@pedant  A dark, gloomy….custard cream dispenser.

Dash it all!  Now I want one of those.  Only, chocolate mousse for me, thanks.

@thane16  The colourised sequence reminded me of the interior of sclerotic bowel.

Er — yes.  I was trying to put my finger on it — uh, trying to come up with something visceral like that . .

@rob  LOL!…[Read more]

@pedant  As was repeatedly stated, he could have left at any time. So maybe add “stubborn” to “patient”.

Talking about the Confession Dial, you mean?  Okay, I do not remember 12 being able to “leave at any time”.  I remember that he could give up a certain secret and then be released (or not — it was by no means a fixed bargain).  Not the s…[Read more]

@pedant  @ichabod

As I said, it was a rebuke for someone who had made a dick move on someone who was beaten and being expelled – then crowed about it, in his wholly inadequate way. It was a tiny analogue of Tom Shaw’s abject an cowardly inadequacy.

Indeed. @shinymcshine it is history or characteristic for the Doctor to state: “you had no righ…[Read more]

@pedant

It’s the “in reality” that makes it Art.

@ichabod

But high pitches are..used to indicate “I am non-threatening, don’t fear me” and “I wuv you, you little cutey pie, come to mama” …. And a low, slow voice in humans, both male and female, is sometimes associated with seductive excitement.

Yes, lower pitches are calming to some species.*…[Read more]

@pedant

An illogical inference. I’ll happily dunk ginger nuts any day, and chocolate digestives – though once has to be very quick about the latter, so that the chocolate is in a partially melted state but the underlying biscuit hasn’t disintegrated. For that matter, I’m also partial to dark chocolate coated ginger nuts, and brandy snaps, both of…[Read more]

@pedant

A dark, gloomy….custard cream dispenser

Given my views on custard creams, dark and gloomy is entirely appropriate for a dispenser of same 😈

Have you or anyone else here read the article devoted to the design of the Tardis in next week’s issue of Radio Times, or spotted my brief comment on same over on the Sofa?  It offers a few de…[Read more]

@bluesqueakpip

But it is a video game. It’s made clear it’s a video game. It’s just that this particular video game has real live people taking part.

Quite.

@pedant The issue with the word ‘authoritative’ is boiling the Pot in my head because it’s a ‘small’ word for an enormous concept, imo. 🙂

On Akinola. I got a call t’other day from old colle…[Read more]

@pedant  There is literally nothing in canon that supports the idea that the Doctor would remain contained, and about 50 years worth that suggests the opposite.

The Doctor, fully in his right mind, was “contained” for four and a half billion years in the trap that was the Confession Dial.  I think that counts.  And I think the new female Do…[Read more]

@pedant and @ichabod

There is literally nothing in canon that supports the idea that the Doctor would remain contained,

Um. There’s The Wedding of River Song, where he’s regarded as a crazy Soothsayer and it’s Amy who rescues him.

I think the better argument would be that the Doctor is rather frequently contained, but that if it’s for longer…[Read more]

@shinymcshine  @ichabod    I have to agree here with @pedant and @miapatrick, that no incarnation of the Doctor would have been happy with Karl’s action. The fact that (as far as I recall) she didn’t take her criticism any further suggests that she understood Karl’s feelings while disapproving of the act.

Also, the “test” was not to kill a de…[Read more]

@thane16  . . . the sound of three legs . . .

This phrase delights . . . so evocative of . . . something???

. . . Zombie movie made in the UK where the oldies were fighting off zombs with walkers.

Gods, I loved that movie!  Funny as hell.

@mudlark  . . . white chocolate barely deserves the name at all

So true!  Thanks; I’ve never seen its…[Read more]

@shinymcshine

What @pedant is gently trying to hint is that this particular discussion site includes posters who are also professional writers and actors. We migrated over here from the Guardian, which is the paper-of-choice for UK arts professionals.

It’s not that your treatment isn’t good, it’s just that episode forums are the places to…[Read more]

@pedant

That was my assumption as well. I could pick many things in science-fiction apart until I’m blue in the face, but most things end up falling under the “it just does” category!

I was also thinking the same thing as far as Time Lord tech goes, that the Tardis, being as smart as she is, could find a way to interact with the new sonic. The…[Read more]

@pedant  @cathannabel

At last something I know something about!

Aircraft….

I often say I have difficulty talking to people who don’t understand planes. Issues of attitude determining altitude etc. 🙂

But I digress. Different vocal styles are produced by men and women. Pitch and timbre are quite different. Different notes can have the same…[Read more]

@pedant: to be fair that’s closer than I’d get to her surname without pausing my comment to look it up… but yeah.

@pedant @juniperfish @miapatrick and others commenting on naming.  I’m sure I’ve done the Jodie thing but it does jar for me, in conjunction with other Doctors, because I never naturally say Matt/David/Christopher/Peter.  I’m trying to either use the numbers (not in itself free of contention but still most of us get who we mean by Nine, Ten etc) o…[Read more]

@ichabod – don’t know about the characterisation. He’s set up a situation with two male companions linked by someone they both loved who is dead. Possibly my favourite line was when Graham was with Ryan as he woke up and says ‘come on, we’ll sort this out’. How Graham? You’ve just been accidentally teleported into space and stopped up by a…[Read more]

@juniperfish  I hope the writers’ room has had some deep conversations about authority and a female-embodied Who. 

Exactly.  There are other aspects of this, of course, than costume; voice pitch is another, and it’s a doozie, IMO.  I’ve seen studies supporting the idea that humans find lower voices (in both men and women) more impressive and a…[Read more]

@pedant  @juniperfish

I’d never given it any thought, but now that you have drawn my attention to the matter I realise that I think of her automatically as Whittaker.

In an academic context I have been accustomed to refer to people, whether male or female, either by their title and surname or by their full name, so that comes naturally now. My…[Read more]

@ichabod

Some comments I’ve seen have pointed out Jodie throwing bits of the other Doctors into her performance, but I have to admit, I’m not seeing that,

As you say, it has been stated that she deliberately didn’t watch any of her predecessors in the role, but perhaps the writing and direction may have influenced her performance in that res…[Read more]