’s death, and the introduction of a new DCI, but I think they are handling it deftly. Conflict would be expected on many levels, given the circumstances, but they’re not making it melodramatic. Exceptional acting by the entire cast, and it’s good to see the other regular cast members getting more screen time now. It feels more like an ensemble cast, which I think it was meant to be until Cassie’s storyline took over.

Somehow I missed the news that Nicola Walker is in another series, Annika (also on PBS). We’ve been fans of hers since Touching Evil, so we’ll have to check this out.

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@nuwhovianjean I’m not sure where you live, but in the United States, HBO Max carries past seasons of Doctor Who. In Canada, we were able to watch it on Crave, but it was removed earlier this year. (Oddly enough, I just checked, and it looks like one episode from Season 3 got left behind. Guess I can still watch that lone straggler.)

I will have to figure out what I want to do about the upcoming specials and the new season, whenever it airs (since it sounds like the new season will be impacted by the writers’ strike). I don’t want to subscribe to Disney+. It would mean adding another streaming service to an already expensive monthly bill.

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Hello, all! I see that Unforgotten is set to air a new season on PBS starting tomorrow. I’d read that they were committed to a new season, but wondered how they would pull it off sans Nicola Walker. Now I get to find out!

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@blenkinsopthebrave Thank you so much! Some evacuation orders have been lifted, allowing those folks to return home, which is good. Needless to say, we felt relief that we have not had to evacuate (though it’s hard not to feel guilty about that). We were saying the other day how we are living our lives almost as normal, when so many people are not. We are lucky … and it somehow feels wrong to be on the right side of luck, with others going through so much stress, anxiety and fear.

One of our friends, sadly, had allowed her house insurance to lapse because she was planning on selling in the fall. (She doesn’t have much money, so I’m sure she felt it was one less bill to pay. And, I’m sure in hindsight, it’s a decision she regrets.) She thought she had lost both of her houses, but thankfully, it looks like one house was spared (after things were not looking good). So there are little miracles.

Here’s a CBC News story celebrating today’s beautiful rainfall. May all the incredible firefighters who are coming to our aid stay warm and dry in their tents, and safe as they battle this wildfire!

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Thank you, everyone, for your care and concern! I’m sorry to be so late in posting. We were without Internet for a while, which limited my ability to communicate.

The Barrington Lake fire (whose billowing smoke plumes are visible from across our harbor) is a massive wildfire, the largest ever in Nova Scotia. The Lake Road fire was a smaller wildfire northeast of us that triggered evacuation alerts fairly close to us Wednesday evening. We weren’t in the evacuation zone, but we had our bags packed in the car, just in case we had to leave.

We could see the Lake Road smoke plume from our front porch. We watched as Department of Natural Resources and volunteer firefighters, RCMP, emergency personnel and other crews raced to the scene. And, starting Thursday, we had many more water bombers on the scene. So that fire was brought under control very quickly.

We have heard that the fish gelatin manufacturing plant where my husband works is still standing. The problem is that there is no power out there, and two bridges have collapsed, hindering access to the plant. They were able to get in and transport their inventory of frozen fish skins to a freezer elsewhere in the county.

The sad thing is that human activity (people doing outdoor burning, when we are under an outdoor burn ban) caused these fires. So all this destruction, trauma and stress was completely preventable and unnecessary.

The ground and forests were bone dry. The soil is dust, even deep in the forests. Before yesterday, we hadn’t had significant rainfall since winter. The rains finally came yesterday, and we have had steady rain ever since. I can see puddles forming in our parking lot. It won’t put out this massive, extremely hot wildfire, but it will slow it down. And it will make the conditions far more favorable for our firefighters! But after the fire is finally doused, many people’s lives here will never be the same.

I am sad about ichabod’s passing. I always enjoyed her posts.

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@blenkinsopthebrave Well, I watched it. I agree that it was better, but I can’t say that I was as taken with it as you were.

I think my problem is that I never followed the original Next Generation series with any regularity. I tuned in now and again, when nothing else that interested me was on, and never made any commitment to it. (The only Star Trek series I watched from beginning to end was the mother ship that aired when I was a kid.) When Picard‘s first season aired, I knew enough about the character to be intrigued, but was happy that it wasn’t imperative to know the entire backstory in order to understand what was happening.

