[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@blenkinsopthebrave

Boy oh boy…Because of you, I just put the DVD of “The Time of the Doctor”

Sorry 😉

(There are some tower blocks in Roehampton, quite close to Wimbledon Common and Richmond Park)

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@blenkinsopthebrave

 and yet Clara’s flat, the last time we saw it from the outside (the previous episode with Gran) seemed to be in a rather desolate spot a long way from central London.

I assumed that was her dad’s flat.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@beancounter

I beleive physiologist would regard this statement as evidence of a co-dependent relationship. 

I’m pretty sure a physiologist would say “Oh God! Mad girl! Where’s a psychologist?”

And the psychologist would say “Duuuude. Unconditional love! Didn’t think anyone did that any more. He must be an alien.”

 

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@janetteb

We all expected him to die, (if die he must) as a result of her actions.

The story isn’t finished yet…

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@janetteb

Danny’s “boring” death wasa  grief reaction. Danny was her anchor in the real, the mundane. And he’s gone. It took her one phone call to become entirely unhinged and a bit of tough love to get her re-grounded.

The notion that things will end badly for Clara is throughly reinforced by the cold opening. He is the last person who will ever hear her say “I love you”.

If she doesn’t end up sacrificing herself for him (possibly in a very timey wimey way) I will be somewhat surprised.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

The clicky fingers occurred to me too

I don’t think it is a huge stretch to postulate that the clicky-fingers (which Clara did in Day of…, with gloves on) only works for authorised key-holders.

Clara may simply have been assuming that for there to be a key holder there needs to be a key.

 

PS I’ll bet “7 Keys” comes back as a plot device somewhere down thew road)

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

Phew.

No Marmite for me.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@purofilion

I would say that Buffy is to Twilight what Romeo and Juliet is to West Side Story, but that would be a grave insult to a perfectly fine musical.

It is a 7 season (9 if you count the subsequent comics) serial in which things that happened in the first season had consequences in the last (and indeed, but for cast availability, the first episode). Season 5 is a storytelling master class and remains, in my considered opinion, the finest single season of storytelling in any genre, anywhere.

Despite some evident production difficulties a few times, and a bit of unfortunate pandering to fangirls later on, the consistency is astonishing and even the most workmanlike of filler episodes has some significance, thanks to grasp the A-B-C plot structure.

In my life there have been three genre shows that I have gone out of my way to watch. Dr Who, Red Dwarf and Buffy (Babylon 5 would have been there but Channel 4’s scheduling arsed that up).

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@TheCrackInTheWall

You wish, dear child, you wish.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@TheCrackInTheWall

There’s not much too it mate.

I look forward to your towering contribution!

Give me a metaphor for each episode or each series.

I see @bluesqueakpip has already dealt with the meta

Series 5: Abandonment, loss and the search for family;

Series 6: Protection of family and the building of bonds;

Series 7: Growing up and coming to terms with the past.

Series 8: The story is not told yet, but my guess is where does “real” begin?

If you want to patronise me for having differing opinion then bring it on.

If I want to patronise you, then you will know all about it. That was just a light flambé for the inattentive whinger.

Your choice not to watch Buffy is a loss for you, and you alone.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@drben

River Songapalooza

This should be submitted to the OED as a synonym of “Totally Rocks, Dude”.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@badwulf

(I have the box set of Buffy, but I’ve only got as far as the middle of season 2 – I presume it is worth continuing with?

Oh God, yes. You don’t know what it is, what’s to come. You haven’t even begun (you will know that reference when you get their 😉 )

 

 

 

PS  You haven’t even met Faith yet. Faith rocks.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@TheCrackInTheWall

He forgets that how to write individual episodes without breaking up the stories or stitching a mystery ending on.

He forgets nothing of the sort. He is simply a student of the very best American serial drama (from Buffy through Veronica Mars to Person of Interest with many stops in between). Each episode has an A plot, a B plot and usually a C plot. The season arc will only occasionally be the A plot and sometimes only the C plot.

A, B and C will be (1)Monster of the Week, (2)Arc and (3)episode or seasonal metaphor (again, each week the mix will be different). Think of the Buffy episode Normal Again, which was 95% metaphor, 1% arc and 4% MoW.

Give old monsters a break.

