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@miapatrick

Evil of the Daleks was supposed to be Terry Nation’s last Dalek story before he found an American buyer for the pepperpots.

How meta can you go?

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@miapatrick

Evil of the Daleks was supposed to be Terry Nation’s last Dalek story before he found an American buyer for the pepperpots.

How meta can you go?

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@miapatrick

It’s happened before. Evil of The Daleks, doc 2, 1967. The Daleks get imbued with ‘the human factor’, start questioning orders and become very childlike.

‘Why?’

’Dizzy Daleks.’

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@juniperfish

The child of The Loon? ‘I knew him (the Doctor) when he was a little girl…’

Or grandchild. I have wondered if that was Bill Potts… at some point. The pictures on Capdoc’s desk. Bill’s mum previously appeared (briefly) as a Timelady.

And why plant the Missy’s vault in the basement of THAT university?

But Lucy was clearly unhappy about some of Saxon’s shenanigans on Cloudbase.

Is Ruby human or Timelord? River only became a Timelady because she was exposed in vivo to The Vortex.

Well Rory believed/chose to accept that.

So Ruby might manifest as human but…

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@whohar

Is RTD going to fix it in the arc? Logically, if Du Plushie world doesn’t accept immigrants, maybe the babies do get shipped to Skaro! The pay off could be the toclafane in Dalek form.

All in the worst possible taste.

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Seriously good. Curiously timely. Can he write? Yes he can.

So, what have we here? The Crash of The Byzantium. Demons Run. Malfunctioning Mummy Tech. Nightmare AI hardware ala Oxygen.

And the snowflake?? The Snowmen someone said?

Hmmm. Not sure about the snowflake. We might have been played a bit there. Like Poirot on the Orient Express. Too many clues.

But, yes, lots of stuff about someone whose name begins with S. Don’t forget Stukey Sue and her three babbies!

Three cradles.

A reference to a highway woman.

Another Shobogan/Timeless Child?

This more rounded episode contrasted curiously with the 2 preceding. You would hope RTD is aware they were lacking and where. Will those stories be filled out or completed in the arc?

 

 

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@scaryb

All I said was there was a brief thaw in late Jan. Yes, Jan was apparently record-breakingly cold. Then the snow returned with high winds and blizzards in Feb.

I have been told (many times – I don’t remember) there was lying snow in the south east until march. London does have its own microclimate: lots of chimneys and in 63 very insulation, but then not much central heating either.

It ain’t a big deal. Like the fashion thing… who’s to say Ruby and Doc didn’t set the fashion? They don’t know: a pair of cultural tourists… worth a joke really, Russ.

I think if there’s a problem it’s here. Interesting, really fascinating, ideas, even in Space Babies, not really explored. Maybe Disney era Who will ‘have’ to be like that. Which is obviously not a good thing.

And this is nothing to do with ‘woke’ being shouted at everything. Maybe the same Pictish bard who taught the crows to say ‘caw’ got fools to shout ‘woke!’

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@juniperfish
You need to be careful when bandying the words ‘full circle’ around. What is more scary? Spiders? Marshmen? Or Adric?

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@mudlark

Apparently there was a brief thaw on the 25th Jan. Then it got colder again with high winds in Feb but maybe not quite as cold as it had been before.

Clearly Russ hoped no-one would think of that.

Lots of snow in The Tardis of course.

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@whohar @blenkinsopthebrave

Radio Times previously confirmed the inspiration is the landmine scene from Genesis.

Moff does the better xmas specials too. Bar VotD

Apparently Russ asked both Moff and Chib to contribute but Chib said ‘no!’ A bit like Withnail from his bedroom when Paul McGann asked him if he wanted a cuppa??

I find 3 a bit hard to take… Inferno perhaps?? That would be cool. AU with a baddass Ruby and Mel in an eyepatch??

But no Primords. Please.