This season has changed all of that. I’m sure that it’s very satisfying for people who followed the original series, but it leaves me trying to fill in gaps that I don’t really want to fill.

My husband followed Next Generation and the various spinoff series far more closely than I ever did, but I think he was happy to be freed of all that history in the first season, and has felt a bit dismayed to see it take center stage this season. So I think we are not really Picard‘s target audience.

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@blenkinsopthebrave OK, that’s reassuring! I will watch it tomorrow. If I like it, then I will recommend it to my husband. Thank you for letting me know!

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@blenkinsopthebrave I wish I didn’t feel this way, but I do. I was really hoping for something closer to that first season.

Is the darkness supposed to mask the fact that the Next Generation actors are aging? If so, that’s too bad. After all, they are aging. Given the scarcity of light, I hope none of them have cataracts.

The flashback scene between Picard and Riker was odd. Almost like they used a combination of makeup and de-aging CGI to make them look younger … and didn’t succeed.

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Today is sunny and bright! We have more snow on the ground this morning than I have seen in a while (probably since 2018, which is confirmed in my snowfall photos from that year). I’m guessing that we got between 20 and 30 centimetres total. It’s the first time I can remember an 11-hour snowfall, which is how long this lasted. Fortunately the wind was minimal, and the power stayed on!

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Dental and eye exams are not covered by the provincial health care system in Nova Scotia. (Canada’s system is funded federally, but administered by the provinces. So each province has a different health care system.) Fortunately we have private insurance through my husband’s employer, and it covers dental work and much of what is not covered by the province. So we are very lucky in that way.

@janetteb I hope that your husband’s toothache can be resolved soon. @dentarthurdent I hope that your kidney stones pass uneventfully. The pain seems to be different for different people. My mother-in-law said she preferred childbirth to kidney stones … so that tells you how painful hers were.

After a largely snow-less winter, we are seeing snow in March. Today will probably bring us our biggest accumulation, thanks to a nor’easter sweeping through. Happy I don’t have to work today!

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Well, Picard, husband and I have given up. Season 3 starting out engagingly enough, and we were looking forward to something closer to Season 1’s beautifully rendered story. The all-but-missing theme music, which I felt they ruined last season, should have been a clue.

Starting with the second episode, things got predictable, to the point where by the third episode we knew what was going to happen long before it happened. The heaping helping of fan service might be great for those who watched the original series (which I did not), but it quickly grew tiresome for us.

We don’t even feel like finishing out this season … which is frustrating. Season 1 remains one of my favorite television-viewing experiences. They gave an inspiring fresh take on an old character. But, at least for me, that ended with Season 1. All that followed has felt less than inspiring. Almost like all the good ideas were used up in Season 1, and now what?

At the time, the ending to Season 1 was so satisfying that we both agreed, “You know, they could end it right here.” Now it seems they should have.

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@dentarthurdent Oh gosh, your head injury sounds scary! Keep tabs on it. Something that seems minor can develop into something serious.

I didn’t realize that Jodie Whittaker chose not to watch any of her Doctor Who predecessors. I often felt she was channeling David Tennant’s Doctor (which would have made sense, since they worked together in Broadchurch).

@thane16 Your weather sounds wild! I’m glad it was only a spectacle for you, though it sounds like others suffered more than a spectacle.

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@dentarthurdent Glad to hear that you’re making out OK with the storm!

You mentioned the Weeping Angels episode in the Flux story arc. That’s what I meant earlier about feeling like I was being set up for something good, only to have the payoff fall completely flat. You are absolutely right about that being a good episode. I like your assessment of Chibnall being “carried away so often by a temptation to turn it up to 11.” That’s my impression, as well. I guess the question is, was that his inclination, or was he being pressured by others to do that? Dunno.

I think Jodie Whittaker has the capability of portaying the Doctor with more depth. I’ve seen her do it in other roles. So I have always attributed the character traits she deployed as overcompensating for lack of depth in the writing. But, again … dunno.

And, “Asylum of the Daleks” is one of my all-time favourite episodes!

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@thane16 You make a good point, via your dad, about whether the Flux arc would have been better with more episodes. I think there’s something to be said for that. It all felt a bit rushed, hence the need for lots of exposition to tie everything together. I just find that very unsatisfying. But, the fact that your mom shed a tear (probably more than one) at the end for Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor will make me re-evaluate that, and maybe re-watch it.