I find it staggering that you haven’t realised how sparing Moffat is with classic monsters (and the outcry when he appeared to say he was giving the Daleks a rest).

New monsters this season alone:

– The robots in Robots of Sherwood

– The unknown monster from Listen (which might just be the id monster from Forbidden Planet)

– The Teller

– The Skovox Blitzer

– The Moon Dragon

– GUS

– The Boneless

– The Tree Dudes of London

From this I conclude that you should spend less time opinionating and more time paying attention. Perhaps you should stop Tweeting while the episode is on, so that you might miss less.

Moff writes high attention span stories and is not especially interested in giving sops to the slowest person in the room. Much like Professor Walsh in Buffy, he talks fast, sets a lot of work, does not takes questions and expects you to keep up.

Long may he reign. Although hopefully not a a ‘build a monster-human hybrid cyborg’ kind of way.

NOT EVERYTHING HAS TO BE CONNECTED!!!

Well. So much for the Enlightenment.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@beancounter who can’t.

primates are generally considered “lower life forms”

You do realise that all humans – ALL humans – are primates, right? Including you (assuming your are human and not a NotVeryCleverbot).

 

PS

Apropos of nothing, Cleverbot once accused me of being the antichrist.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@fatmaninabox

Well, given how they unzipped their flies and urinated all over Linda Hamilton’s Beauty & The Beast (He’s ugly on the INside!!), it seems only fair to finish the job!

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

so please explain why.

Yeah, right. ‘Cos people are gonna take bait like that.

Now, back to troll school for you.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@fatmaninabox

 is it just me who’s noticed that a lot of our recent ‘trollish’ members all claim to have started watching Doctor Who with Tom Baker and then immediately launch into an attack on Clara and Danny

Nope.

Hmm, these trolls couldn’t all be the same person could they?

Yep.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@beancounuter

Too perfect, always right, no apparent meaningful flaws

Apart from the whole lying through her teeth thing (and does anyone else recall here vagueness in Rings of Ahka-wotsit and Cold Blood when asked to talk about herself?

Raised in a orphanage, and spent time in the military…and yet he has no skeletons in his closet. ..not even a small one

It has been very strongly hinted that he has a skeleton in his closet.

And then there is the subtle man-bashing.

Oh sweet Jesus Horatio Christmas. the bridge is over there >>>>>>

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

Oh Dear Non-Religious Superbeing

How NOT to reboot The Terminator (even if it has Matt Smith in it) (Mahoosive spoiler, obv)

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@bluesqueakpip

Wasn’t it him who told Clara to think carefully before deciding to stop travelling?

Yeah. Unfortunately, that’s classic ‘emotionally abusive’ behaviour. The abusive partner is the only one who’s allowed to make decisions. Clara certainly can’t be allowed to make a decision for herself that would genuinely remove one of her ‘faults’ – until she’s reached the point where she lets Danny decide for her.

Sorry, but this is total bilge. He went out of his way to not push her into a decision and somehow that is manipulative? That is insane troll logic.

He has simply made the error that many inexperienced at dealing with addicts make – of thinking that being an addict is something people do, rather than something people are. Of believing the “I can *sniff* give it up at *sniff* any time,” line that addicts like to spin.

I doubt this is how they will (or would) handle it this way, but the real-world conclusion of this story (assuming his love in genuine) is the equivalent of what happened to a friend. A note from her partner saying: “I’m staying at the Travelodge. If you aren’t in AA by Friday I’m changing the locks”. She’s been clean for 15 years as a result of that note.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@bluesqueakpip

He had a row with her about phoning the Doctor. I’d say this row is very carefully written, because you don’t know whether he’s shouting because she’s lying about phoning the Doctor – or whether she’s lying because she knows there will be a row.

This only works if you take it in isolation, and even then not very well – over the entire episode it is perfectly clear that he is mostly unhappy that she is not thinking of the children. His priority at this point was to reassure the parents that their kids were OK.

Here’s was to brag to the Doctor.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@miapatrick

. Why would she rather tell him she’d stopped traveling with the doctor and do it anyway rather than say she’d changed her mind?