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@juniperfish

or… SLC = Salt Lake City. Closest urban centre to Henry Van Statten’s vault. Says someone on tinternet.

Kind of place where an American Diner might rock up if you ask me.

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@blenkinsopthebrave

I hate it when that happens (disappearing posts).

I was quite intrigued by Years and Years… not sure why I missed it. Well, competition for screen time. And early days of the culture war, maybe I felt I didn’t need ‘ideological’ guidance!

I still think Russ could have illustrated the difference effects of the demise of music on the human psyche: no melting pot of ideas; no counter culture; culture = nationalism; grinding obsession with The War. Right up his street really. I find it hard to believe he felt he couldn’t do this with The Mouse on his back.

Maybe that’s a bit picky but this is what sometimes stops Russ going to the next level. Looking forward to Moff’s writing credit on Saturday. That will be the acid test.

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@mudlark @janetteb

Run the Margaret Lockwood thing past me again? Of course, I have my own theories about Me, aka The Knightmare…

Also, just because the Giggle and Maestro both first manifested in ‘25 doesn’t mean they were particularly active at that point. The Toymaker takes the best part of a century to go to town. Music may not have been particularly tasty for Maestro until swing, bebop and rock n roll was on the menu after WW2. So, music might still have been vital enough to attract the John and Paul at artschool.

The Pantheon don’t seem to be respecters of chronology or sequence. Why should they be? But who knows what else came through in ‘25? Or what they then did? Who will be head honcho of The Empire of Death?

Both these stories were a bit underwritten really. I’m  not asking for expo, or the return of Bradley Walsh to state the obvious, but it’s a bit… careless.

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@juniperfish @mudlark

re guff powered spaceships, I still maintain the issue is the initial burn, otherwise you’ll just spin gently. Once you’re there, it’s parabola (oops missed) or ellipse (orbit). A new burn may be required but by then more methane fuel will have been ‘manufactured’.

The problem at DuPlushie World or wherever might be the extradition deal they’ve struck with Skaro!

The bit with Doggo in the airlock was of course a nod to Alien Resurrection. You knew that.

 

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Chris and The Carrollers?? A preview of the xmas special perchance? And SLC… something. Any ideas?

Tom Baker dressing up was from Robot 1974… which was a pretty poor story. Though it did have a cabal of very useless crypto fascists. Curiously apposite.

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@penguindog @gotthejam

what you to have to remember is there is a pecking order at work here.

At the top… Trans is fraught. Drag is the target. This is the Mailspress feeding zone. Entirely irrational. THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH REALITY! I have had people try to talk to me about this over dinner. No Tofu. And could I meet their eye? No. There was nothing there…

I admit Jinkx Monsoon is scary. GREAT! Sounds a bit like real Who to me. Mary Whitehouse would complain. Again GREAT!

Next on the list: refugees. Well, we need these poor souls to do all the shit jobs we don’t fancy. Suella thinks the snowflakes and chavs should run around the land with big knives (for the brassicas natch) but wouldn’t it be even better if they were serfs? Then they couldn’t run away! Or mess up the property market for the Oligarch’s daughters. Which is really important.

Then reproductive rights. I dunno. Anyone from America or Northern Ireland in? Embarrassing isn’t it? Stockpile lemons and clingfilm, that’s my advice. Shoe-horning? Seriously?

Where next? What’s wrong with British food eh? aka ‘that’s a nice bit of fish, doesn’t taste of anything!’ Or ‘I met some English people abroad. They didn’t seem to want to talk to me. I like the songs from the shows. Until it got suspect. Oh and cider.’

Bottom of the list. Who. Try talking about that. It’s a great leveller.

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The post Maestro nuclear winter is an obvious nod to Pyramids of Mars. I’m afraid we’ll not see ITS like again. But that has been true since Jonathan Nathan Turner stepped into Graham William’s shoes. And not all of the golden age was THAT good. In any case we’re talking Nuwho.