I did find Yasmin (Yaz) to be the best-developed of the 13th Doctor’s companions. In retrospect, I think it would have been better to have her be the only companion, and develop her that way from the get-go. Whittaker’s Doctor simply had too many companions, leaving none in the trio much room to grow. And then, kicking Graham and Ryan out, only to replace the two of them with Dan, didn’t make much sense to me. (Especially when Dan was rather unceremoniously dropped off, with Graham abruptly showing up out of nowhere.) But that may have been due more to contractual/time issues for the various actors that couldn’t be avoided. There was a lot of clutter that, in the end, didn’t serve the series well.

@janetteb You have explained so much of what I found lacking, and did it far better than I. Some of it, I can’t really articulate. I just know it left me feeling flat. Same with my husband, who I think gave up watching even before you did. He is the longtime Doctor Who fan in our family, and I think he found much of the trashing of Doctor Who lore to be unnecessary. Almost like Chibnall was going to make his mark, just for the sake of making his mark, rather than creating a good story and telling it well.

I also agree with you about Sacha Dhawa as the Master. I never suspended my disbelief with him to the point that I found him to be a worthy adversary. He seemed to be chewing up the scenery in a rather predictable way. And maybe that’s because of the way his Master was written, much closer to John Simm’s Master than Michelle Gomez’s Missy. It was just too over-the-top for my tastes. Again, that seems to go back to the writing.

@dentarthurdent Wishing you a safe outcome from Gabrielle. I watch the WildEarth safariLIVE drives (twice daily live streams), plus the Djuma and Africam fixed streaming webcams, and they have been receiving excessive rainfall this past week. It was good for the waterholes and vegetation (and, as a result, the wildlife), but not good for the villages and towns that are suffering with flooding and landslides. We need water … but not that much, all at once. It saddens me to think of what the people are having to deal with.

And yes, “Eve of the Daleks” was the bottle story set in the storage warehouse. @janetteb you mentioned charm. That episode carried the charm I found missing through most of Chibnall’s tenure. And yet, Chibnall wrote that one. How he could hit all the right notes there, and miss them in so many other episodes, baffles me. It really does.

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@thane16 Son of Puro, welcome back! How good to see you again. I can’t elaborate on what @janetteb wrote, but I admit that I lost hope in Chibnall’s writing. I found myself being set up for something promising, then disappointed in its denouement. The only exception, that I can recall, was the “Eve of the Daleks” New Year’s special, which was a delightful surprise. Humor, suspense and a little timey-wimey … all the things I expect from Doctor Who.

The whole “Timeless Child/Flux” arcs left me feeling little of that. There was far too much exposition, and not enough character development to make me care what happened to the Doctor or her companions. And then, after the 2022 New Year’s special, the last two specials left me feeling underwhelmed. Bottom line, for me: Jodie Whittaker never got her moment as the Doctor. I attribute that to the writing.

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Very cool (possible) interior. Thanks for posting this, @blenkinsopthebrave!

@janetteb I enjoyed your analysis of the various post-gap TARDIS interiors. I liked Eccleston’s/Tennant’s TARDIS. It had the look of a potbelly stove for the central console, and the rest of it was rather mysterious … shadowy, yet glowing.

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@winston I’m so sorry to learn of the death of your big brother. It’s very understandable that you are feeling down. We have such a shared history with our siblings, one like no other. You will heal on your own time … however long you need.

As others have noted, we are at that age when death will be a more constant companion than it once was. Hard to accept, but here we are.

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@blenkinsopthebrave Wow, that trailer is amazing! Gah, if only Doctor Who were not limited to be limited to Disney (in Canada). I just do not want to sign up for another streaming service.

I was a fan of the Doctor/Donna pairing because it went in such a different direction from Rose and Martha, both of whom were on opposite sides of the romance coin. I liked it that the Doctor and Donna were friends, nothing more, and that was established from the get-go. And yet they had a wonderful chemistry built on friendship.

I would love to see RTD fix the decision to erase Donna’s memories, something that gutted me at the time. She had lived such a remarkable life, achieved so much, only to have her memories of that obliterated. I found it heartbreaking.

