@kharis

I know, let’s talk about Doctor Who news!

LOL.  Good point, K.  Sorry for the OTPs.  Just kind of got caught up in the give-and-take.

Thanks for the gentle reminder.

@puroandson

Yet you then discuss a brain, comparing it to a computer when a brain is nothing like  a computer…

NOTHING like a computer?   Really?  Are you sure?

Besides comparing a brain to a computer is no different than saying that your voice is like chalk on a blackboard, for example.

Metaphor – a figure of speech in which a word or phra…

[Read more]

@puroandson

I don’t know if you were tagging me or others on the matter of pronunciation. I think mistakes happen though -its not about not caring.

It just seems strange to me that during writing, editing, rehearsals and filming that NO ONE realized that they were pronouncing Goddard in a very un-American way even though most of them were p…[Read more]

@jimthefish

Then we’ll have to agree to disagree about the definition of “reboot”.

@bluesqueakpip

I think ‘reboot’ as a film and TV term really only dates back slightly over a decade…. But what they were doing was nicking a computer term to describe shutting down the old franchise and starting up the new one.

Exactly.  There are plenty of word…[Read more]

@jimthefish

Words have meanings attached to them

jimthefish: Yes, they do but once again it’s a great deal more nuanced and complicated than that.

No, it’s not.  You just want to make it complicated so you can pretend that the way you use the words (“reboot” for instance) is correct, when it’s not.  And it will never be correct no matter how muc…[Read more]

@toinfinityandbepond

Where he plays a “Time Master” in a stolen time machine, wearing a very long coat.

Spot on.  Although I missed the detail that the time machine was stolen.

You see, I’m familiar with the character – Rip Hunter, Time Master – from the old 60’s comics.  But I can’t claim to remember much about it, except that I enjoyed the s…[Read more]

@jimthefish

(E.g. as a nuclear scientist would you take Merriam-Webster’s definition of fission as the last word on the subject. Of course you wouldn’t.)

Whoa.  Never said I was a scientist.  I worked as a technician in a plant.  But I had six months of school from 9-5 studying thermodynamics, metallurgy, nuclear physics, radiation calcul…[Read more]

@nightfell

I do want to go through the Classic Who episodes first!…  any suggestions where I can find something a bit more complete?

Hulu says it has 413 Classic Doctor Who episodes available for a subscription.

Subscriptions start at $7.99 a month.  But as with any plan, watch out for the fine print.

Gee, I should sign up for that.  I’m ge…[Read more]

@nightfell

IMO, if you are introducing someone to Doctor Who and having them watch the show on their own, I wouldn’t recommend this episode as a introduction

I totally agree.  In fact, I recently put together a watch-list for a co-worker to get her to the 50th Anniversary episode without giving her so many episodes that she would just quit.  I end…[Read more]

@jimthefish

…in the rebooted show.

Just a minor technical point – the show hasn’t been rebooted.  “Rebooted” implies jettisoning the past stories and starting over.

@jimthefish

An ‘opinion’ is a conclusion or stance arrived at via evidence and argument.

It seems you have leapfrogged over the posts where I detailed my evidence and argument. No problem, it’s all there, just take a moment to review it, please.

The first is that a traditional DEM tends to be consequence free.

That is an opinion.  And even if it…[Read more]

@bluesqueakpip

Ob-wan, it really doesn’t matter how often you quote the dictionary, or what your opinion is. You keep phrasing your argument in a way that suggests that you don’t understand the concept you’re discussing.

I could very well retort that you don’t seem to understand plain English – that you’re just trying to complicate a very simpl…[Read more]

@bluesqueakpip

The Cinderella example is pretty flawed.  We’re told well in advance the conditions and consequences.  Forgetting the time, while sudden, is neither ” a character or thing that suddenly enters the story”.

I’m actually perfectly happy with the argument that The Parting of the Ways, taken as a single episode, contains a DEM… Wit…

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@bluesqueakpip

Which is, Bad Wolf cannot be a Deus Ex Machina, because we expect Bad Wolf to turn up. We just don’t know what it is.

Well, that will probably the point that we’ll have to end on.  It doesn’t appear that either of us is going to be able to move past this central point.

In my opinion it doesn’t matter if the words “Bad Wolf” are sp…[Read more]

@jimthefish

And your argument is that “they mentioned the words Bad Wolf before”.  Along with a reference to the heart of the TARDIS.

If you look at the definition of DEM you will see that there is nothing in it that forbids such vague foreshadowing.

It matters not if the words are sprinkled here and there.  And merely mentioning the heart of t…[Read more]

@bluesqueakpip

The explosive properties of Blinovitch Limitation Effect is visibly failing in the Big Bang; it works with the Sonic (to the extent of a small spark) when the universe starts collapsing in the Roman era, doesn’t work at all by the time Amy meets Amelia, and has never been seen since in any of the TV episodes.

Now that I’ll c…[Read more]

@jimthefish

Dues ex machina – a character or thing (i.e. Bad Wolf) that suddenly enters the story in a novel, play, movie, etc., and solves a problem that had previously seemed impossible to solve – Merriam-Webster

Sorry Jim, but I know the definition of DEM and I saw the episode with my own eyes.  NO amount of lawyer-ing is going to convince me t…[Read more]

@pedant

“…Moffat, if he learnt one thing from Whedon, learnt that events have consequences.”

But even Whedon couldn’t stick to that.  Spike dies in a heroic sacrifice full of pathos and grace to save the world – oh, wait, he’s back.

The only thing that Whedon hated about it was that the network announced that Marsters was joining the show…[Read more]

@pedant

like RTD, he tries not to back future writers into corners – nor be backed into a corner.

But that’s the beauty of a science fiction show – it’s REALLY, REALLY hard to back yourself into a corner without being able to come up with a way out.

I agree with your point, but EVEN IF they declare something as canon, if they want to change t…[Read more]