@blenkinsopthebrave Thanks!  Nothing like an insane explanation to explain insane behavior. :p

@nick Good point!  I guess it doesn’t have to have occurred at the end of Oxygen.  Could be at any point in the series.  May have something to do with the tatty jacket and its strange reappearance?

@nick The fact that it’s not the first time such forgetting was used as a plot device is explained plausibly, and I think far better than I could, by other posters like Puro. I find this explanation by @ichabod to be most compelling:

There is that: this isn’t the targeted audience for Children of Men, it’s DW, where even showing a bit of gore is…

[Read more]

@nick That’s a depressing thought.  His story should come to an end on a note of hope, after all he’s been through… (and you forgot losing Clara and the memory lobotomy, and having no home world because he was evilly betrayed…). 🙁

@nick

Practical joke ? The Doctor made it into one, but I’m not convinced that was what actually happened.

In practical terms, I think the joke was more one by the writer and targeted at the audience, not really the Doctor pranking Bill- that’s certainly how it felt to me. That may be why it feels “off” as an in-universe event.

@cathanabel   [memories of mum]  they aren’t part of ‘history’, part of Bill’s official story even. They’re therefore safe from Monkish interference

Yes, that makes sense — the “love” that’s there, that’s really operating behind the scenes, is the simple kindness of the Doctor in traveling back to take those pictures and then planting the…[Read more]

Some quick thoughts, as it’s late! Overall I liked lots of it a lot, but not as much as the previous 2,  particularly Extremis (which I really liked). My problem with it was much as @JimtheFish (and others) have pointed out – that the Monks were just a bit vague in what they wanted, after their set up as near omniscient beings, with their…[Read more]

@nick Ah yes, the passing student. I’d forgotten about that. But @pedant has a point with the list; this is not the first time it’s happened on Doctor Who. I’m not saying I’m completely sold on forgetting as a plot device, but for whatever reason it is a frequent occurrence in the Whoniverse.

Hmmm, was this a three-parter? Speaking of forgetting…[Read more]

@Nick

Sometimes it’s easier to put trauma behind you. That’s often how we survive.

Also, humans can’t even agree if climate change is real or not. Or if the the Earth is flat.

Why have certainty in the existence of the Loch Ness Monster? (Plus nobody phone-cam filmed it…!)

@nick @nerys @wolfweed

Pish. The people of Earth have forgotten:

Giant cyberman stomping across Victorian London

Giant fish eating Regency Londoners

Starship Titanic nearly crashing into London

The Sontarans gassing the Earth

More Cybermen

The Battle of Canary Wharf

Earth being stolen.

And that is just NuWho, as @wolfweed notes.

That’s t…[Read more]

@Nick

I like your ‘Not 100%’ theory. It would mean that some people remember what happened.  The rest would probably just have nightmares about it & know deep down that they’re true…..

@Nick   Sorry – I didn’t really catch the ending properly before…

The Doctor said that ‘the Monks have erased themselves’, but they’ve left statue stumps behind… Surely some intelligent people will be able to posit some reasonable theories as to what happened ‘by the holes they left behind’? So was it really a memory wipe, or are people ju…[Read more]

@Nick  Why depict thought police, interment or labour concentration camps if there isnt a dramatic reason for doing so.

I don’t want to gang up on you here… But…..

The depiction was it. The problem of being a 42 minute show. It may have seemed like a setup but it was just shorthand. If it was an hour long show or a movie, we may have seen…[Read more]

@nick I fully understand the story wasnt about the details I’m seeking. I don’t know what you thought I expected to see I didn’t. I am merely suggesting that if you chose to have a global invasion and litter the world with physical evidence of that invasion (with the camps and possible deaths) have the creative bravery to live with the conse…

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@nick

you have to live with the consequences  of the setting you’ve chosen

Why? It’s not what the story is about, it is not a documentary and it’s not a Peter F Hamilton 300-page-story-squeezed-into-1200-pages doorstop. It is also something that Doctor Who has zero track record in doing.

Also, you don’t get to decide what SF is, any more than I…[Read more]

@nick, I agree with @pedant that the kind of detail you’re seeking isn’t what the story was about. Yes, sci-fi literalists will want those details, and be disappointed if they’re not there, but I don’t consider Doctor Who to be strictly science fiction. It’s a combination of science fiction and fantasy, and has been throughout its run. As such,…[Read more]

@Nick

As a writer/production team if you aren’t willing to show the way the earth and human society is altered by a multiple large scale alien invasion (over 10 year period in the case of AG Who), with many deaths and damage to infrastructure then why bother writing that story line ?

Because sometimes that isn’t what the story is about.

@nick  I agree, this three-parter needed some more time in development (and we already know that “Pyramid” wasn’t able to get that due to Moffat’s mother’s illness/death).  I see it as a delicious, rich soup course followed by a steak that needed some more time on the grill followed by a dessert that didn’t completely satisfy but gave a nice su…[Read more]

ah – @Nick haven’t heard any French pop since leaving work where a few of the team are French. And you’re right, it doesn’t travel across much (there’s a particular aesthetic I find to a lot of what I heard).

I’ve actually got loads of songs popping up on my iTunes when looking for music for these episodes (Extremis and Pyramids…). So I’ll dole…[Read more]

@nick

It was here

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/apr/06/john-cooper-clarke-poetry-bard-salford

So which way would you vote?
It’s a tough call. I wouldn’t recommend any of them. I suppose if I had to I would vote Labour but only out of blind class hatred, nothing else. That’s what keeps these bastards coming back. To be honest, the only…

[Read more]

@nick, @thane15, @pedant, @cathannabel,

I, too, was taken with John Cooper Clarke way back when, and then I read an interview with him a year or so ago where he claimed that Nigel Farage was saying the most sensible things in British politics. Clarke, Morrissey–I suspect that there was something about the 1980s that, in retrospect, was…[Read more]