@nick—

re. a full-series story. Even if Chibnall wrote them all, which I suspect is an impossible task for a Who showrunner, I still don’t think it would work. Unlike Moffat’s stories under RTD, which were pretty tight, Chibnall’s stories have always seemed to contain one or two fundamental flaws in my view. The danger is that his attention to…[Read more]

@nick Oh — about the Moff and the long game…good question!

Well, originally Clara’s story was to wrap up with “Death in Heaven”, but because Jenna Coleman decided to stay it was extended first with “Last Christmas” and then Series 9.  Given how much Clara’s story had to evolve, it’s remarkable that it hangs together at all and ties well into…[Read more]

@nick  I do think it wasn’t fair that the Doctor couldn’t properly grieve his loss once he was free of the dial, thanks to the mind wipe.  Granted, it would have been challenging to find the kind of emotional support he would need for that…Ohila and the Time Lords would have been no help.  The so-called little people of Gallifrey couldn’t beg…[Read more]

@nick wrote:

He had the chance to say a final goodbye and find the beginnings of an emotional closure (an overused word) to companion Clara. But he fails that test and runs from the best answer, which would be to stop and return Clara to her grave.

I myself thought the story would have had a better ending had they just gone back to Gallifrey, but…[Read more]

@ichabod @thane15 @nick and many others

Thank you all so much for the discussion above, with such insight and far better ways of expressing it than I could ever hope to achieve – one reason why I’m so quiet on the forum!

Regarding the 4.5 billion years in The Castle (and yes, I tend to agree the time period was overplayed), looking at it purely…[Read more]

@lisa  Wow! I’m inspired! I shall market it on Etsy and at Comic Cons 🙂

You’ll make a fortune, at least until “Deadpool Face and Bleaching Cream” comes out, not to mention “Batman’s Bat musk”.

@nick  Anyway Ichabod, the questions that most relate to S10’s strange behaviour, is why and how does it relate to the last 2 or 3 episodes of D12.< …[Read more]

@lisa  “New, exciting perfume scent is discovered: A Whiff of Rassilon!  It’s inter-galactic!”

@nick  Being The Doctor means accepting fate, accepting companion’s decisions sacrifices (River sacrificed herself to save Him after all) no matter the personal cost.

Agreed; but it *also* means sometimes giving up, stepping back, “Why can’t I just …[Read more]

@ichabod

Do you mean that there is no such thing as “situational” depression,

No, nor anything like it.

Everybody, at some time or another, will get situational depression. The number of situations that can provoke it is too long to itemise. But then the situation changes and the problem goes away, at most a bad memory. Mostly it doesn’t need tre…[Read more]

@pedant  Or he was thoroughly few up with losing people and had been tortured for 4.5 billion years.  

Yes; that’s my version of the story, and I’m sticking to it.  DW deals in depression quite a bit, and that’s <i>our human </i> story too, for the most part, just scrawled all over the universe over massive amounts of time instead of over a smal…[Read more]

@Nick

No, you don’t.

@nick

If you’re suggesting that he’s acting unDoctorish because of depression caused by this sequence of events,

No.

That’s not how depression works. The stressors inflame the illness, they don’t define it. Eleven understood this. Twelve is living it (and even Eleven withdrew from the world for an extended period after Angels Take Man…[Read more]

@pedant I think you may be right about Chasm Forge.

@nick the implication of the BSOD moment and ‘you don’t understand’ line is that it’s only then that he remembers at least something of the previous times.

@nick

be intellectual and not physical as there are no accumulated memory.

I’m going to take a wild stab in the dark here and guess that you have never had to be treated for depression.

@mirime

I have a strong suspicion that there is something we have not yet seen of events on the Chasm Forge.

@ichabod

I’ve generally found the Master  (in the…

[Read more]

Oh I wrote a long post and it seems to have not made it through the ether. Damn.

OK, short, rough version.

Losing Clara – different to the other losses in that in a way she died three times – the Doctor failed to save her three times – and was willing to risk her life to save him.

(by the way I don’t believe there ever was a ‘Clara Prime’, I…[Read more]

@nick

Acting outside his core principles (which he didn’t do with River, Rose, Amy/Rory or Adric in BG Who) in the way he did is undoctorish ….. The way the Doctor acted to “save” Clara was selfish

Or he was thoroughly few up with losing people and had been tortured for 4.5 billion years.

You have basically just blamed a depressive for his depression.

@nick I suggested the It’s a Wonderful Life idea, actually.  But I don’t think a complete moral failure for Twelve is in the cards; it would largely rehash “Hell Bent”.  I think, rather, he’ll make some good choices, some bad, and things will go badly for him <i>in spite of </i>his best efforts and he’ll wonder if it’s worth being the Doctor at al…[Read more]

@MissRori and @Nick

I think that Nick’s put his finger on it when he says that the Doctor didn’t even try. The way it was shot, the kid’s hand was still sticking up from the ice, holding onto the sonic. Normally, what you’d expect with a shot like that is that somebody will grab the hand/wrist then either succeed or fail in pulling the character…[Read more]

@nick  Thank you for respecting my perspective.  We’ll just have to agree to disagree…

I saw the Doctor’s choice to save Missy as the heart of the in extremis concept.  He did it “without hope, without witness, without reward”.  Because he knows he can’t trust her, he can’t put too much hope in her being good, and he knows it’s going to be not…[Read more]

@nick, @bluesqueakpip, etc… Although there’s a good point about how the Doctor’s Time War experiences have helped change the dynamic of the Doctor/Master relationship, and I think the comments about their relationship in general are spot on…well, to be honest, I think the Doctor is still the Doctor.

I got the sense in “Thin Ice” that he…[Read more]

@Nick, @JimTheFish, @MissRori

I wonder if the other thing that has changed in the relationship – apart from Missy’s sense of it – is that the moral dynamic has changed. Pre Gap, the Doctor had a sense of moral superiority over the Master. Yes, fine, he was a thief and a rebel – but he wasn’t a mass murderer.

Oops. Or as Missy would say,…[Read more]