What do we have with ‘Chord’ and ‘Babies’? Yes relief that Zchib is gone. Russ tiptoeing around the subsequent damaged continuity. Not a lot of Moffat style razor chat/sci-fi literate/chutzpah/occasional gender cluelessness. Sparkly budget set against almost Chinese cultural diminution of threat.
RTD will delight and offend and won’t be told what not to say, exactly. He will obviously adjust what he shows because it’s not his money. If I thought we might have a whole series of ‘Babies’, I might start thinking, ‘Woman Who Fell to Earth’ or ’Spyfall’ and then ‘not again.’

As it is this is more than just about good enough. It looks great. It’s coherent. It doesn’t leave me thinking ‘maybe Denis Waterman (as well as my partner) was right.’ The actors deliver. The politics are, at the very least, acceptable.

It is very much like RTD’s first run. Successfully beaten into compact and uniform shape. But, as was the case then, sometimes something is missing.

‘Babies’: another element was needed. Something to make the babies a little less cute. Then Russ would have less time to be tempted to telegraph stuff. More = quick.

’Chord’: music is difficult. Song fics are very uncool. Not everyone over 25 liked the Beatles.

What if the nuclear war was about the Scruton/Hague/Traditional Religious view of the sixties winning? Not so much Devil’s Chord as Devil’s Decade. Russ was nearly there but the argument was light. Just needed more unpleasant contemporary view: see, that’s what happens when the servants reading Lady Chatterley; can’t have the Minister sharing a girlfriend with an immigrant. The Animals could be animals and Stones, real thugs. Bob interests John: he has the right idea about Indo China, and leaving folks in The South to their own devices.

Because the death of music must be recent, or why did the boys buy their Rickenbackers in the first place? Could the allies have won WW2 without jazz?

Yes, you couldn’t drop many ideas into the script without more expo, which obviously you don’t want. Just make everyone mean little pathe news caricatures. But then there would be precious little time for the dance number, or the music, and that is what’s on the tin. As John said later, ‘who wants to talk about sex?’

It just needed another element. Wouldn’t take much.

But yes Henry Arbinger will be important. Lot’s of foreshadowing going on, isn’t there? A little bit annoying really.

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Can I state my admiration for the number the Beatles were recording when the Doc and Ruby turned up? Clearly an influence on Colon from Indie Club. I won’t post the video again.

I thought the actor who played Ron Nasty looked more like Dirk McQuickly, whereas Dirk’s actor should have been Barry Wom!

Hilarity aside, music is one of the corner stones of culture, and this is improbably powerful stuff. Amazing performance from Jinkx Monsoon. I don’t really watch musical theatre so I can’t say if the last numbers were good or bad but I’m sure Jonathan Nathan Turner would be green. Beats running diwn corridors or reaching for big red buttons.

On the other hand, both my daughter and my partner LOVE musical theatre, and they were duly amazed, maybe not in a good way. I doubt if they’ll be converts.

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@scaryb @janetteb @whohar

the snow reminded me of Lavender Brown making it snow on Ron Weasley. Generally the early RTD snow was bits of spaceship or the contents of ballast tanks.

I didn’t want to be first up and say ‘ai carumba! I think Itchy and Scratchy has lost their edge.’ But I’m afraid we are in a new warm and fluffy age. The back of the sofa is now out of bounds and Z neutrinos are prohibited. It was not Blink. It wasn’t Robots of Death. It wasn’t even Love and Monsters. But it didn’t make me switch off half way through thinking, ‘I’ll come back and watch the rest when I’m drunk’ (aka the Zchib test).

There were ideas present. He def missed a trick by not spotting babies = daleks. But as I say the babies may be meta. ‘I’m gonna tell ya how it’s gonna be. You’re gonna give ya streaming cash to me…’ (don’t lose the sale)

 

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@whohar

Chibnall would have made it into a baby soap opera. ‘What’s going on? No, you don’t know what he’s done! I’m divorcing you Eric!’ And it would be a two parter at least.