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@winston Yes, you have been having serious storms in your neck of the woods. Miraculously, we have been spared them here. Once again we seem to have been saved by being on the “warm” side of the Gulf Stream. Sometimes it doesn’t work in our favor (droughts, etc.), but this latest round of storms and the “Polar Vortex” passed us by. (By the way: Where do people come up with these meteorological terms? “Polar Vortex” sounds like something dreadful unleashed upon the world in a Marvel Comics plot. “Atmospheric River” is another new one. Maybe not new to meteorologists, but the media are newly latched onto it. Makes it hard to keep up with what is actually happening in the weather.)

@thane16 and all, Happy New Year! May this one be better than the last. Though it seems like I keep saying that, then feeling we went in the other direction. @winston I too like your New Year’s Resolution, and I will do everything I can to make it mine!

And yes, many thanks to @craig for keeping this place going for us!

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@thane16 Was that Roadkill? I thought it started well, but didn’t quite come together. What became of the investigation into the journalist’s death? Was it an accident, or was she run down deliberately? I guess we’ll never know.

But, if nothing else, it was worth it to see Helen McCrory in her final role. She was magnificent, as always.

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@thane16 I agree with @winston‘s and @janetteb‘s assessments of Avenue 5. Overall, I enjoy it, though there are some slapsticky, over-the-top moments. But I find far more to like than to dislike. Hugh Laurie could recite the telephone book and make it entertaining!

Oh, and I love Staged! I wasn’t sure if the second season would measure up to the first, but in my opinion it did. David Tennant and Michael Sheen are so good together!

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@winston My reaction comes from loving it so much the first season, and then feeling disappointed that it didn’t meet my expectations for the second. But I am glad you enjoyed it!

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@blenkinsopthebrave Oh, dear. Well, I was hoping against hope. Having just watched the trailer, it does seem to do quite a bit of fan service. I was not watching the original series when it aired. So it will either work, or it won’t. I’ll just have to wait and see.

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@winston and @janetteb The second season of Avenue 5 is also a bit uneven, yet I find more to like than dislike about it. If you should find Mr. Inbetween and decide to watch it, be forewarned that it has a lot of violence. If that’s not your cuppa, then you might want to pass.

Picard … what can I say? I loved the first season, but was greatly disappointed by the second. It was like watching a completely different series: Same characters, but lacking the narrative deftness of the first season. Why they changed the theme music is completely beyond me. They went from something quite memorable to a sort of overly dramatic mishmash … which, in a way, describes my impressions of the story arc, itself. I’m glad that other people enjoyed it. But for me, as the second season went on, it felt like obligatory viewing, not something I looked forward to.

I gather a third season is in the works, so I am hopeful for something I will enjoy.

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Like so many other folks, I’m feeling sad over the passing of Christine McVie.

Her music had such an earthy warmth. Always relatable, never pretentious, yet brilliantly written. I love her soulful voice and bluesy piano playing. She really grounded the band. When she left for a while, I missed her. Say You Will was a brilliant album, really Buckingham Nicks Redux. But, without Christine McVie’s songs unifying the two extremes of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, the album lacked coherence. I was so happy when she rejoined the band. I don’t think there were any new Fleetwood Mac studio albums, though she did record an album with Lindsey Buckingham that, as I recall, paved the way for her re-entry into Fleetwood Mac.

Such a sad loss for her family, friends, bandmates and all who knew and loved her. At least we will always have her music.

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We’ve been watching Avenue 5, an HBO series, and also Mr. Inbetween, a dark comedy out of Australia. Scott Ryan is remarkable in the lead role. And, for a bit of lighter viewing, we are watching Yes Minister, if you can believe it. Rewatching, actually. My husband was a fan back from before we met, and so after we got together I started watching it with him. I’m pretty sure PBS was carrying it at the time. It’s amazing how much of the satire still holds up today! But it’s also a little sad to realize that all of the actors in the original main cast have passed on.

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@oochillyo Declan Sargent, I think Doctor Who has painted itself into a corner. The first post-gap season did a good job of walking that fine line between introducing new aliens and bringing back the old ones. Then it seemed that we got caught in ever-increasing levels of fan service to make sure that every season had the old favorites … to the point where my husband, who is younger but has been a Doctor Who fan far longer than I, muttered, “Oh, great, another flippin’ Dalek episode!”

On the other hand, I like it when they are creative with the old villains. One of my favorite episodes is “Asylum of the Daleks” because of the imagination they used to present a Dalek in a more sympathetic way.

So I am of two minds. We can see what happened with Chris Chibnall’s attempt to try something new. And how soon we forget that there was criticism of Steven Moffat’s ideas for new aliens, with some complaining that they weren’t menacing enough.