Why would she say she’d stopped [insert addictive behaviour] and do it anyway…

Because she is a junkie and she is afraid Danny will take her junk away.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@juniperfish

My creepy theory is not that some magical hydrangeas sequestered her @pedant but that she was dead in the woods and the magical tree

There was not a thing in the ep which suggested powers of resurrection. The Little Sparkly Things of Treeness protected.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@bluesqueakpip

Well, apart from the bits where he treated Clara like a private in his squad. A private, incidentally, who he doesn’t want to get promoted.

I think that only happened in your imagination.

he cut her down, tried to drag her back to the very small ‘detail’ task of getting the kids back to Coal Hill School

No, he was treating her like someone who had forgotten what her job is.

And not backing her up when they got an offer to take the kids to see the solar flare was inexcusable

No – he was paying attention to the kids – who wanted to go home to their mums. Clara was being the Pied Piper.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@juniperfish @bluesqueakpip

I don’t think Maebh’s sister was “missing” at all and certainly not dead.

I think she was the first to be protected (or rather taken into protective custody) – by the hydrangeas that their mum thought the neighbours had planted – and the last to be released.

Which might also explain why London was so empty.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@bluesqueakpip

I wonder if that is actually the key mis-direct.

Perhaps Clara is already dead (as with many a Claricle), but no-one’s told her.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

I rather enjoyed it, despite a splendidly bass ackwards grasp of the role of oxygen (but the little shiny things of protection probably had that covered).

Not a big fan of the “returning sister” grace note, but an entertaining spacer in advance to the main event.

Also “I didn’t try all that hard to stay alive”.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

“Time can be re-written”

“Clara Oswald has never existed”

So no reason to assume “everything we know isn’t true”.

Plus, Moffat likes to use the trailers to mislead.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@devilishrobby

as as a grand scale spoiler

I rather doubt that, but a discussion for another place.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

I’m still disappointed at the lack of take up for the Kursaal Flyers theory : *stares at @scaryb *

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@melloyello

Do you guys REALLY want her to be the Master?? Really??? The Master has been
run into the ground.

I am curious: in what system of discourse is expecting something to happen the same as wanting it? I agree with your views re the Master, and hope I am wrong. I just don’t think I am.

She was diehard honest and now lies when she opens her mouth. She was diehard concerned for
life and now not too concerned if people die. She freaked out on “Kill the moon” and now she has no
problem being the Dr.

Yes. It’s almost as if her addiction to things-Tardisy has changed her isn’t it? (See The Engineer’s given reason for not signing up. It has been lampshaded – a little baldly for my tastes, but there you go). It has been made clear that multiple weeks and adventures pass between episodes so I’ll take the “changing way too fast” complained as an outbreak of Short Attention Span Disorder.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

So no-one is biting on the Kursaal Flyers theory?

The disrespect for Essex rock would have Wilko Johnson turning in his grave if it wasn’t for the fact that he isn’t dead, thanks to the miracle of modern surgery.

 

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@scaryb

Clara immediately replies with “It’s not him”. Her lying is most definitely a BIG thing!

Is that the line Missy is responding to, that automatic lie?

Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!

Wildly bonkers theory:

Danny is a sleeper planted by the Doctor to foil whatever nefarious scheme Missy has for Clara, BUT Missy, knows this and possibly the Doctor knows that Missy knows and there’s a whole “Little does he know that she knows that he knows” thing going on.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Kursaal Flyers:

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

Did we see LindaLee in this? Here best review yet.

 

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@drben

 to figure out how

Doctor Who – the show, rather than the character – is almost never about the how. The why is always the important question and that was clearly explained in Name of the Doctor.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@drben

Yes, I was thinking very much in terms of symbolism – a pointer, if you will – rather than a literal notion. Moffat likes his subtle signposts.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

Random thought, based on two observations made earlier (can’t recall by whom).

Observation 1 – the nether sphere was referenced in The Big Bang.

Observation 2: Siege mode Tardis look a lot like the Pandorica.

Even Who on a tight budget can afford a different shaped box, so I conclude that the chosen shape was not an accident.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@fatmaninabox

 Do we have another trainspotter in our midst?

Nah, just a general interest in transport system and their role in overcoming the friction of distance. Once a geographer, always a geographer.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

Re the train and dead man’s handle – modern trains have varying degrees of automated protection, post-Paddington. The DMU used here was conspicuously not modern (slam doors and all,).