Saward… the babies drink blood and everyone but Ruby and Doc die in the end. Maybe Ruby too.

Pip and Jane? Well a lot of people want to see The Rani again. She got a mention!

Are any of those scenarios worse? Yes. The Rani especially. And they’d be done abysmally. Whereas bits of ‘Babies’ were just a bit slight and undercooked. Another layer needed. Bit of a waste.

Amy scan? That’s thirteen years ago. Not like Demons rehashing Testimony (which itself rehashed The Tesselector). I’m intrigued. Biggest clue going forward… combine the snowflakes and the butterfly and yes that might drive an arc

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@whohar

Call me Mr Brightside.

Not saying Babies was better than B+, if that. IMHO.

There was indeed catch up expo. Expo wasn’t wasted on giving away the whole backstory, clumsily and vindictively because, “who’s the showrunner now, Father Steven Moffat?? Next section: people who don’t like Crime Dramas. I got awards for my Crime Drama, did you know that?” That’s NOT Russ speaking btw. And if you hadn’t noticed, I’m a Ted fan.

Anyway, I thought the expo was swept away quickly enough. Was it necessary? Presumably there are people out there who need it.

Is the age bar being set a bit too low. I reserve judgment.

A lot of the baby speak was babyspeak. Kidfic is tooth-rotting. Some people may not want to see it. Perhaps Russ is rubbing our noses in it again. ‘Sorry guys this is the way it has to be.’

Or, yes, you could say that aspect was unimaginative. My reaction on seeing a flight deck full of small emotionally undeveloped people in automated strollers was “ahhh! Daleks!” Give them flame throwers and maybe some unfortunately direct imperatives and The Doctor might well look askance. Then Ruby could tell him off because they’re “cute lil babies…” and all that.

There could have been more misdirection. We knew what Doggo was. We knew what had just slimed Ruby.

As it was, the dialogue would have to be a bit limited. I suspect there was an element of wasted opportunity, here. But we’re not talking about Saward, or Pip and Jane, or Zchib ‘bad’ are we?

I like nods to classic sci-fi and space opera. It beats the show reworking it’s own original ideas which is really a bit lazy.

I would have appreciated The Doctor actually doing some science when he made the space station ‘break wind.’ Plugging his sonic SSD into the nearest console is all very well but I think he really might really need to work on some kind of adjustable blast nozzles and a burn system or all you’d do is change the station’s spin rate. But you wouldn’t have the CGI brown cloud. Toilet humor will get you anywhere!

 

 

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Welcome to Checkov’s Fluffy Armory.

It seems churlish to say ‘on the whole I enjoyed it.’ It was GREAT. Maybe some reveals were a little obvious. The scene setting didn’t take long but… there it was…

And NO! Raise your crucifix (other sacred and/or humanistic protective symbols are available) against the spectacle of Whotinuity. Nope. Nothing to worry about.

But what else did Russ stuff in our stockings?

Ray Bradbury ‘The Sound of Thunder’ we knew was coming.

Bang straight in there with the impending Fall of the West. Court-driven pro-life/pro-choice shenanigans meshed nicely with immigration non debate (give us your cheap labour for all those jobs you are never going to pay people enough to do.) What did you do in the culture wars, daddy?

Then Earthsearch via Wall-E.

And Doggo must have its origin’s in Lister’s Vindaloo monster from Red Dwarf.

Lastly, the demise of Clone Ripley’s ‘alienated’ baby in Alien Resurrection.

Kid fic? Tooth-rotting perhaps but no trouble. Check. Next up the much reviled song fic. Russ is on a fanfic roll! Expecting Shipping, Slash, Crack and Major Character Death!

The big scan at the end? Need to recheck that on high res. Last seen when 11 examined Amy’s baby-bump, the result being River, who apparently was human but got exposed to The Vortex when her DNA was still a bit malleable.