And yet I, too, will often sigh and say, “Oh, great, another flippin’ Dalek episode!”

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@dentarthurdent I agree with you about the Angels episode. At the time, I thought, “OK, now we’re building toward something good!” And then the rest of the Flux arc fell flat.

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@dentarthurdent This remains my favorite episode of the Chibnall era. Just when I thought he couldn’t pull it off, he did. So this was a really nice surprise for me. Now, if you like the Flux, then I’m going to have to rewatch it. For me, it was “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” (the impression many of Chibnall’s episodes have left on me).

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@translatorcircuit I think everyone should take care of their appearance. As for the Classic Doctors who appeared in this episode, I think that at least they should have been wearing wigs that looked like their hair when they played The Doctor.

Have you considered how absurd wigs would have looked? Nothing screams “fake” like a wig. Especially, I’m assuming you mean, a wig attempting to duplicate the Doctors’ hairstyles and colors from their respective eras. So actors who are in their 70s were supposed to look like they did 40 years ago? I thought McGann looked wonderful. Just an older (and far wiser) version of the Doctor than the one he played 26 years ago. Even if it was fan service, I was happy to see this series celebrating its older actors looking exactly as they do now.

Also, in my opinion, Janet Fielding (Tegan) and Sophie Aldred (Ace) look like they have taken care of their appearance. They are fit, and happily they are beautiful while looking their age. I am so tired of actresses, in particular, being forced to have work done, while actors don’t face those same pressures. I found it such a relief to see Fielding and Alred looking like women who are 69 and 60, respectively.

@jimthefish Excellent review. I think I have a slightly better impression of the episode than you do (though, admittedly, it took me a second viewing to get there), but I agree with many of your frustrations with Chibnall’s handling of the Doctor. And I agree that Whittaker didn’t quite get her moment … though she worked with what she had and made the most of it.

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OK, these articles answer my two main questions:

What happened to Dan’s house,

and

How the Master escaped Gallifrey.

The Master told Yaz, “I ingested the Cyberium.” I assumed this was in response to the Doctor’s question about how he escaped Gallifrey … but maybe not.

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@devilishrobby I can understand the business side of it. But, from my own fan’s perspective, I’m … well, not a fan.

@dentarthurdent I checked our library system’s Doctor Who collection, which seems to be quite extensive. So I think I will go that route. This seems to work for you; I will just have to be patient. It will be hard to wait and try to avoid the discussions on this forum until I’ve actually seen the episodes.

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In fact, I don’t even see Disney Plus in our cable lineup, only Disney Channel, Disney Junior and Disney XD. So I’m not sure it’s possible for me to access this via my already pricey cable subscription. And I certainly don’t want to subscribe to a separate service via my TV. Maybe I’ll wait for the Blu-rays. But I kind of doubt it. This is one of those situations when it may be time to say goodbye. It’s not what I wanted, but if it’s put beyond my means, then this is the inevitable result.

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@bluesqueakpip Thanks, but nothing you have listed interests me. I tried watching Grey’s Anatomy at the outset, thinking it would be along the lines of St. Elsewhere. When I realized it was General Hospital for prime time, I lost interest.

Sadly, I don’t think this is a channel I can substitute for one of my other cable channels, since it’s very likely considered premium content. So I would have to buy it as an extra channel. There has to be more than one show to motivate me to pay that kind of money.

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Oh, this is not good news. So I will not be able to watch new episodes of Doctor Who on Crave in Canada. Sadly, it looks like this starts with the Tennant specials? I really don’t want to subscribe to Disney Plus … especially since my only interest would be to watch Doctor Who. And, I may not. So it could be that the Jodie Whittaker incarnation will be my last one with Doctor Who. What makes me sad about this is that Russell T. Davies is returning as showrunner, and apparently Catherine Tate is returning alongside David Tennant. So this will have to be a serious discussion about how much we really want to see this.

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Questions: I guess this just shows how little I have retained from the current era, but what happened to Dan’s house? He was supposed to be returning home, but then said he’d have to stay at his parents’ place. It looked like there was an empty spot where his house used to be.