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@idiotsavon

 I got the impression from this that she is not trying to hide her “addiction”, but genuinely feels like she is protecting Danny by lying to him.

Yeah, that’s pretty much classic addicts rationalisation – the person the addict lies most to is herself.

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@bluesqueakpip

Danny sound like a controlling and potentially abusive boyfriend

He is coming across as alarmed and trying not to show it.

He is alarmed ‘cos he thinks someone he loves is an addict;

He is trying not to show it because he knows that being direct will drive her away and further into danger;

So like all such people Danny is about find out that he has been systematically and cunningly lied to.

It was *Clara* who asserted that Danny has territorial issues. That was a lie, one of many.

As stories go it is as old as Zammo flushing his stash down the sink (because he knows he has a reserve).

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@bluesqueakpip

I still quite like the ‘female Master = Mistress’ bonkers theory, though.

I don’t think this really counts an bonkers – and I’ve staked marmite on it.

Oh, and @whingers, single hero stories went out of the window the moment Buffy said: “Uh, Hi! Willow, right?” You really ought to be used to it by now.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

Well, I think that kills the Missy might be good theory…

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@scaryb @jimthefish @mudlark

Allan Prior, co-creator of Z Cars (with Troy Kennedy Martin), was a past President of my old writers’ group. He came along once – not long before he died – and talked about the creation of Z Cars. It really is quite impossible now to grasp how very innovative and daring it was, how very much it was the antithesis of Dixon of Dock Green. It was thoroughly rooted in research and travelling with real coppers – and broadcast live, with the scripts tweaked to take into account the days news (or football results in one case).

Prior and TKM died almost unremarked outside the TV pages- yet they are absolutely towering figures of British Television – every bit as important as Verity Lambert.

I wrote this on the occasion of Troy Kennedy Martin’s death (here, rescued from a now dead blog):

Too much talent from that era is leaving us almost unremarked. But if we forget where we came from and who it was who made the media worth having in the first place, it is a loss to all of us and we will end up with the media we deserve, rather than the media we need.

 

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

The BBC has made its entire schedule available online, from 1923 onwards, including of course, this seminal date (just the schedule, obv – not the actual programmes).

 

 

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

Foxes, who I had never heard of before turning up on DW, did a cover of Pharrell’s “Happy” that mashed it with Massive Attack’s “Teardrop” to, IMO rather good effect. I understand someone of X Factor ripped the idea off and if you want to see a little masterclass in understated snark check out Foxes Twitter stream.

(On a separate note she is going to have to work hard to protect her voice – she sings at the top of her register a lot). Starts a bout 2 mins in.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@janetteb @jimthefish

I agree that B5 gets unfairly overlooked.

This is partly because it was “hard” SF, partly because, in the UK, Channel 4 dicked it around something chronic – but also because JMS couldn’t write dialogue for shit (although he wrote terrific monologue). Whedon is remembered more because his character interaction sparkled in a way that B5 only really managed when the actors carried it (Jurasik, Christian and Katsulas especially).

My 14 year-old nephew was just introduced to it by his dad and loved every minute – except S5.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@Handles

amazing that you said Perkins seemed Whedon-esque.

I was thinking more of the throwaway line about needing repairs. In the opening episode of Firefly (and the Crap Alternate Opening Episode) Kaylee grumbled that she needed a new “compression coil” and warned of the consequences.

Sure enough, the consequences turned up several episodes later in Out of Gas (along with some comedy bad science).

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@lisa @Handles

I smell something nasty about that too – so maybe that’s why Perkins chose not to travel with him -because of his tinkering?

I don’t think that was the vibe at all. I think he had earned the Doctor’s trust so the Doc decided to see if the Tardis could seduce an engineer/ boffin type for him to kick around with for a while. However, Perkin’s casual line about worn components could easily prove significant (Whedon-esque even).

In BG Who there was an English Civil War set ep in which someone who helped was invited along, but declined because he fancy to the Doctor’s pace of life would be a but too fast for him (the Doctor then casually chucked a circuit board of some sort into the rubble prompting Sarah Jane to suggest that it would confuse the archeologists).

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @replies]

@phileasf

I’ve always felt that Doctor Who is basically a descendant of the Odyssey,

Watch out for a monolith!

 

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