Yeah… I’m sure Desmond Morris would have had something to say about detached earlobes and all that! Does that mean Vashtra was covering up for someone? That Rory was a bit gullible? Or maybe he knew and was just a very nice bloke.

 

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@devilishrobby

cheers. I suspected the multi doc stories had more regeneration info. But I wasn’t about to trawl through them.

Cartmel may indeed have inspired the Timeless Children, but he’s on record as hating it.

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Last word… Of course Moff apparently thought the ‘Morbius’ faces were Doctor pre 1, and defended that aspect of Timeless Children. Not sure what he thought of the rest. But that doesn’t mean to say 1 didn’t steal sexyidris or wasn’t the first to become The Doctor. That is IF Ruth was the regeneration forced after The War Games!

Would a neural block have stopped 3 onewards from  remembering Ruth? Is that why the idea of the neural block was introduced?

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@dentarthurdent

if you’re bored you can say so. It’s fine.

Otherwise… in Name of the Doctor it’s obviously 1 who stole the tardis in it’s ‘death star elevator’ form but that’s Moff’s retcon.

The existence of other Timelords and tardises is introduced in The Time Meddler (season 2) and expanded on with The War Games (season 6) when Timelord, the War Chief (who knows the Doctor and vice versa) offers as yet unnamed Gallifreyan tech to the race of The War Lord. 2 gets the Timelords to put things right and tries to do a runner but fails… he knows they’ll punish him and they exile him to Earth with ‘the secret of the tardis taken from you.’

3 encounters the Master and eventually earns his freedom but, as 4, becomes an occasional Timelord odd job man. In due course he encounters Solon who is trying to construct a body for monomaniac timelord Morbius, killed trying to give his followers immortality via Karn’s elixir of life. 4 challenges the reanimated Morbius to some kind of mind wrestling during which we see the faces of Morbius and all 4 Doctors… And then MORE faces! This was a big deal at the time. But no-one knew if these were the Doctor or Morbyboy.

In the next Season 4 goes to Gallifrey where the Master, who has run out of regenerations is trying to blag some more. This is where the 12 regenerations is identified. 5 also looks as if he will have to sacrifice his 8 remaining lives in Mawdryn Undead but is saved by the Blinovitch limitation bang when the Brigadier meets himself.

The Cartmel penned career of 7 suggests that he is not just another Timelord, but by then 12 regenerations is becoming canon. He’s only half way through his regenerations, no panic.

By the time of 11, what with The War Doctor and 10 regenerating as himself during The Stolen Earth, it appears he’s run out of road. But Clara steps into the  mexican standoff at Trenzalore, 11 absorbs some energy from The Crack and wipes out the pepper pots. Again.

There is talk of another cycle of 12 regenerations at some point I think. And we already know Rassilon had been resurrected from somewhere. We don’t really know if Ainley’s incarnation of the Master was capable of regeneration (essentially by then he’s a vampire) or if it really comes before the Movie Master, Yana, Simm or Missy (again supposedly the last incarnation) or where Dhawan’s incarnation stands. Were The Timeless Children the thing that finally drove The Loon C-rrazy? Not that I’m very interested.

Then we get Ruth, the Timeless Nippers and The Division. This must be the least coherent bit of story-telling Zchib has been guilty of. But Ruth’s appearance seems to indicate 1 was NOT first after all because we saw the other regenerations. Didn’t we?

No. A hint of some white hair maybe on Troughton whizzing round at the end of Season 6. Or was something flaring? Season 7 Pertwee falls unconscious from the tardis. They may be wearing similar gear… but really the give away is that the interior of Ruth’s tardis is from 1960’s MFI, not a mezzanine or a flying buttress in sight. What we have here is a basic tardis like 1’s or 2’s. But not necessarily BEFORE 1 or 2.

Except of course Zchib would also seem to be trashing Moff and the Clara Timeline (or Clara Post Diner Holiday) Tardis handover. So I’m probably just trying to explain an act of vandalism, and who the hell is interested in continuity anyway?