Also, the Doctor asked the Master how he escaped Gallifrey. I thought the Master claimed to have destroyed Gallifrey. Yet he was able to scavenge old technology in order to do the forced regeneration. I do remember that the Doctor trapped the Master in a something-or-other (where, as I recall, the Master had first trapped the Doctor). The Master replied to her that he ingested a something-or-other. Was that one and the same thing?

I need to look up a synopsis of this entire 13th Doctor incarnation. It’s not complex on the level of Steven Moffet, but there’s a lot I have forgotten.

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OK, on second viewing, my opinion has improved. Once I got past the sorting of plot detritus, I focused more on the characters. I especially appreciated Jodie’s final portrayal of the Doctor. I think she got about as a good a sendoff as Chibnall could write, and she made the most of it.

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I think I need to watch this again. The last half hour made the whole thing worth it, but I just am not a fan of Sacha Dhawan’s Master. Also, I thought I had read in a post here that John Simm was returning to that role. Maybe it’s in one of the later episodes. At any rate, he never showed up here.

The end wasn’t a total surprise to me (and I wish it had been), because I’d read the news about Tennant returning. So it was just a question of how it was going to be done. It was one of the better moments of the episode. If you’re looking to score, the end is a good place to do it.

But I felt rather underwhelmed by the rest of it. A lot of frenetic activity, but also a lot of exposition which, as the mantra goes, if you’ve got to explain things, then maybe the story isn’t as coherent as it should be. That’s my main frustration with Chibnall’s writing. He seems to feel the need to explain too much. “I think he missed the “show, don’t tell” rule of writing. I was also surprised by the early exit of one current companion, and the later return of another recent one. The timing of both muted the emotional impact of farewell and reunion … at least for me.

And, did we have to have Cybermen … and Daleks … and the Master, all in the same story? I suppose the three-pronged threat, a sort of hit parade of the Doctor’s greatest foes, was meant to heighten our sense of imminent danger, but for me all it did was to clutter up an already convoluted plot.

On the plus side: The many faces of the Doctor was done well, as was the return of two long-ago companions. I especially enjoyed Ace, who doesn’t seem to have missed a step from her youth.

And I enjoyed Jodie Whittaker. I still think she was under-served by her scripts, but I also appreciate all that she did to bring her Doctor to life. Even if her Doctor wasn’t all that she could have been, as written, I think she gave her all to the role.

Like I said, maybe this will improve for me on second viewing. I hope so.

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@winston I’m so sorry about your family and friends who must deal with damage from Fiona. I’m still waiting to hear back from a friend in Kissimmee, Florida, about how his home fared with Ian. Sadly, rising sea temperatures mean there will be more of these damaging storms in the areas that have been hurricane-prone before, and they will be more common in places that used to be more or less protected by cooler North Atlantic temperatures.

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@mudlark and all, I agree with your spot-on analyses of the post-gap era showrunners. It’s telling that, while many episodes from the RTD and Moffat eras are vague in my mind, I can immediately recall and describe my favorites. For Chibnall, there is only one that really stands out to me, and that’s this year’s “Eve of the Daleks” New Year’s episode. By that time, I had so lowered my expectations that I ceased to expect Chibnall to deliver a proper Doctor Who episode. And then he surprised me by giving us one.

One of the things that has been missing, for me, is the Doctor’s deft humor. Chibnall made the Doctor slapsticky, and that just doesn’t work for me. Yes, there were slapstick elements with the previous Doctors, but they didn’t define the character. They all had substance and emotional heft. I believe Jodie Whittaker is a better actor than than what she was given for her character, as written. I just don’t think she had much to work with.

The other problem is that Chibnall hung his hat on this Big Idea of the timeless child. If you’re going to rewrite Doctor Who history, then you’d better do it very, very well. In my opinion, that didn’t happen. It all felt very forced and rushed, with no opportunity for emotional connection with any of the characters. Even the Doctor, who is the character we should care most about! Now, I don’t know if the BBC, Covid and/or a trimmed budget are to blame. But it seems to me that if those things are real factors, then it might be worth reconsidering the Big Idea.

It really is sad that “too clever” is considered an acceptable criticism these days. I guess we can chalk that up to the many “recycled idea” films and TV series that make up the bulk of popular viewing these days. It seems it’s become too risky for a network or film studio to support an original idea, so (with some notable exceptions) we get a lot of reconstituted titles, characters and storylines. I enjoyed Moffat’s stories precisely because I almost never got them on first viewing. But I was engaged enough to want to go back and rewatch, and also have wonderful discussions with everyone here about what it all meant. Bonkerizing is great fun!