Zchib is spelling out the 12 regenerations was always rubbish… at least for The Doctor. You tell me if he’s said anything specific about the faces shown in Brain of Morbius because, admit it, Holmes and Camfield aren’t about to appear on our screens as unknown Doctors.

1 and 2 could very well be on the run from The Division too. Perhaps there was an anti Division Gallifreyan party who intercepted 2 and hid him on earth? As 3. Or Ruth? The War Games Timelords seem nice, just a bit pompous. The War Chief and Morbius, on the other hand look very Divisionesque.

The only clue is the Tardis, which was clearly NOT always a policebox. So why is one buried in Newport?

Someone said insane theories didn’t they? Sorry, I only do logic and history.

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@dentarthurdent

Clara/Ashildr’s tardis did indeed have a duff chameleon circuit. A Type 40 problem? Like Leyland fully detachable door handles? Or it’s the same tardis and sexyidris thought all those shakes and burgers would be bad for her figure.

Last point… everyone assumes Ruth predates 1, just as everyone (now) assumes the faces we saw in Morbius were the Doctor’s and predate 1 too. But at the end of the War Games we don’t really see Troughton morph into Pertwee. There may be a brief hint of Troughton with white hair… not clear cut… perhaps the film transfer process. That was probably the final shot; Troughton rotating in a void… Jun 69. Pertwee was presumably on location in Sept 69 so you’d think he was cast in June or before.

So, Troughton wizzes around and gets dizzy, next thing we know Pertwee staggers out of the tardis, presumably having had his mind wiped. Just because the Timelords had exiled him doesnt mean there wasn’t another regeneration, or a whole series of them in between. What do we know? 3 and Ruth were effectively on exile on earth; what if the sequence is different?

1 had a good reason to disguise the tardis as a police box. He was in London. Not sure Ruth’s motivation to do the same is as convincing. But if you were forcibly stuck on earth (and chameleon arched perhaps?), you might want to bury a police box. Or someone might want to take it away.

You say that’s laboured, I say it’s time travel.

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@dentarthurdent

Could you disguise the inside of a tardis? The Diner had a back room (presumably a kitchen???!) which was the tardis proper. Clara and Ashildr may have gone anywhere (apart from The Time War and Earth circa Chicxulub) and met anyone.

In that a chameleon circuit is supposed to disguise a tardis, why bury it?

Otherwise, could the buried tardis be the one post Doctor 2?? The Timelords said they would exile The Doctor to Earth with ‘the secret of the Tardis taken from you’ (buried?) and that’s certainly where Ruth is. Then The Division gets home from the pub and somehow The Doctor ends up back on earth again with a now thoroughly disabled tardis, just in time to fend off The Autons.

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That sounds interesting…
<p style=”text-align: left;”>The Beatles churning out soulless pap? Russell is obviously paying his own tribute to Colon’s legendary performance on Indie Club</p>
 

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@janetteb

hmmm, ‘The Raj’… no I’m not prescribing sackcloth and ashes. My impression is that the generation who experienced partition, close at hand or from a distance, often use the word ‘betrayal’. Britain had been revealed as the emperor with no clothes; having created the idea of a political ‘India’ they could do nothing about Jinnah seceding. 2-3 million missing!!

You don’t have to say much. A quick explanatory aside to Ryan would have done the job. “Ere granddad. What’s these peoples’ problem like?” Now that would have given granddad something interesting to say!

The problem with (recent historicals) is not so much with providing ‘balance’ rather if you don’t even try, whatever nifty sci fi you spray over it ends up quite trite. Same issue with Rosa.

I’m not sure I can manage a similar review of series 12. Villa had cracking dialogue and almost got to address ‘Lady Doctor’ issues. I should look at Fugitive again at some point. Yes, it would have been better if Ruth’s tardis had been the lighthouse. Or an American Diner. And I also wanted to know more about Lee.