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Earlier I mentioned Westworld. Season 4 did indeed air, and I felt it was every bit as good as the first two seasons. Sadly, though, I think most viewers lost interest during Season 3, which left the park in a somewhat muddled storyline. So viewership was way down this season. I hope HBO renews it for a fifth and final season. I would like to see Deloris’s version of the story. But we may not get that chance.

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@dentarthurdent Midnight was one of RTD’s best-written episodes, I think.

I am so glad you corrected me on this! For lo these many years, I have mistakenly thought that “Midnight” was written by Steven Moffat (possibly because I confused it with “Blink”). Bravo to Russell T Davies!

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@winston and all, I apologize for taking so long to check in. It has nothing to do with the hurricane; I just forgot that many people here know I live in one of Canada’s Atlantic provinces.

My husband and I are fine, as is our little town in southwestern Nova Scotia. Fiona tracked farther east than originally expected, so all we got was a lot of rain (which we needed) and a little wind. We’ve had nor’easters that were far more powerful than that. We were afraid of a repeat of Hurricane Dorian, which did a lot of damage here (though not nearly as much property damage as I would have expected). Fortunately for us, we were spared that experience this time around. Life here is very much as it was before the storm. Remarkably, we never lost power here. I think that’s a first for our little neck of the woods.

Sadly, Cape Breton and northeastern Nova Scotia, PEI and Newfoundland were not so fortunate. Also parts of New Brunswick and Quebec’s Magdalen Islands. They have suffered devastating damage. It’s heartbreaking to see the photos and videos.

A high school friend and her partner made the decision several years ago to move from Fort Myers, where we had visited them back in 2009, to Maryland. Needless to say, they are quite relieved they made that decision, though they are worried about friends who are still there and living in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian. A university friend just happened to be visiting her brother and his family at their home near Orlando when Ian struck. Fortunately they are all safe and sound, with very little property damage. Another friend, who is a former co-worker, and his wife live in Kissimmee, near Orlando. They evacuated to their son’s home and are waiting to see how badly damaged their apartment is.

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@janetteb I have read mentions of Merlin, also starring Colin Morgan (the actor who played Jethro in “Midnight”). I haven’t seen it, so I can’t comment one way or the other. I love your memories of Northern Ireland, though it saddens me that they are tinged with the threat of violence. It’s heartbreaking what that meant for so many people … including your friend.

@blenkinsopthebrave One of the reasons I love “Midnight” so much is because, for me, it distills the Doctor’s character to his essence and pits him against a foe who is both mysterious and one we can sympathize with. And yet the threat to our Doctor felt very real to me. The episode played out more like a stage play than television. The fantastic ensemble cast knocked it out of the park, IMO. And yes, it really does feel like a Twilight Zone episode.

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We just watched Belfast last night. There have been so many films about The Troubles that I never really expected to see a beautiful family film with that conflict as its backdrop. But that’s what it is. Disturbing, but not as much as I expected it to be. Even though “the other” hatred reared its ugly head time and again, the impact was softened by a respect expressed on both sides.

One of the funniest moments, for me, was when Catholicism was described as the religion of fear … and then the next scene segued to a Protestant minister, sweat pouring down his face, terrorizing congregants with his sermon about two forks in the road, one leading straight to eternal damnation. Of course a child would interpret that literally and wonder, “Which road was the right road?”

I kept being drawn to the actor who played Billy Clanton. I felt certain I recognized him, but from where? I looked him up, and there it was. He also played Jethro in “Midnight,” one of my favorite Doctor Who episodes!

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@winston Sorry to be so late in replying, but I just have to say that my husband and I love Letterkenny! At first, I didn’t understand a word they were saying. It’s all hockey lingo, right? But once I got used to it, I found it hilarious. After we got back from the States in May, we watched a spinoff called Shoresy. Still funny, though a bit different from the mother ship.

I’ve really enjoyed this fourth season of Westworld. I liked last season, but wasn’t as taken by it as I was the first two seasons. I feel like they have returned to form this time around, and I am not ready to see it come to an end for … who knows how long? The time frame between seasons of Westworld tend to be long.

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@thane16 Good to see you back, Puro! I hope you are doing well. I agree with your sentiments, and am looking forward to a return to the RTD era … with hope!

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