The Floox. I’m gonna have to watch it sometime.

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@dentarthurdent

Samuel Anderson is a great actor. Obviously he was part of the ‘centenary soldier’ arc. I loved it when Danny identifies the Doctor as an officer. So yes he’s abrasive; he is an antagonist. Not everyone can be warm and fluffy. Rory is in some ways more Doctor-like than the Doctor; its a tribute to Arthur Darvill’s acting that he brought it off.

I’m still scratching my head over the reappearance of the tardis key inimical volcanic landscape in Last Christmas. Were the events of Deep Water intended at some point to be all part of the Crab dream?? Is Danny out there still?

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@dwnerdfrommars @dentarthurdent

George Lucas a Whovian?? I had a friend who was an (American) Professor of Anthropology, a huge sci fi fan, and he confessed he didn’t get Who at all. Denis Waterman was famously dismissive. Perhaps he wanted write the them tune/sing the theme tune ala Little Britain.

The most obvious parallel for Star Wars is Dune. Perhaps the Jedi = the Timelords: boring and a hindrance to the story. I loved The Harkonnens in David Lynch’s version. DW could mine that surely?

There is no problem with whoever Doctor except perhaps 5 (the last crowded tardis era) & 6 where the show’s quality issues were revealed as a JNT/ES problem.

Lady Doctor does have specific challenges. And Zchib resolutely refused to go there. And somehow Whitdoc ended up as a less effective Shona rather than ‘wonderful human being’ Bill, who was herself a rewrite of Shona.

Rory was a good sympathetic companion and Danny an excellent antagonist; Micky was a cypher, Captain Jack hugely annoying. Three can work but the dynamic must be absolutely correct. Zchib also threw characters at Cold Earth and maybe 42?? Disposable characters are disposable I suppose.

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@dentarthurdent

Some might say brave. Others foolish.

I remember meeting a fellow whovian late in 2018 and we eventually, reluctantly turned to the problems of the new season.

The overriding impressions were of slowness and incoherence. We identified the tiptoeing around The Lady Doctor issue (and so the unwelcome return of the crowded Tardis aka The Fam), the new crop of (inexperienced) writers, and Zchib’s own lacklustre scripts.

We didn’t want to criticise Whitdoc; as with Colin Baker, it is difficult to interpret and kick back against bad creative decisions. But, in hindsight, maybe Whitdoc was one more bad decision.

This is my recollection:

Woman Who Fell to Earth: Slow, incoherent, a bit inconsequential really.

Ghost Monument: a bit better but still incoherent. Quite like the murderous scarves myself.

Rosa: Not really sure why they internalised the Emmett Till story with Ryan, and then failed to mention him. Why did the bus strike happen? People got angry, things started to change. But no! It was actually a bunch of Brits on a bus. A worthy attempt I suppose, but a bit worthy.

Arachnids: the Fam slumming it at home. Wince. Inconsequential.

Conundrum: WHAT? WHY? WHAT IS THAT? Could have been creepy. Instead a ridiculous waste of time.

Demons: Better, but then the main device is a rehash of Testimony. Nothing to say about British colonialism?? Really?

Kerblam: Finally something less inconsequential. Now, if the fallout had been the Butlerian Jihad, that  might have been half decent. “Hey Fam. I may be responsible for the Bene Gesserit and the Mentats!” Fatally slowed by The Fam, I think (please don’t make me rewatch it)

The Witchfinders: could they really not find a retinue for James? Obviously a bit reminiscent of The Awakening. Missed the chance to make the Pendle Hill joke (etymologically it = hill hill hill) but occasionally amusing nonetheless; Zchib’s oeuvre generally being a laugh free zone.

It Takes You Away: better. Nordic noir scifi. Novel. Perhaps they needed a Wallander style policeman to round it off? The talking frog is weird. Weird being better than Fam.

Battle of Ea Stac Ton and Rehash of the Pepperpot: Sorry. I’d given up by then.

 

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@dentarthurdent

Spyfall… I confess I have issues with the Bond franchise. This doesn’t help me take the story seriously.

Noor Inayat Khan… doh! I typoed her name! Sorry.

If Zchib, or Moff, want to bring on Nazis for creative reasons, so be it. Better be done well tho. If they can advance the story with recent political or historical figures, that could work. Maybe contentious. Depends who.

My problem with Spyfall isn’t just that Nora’s appearance seems horribly insensitive. As Clara is apt to point out: The Doctor knows.

Had the Doctor said, “Do be careful with that radio transmitter girl,” that would be fine.

If she said, “they will torture you so badly British Intelligence are still in denial even though they know the guards were sadists. And, when cross examined, the only witness to admit anything basically rolls his eyes and sniggers. But no one actually knows because you and all the others will die. SO GET OUT!” that would be better. It would mess up some fixed points in time I’m sure.

13 didn’t actually say, “Oh, you’re a spy, that’s so cool. Bizarrely, I’m in a very bizarre, very incomprehensible story called Spyfall. You couldn’t make it up, could you? Bye!” But she might as well have done.

Didn’t The Loon rock up in a Nazi uniform, the ijit? I suppose switching off his perception filter was a bit like shopping him to the Gestapo. The scene could even be a ‘coded’ admission of the ‘special treatment’ Nora received for being a person of colour but I’m not sure Zchib’s thought processes are that subtle. Anyway. Yes, pretty distasteful.

I can’t say I’m going to rush to check this with a rewatch.

On reflection, Who and Reich are not a good fit.

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@blenkinsopthebrave

the gold tooth?

Max Capricorn surely?

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@dentarthurdent @devilishrobby

I really like Love and Monsters. Even Moaning Myrtle’s (hinted) life as a paving slab. But then I happily defend doctor 6.

CB wasn’t a great actor but he was given an impossible brief; Tom in that role (to judge from the occasional shouty moments from a decade before) would have been truly terrifying. And I doubt if you would ever have got him in that costume. The fault was clearly the showrunners: poor concept (JNT) badly executed (ES). But it was CB who got sacked.

The Tsurunga Conundrum was poor. I thought most of the next season was worse but that may have been the cumulative awfulness getting to me.

A truly bad episode can either have no redeeming features whatsoever or be damned by a complete misjudgment.

Spyfall had the Noor Inayay Khan moment. Unforgivable.

Twin Dilemma had the Doctor attacking Peri. I’m afraid to say criticism of that decision has (rightly) gained more traction over time. But the script was a dog. The production useless. The science really quite bad. Type 1a supernovae were a big thing a the time, though that required a binary system with a white dwarf. Dark Star however had put unstable planets in the frame so ES (presumably) went with that. The monsters (even Mestor) weren’t too bad. The show hadn’t obviously run out of money.

Which was definitely the problem with Time Flight. Oh but it had Concorde! Cool! No. Monsters? Bits of foam. The story was abysmal and the script barked. The science was summed up by the statement ‘early Cretaceous I think. A bit chilly.’ I think. I ain’t gonna check.

But worst of all was Anthony Ainley as Kalid. I mean WHAT??? Why? Obviously it was designed as a big reveal. Just ludicrously executed.

Time and the Rani is supposed to be quite bad. I was so upset by Michael Grade that I never watched it.

Non Zchib nu who? Kill the Moon. We’ve had this discussion.

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@janetteb

wow that’s a tricky brief.

My personal fave (?) is the Two Doctors… though it is overlong, with a ridiculously decrepit 2nd Doctor and Jamie, and even more ludicrous Sontarans. Violence (tick).

I haven’t seen Revelation of the Daleks since the first broadcast. That impression was favourable. But it is a Dalek story WITH Davros. Generally reviewed positively.

Vengeance on Varos is mistitled, absurdly violent/exploitative and hilarious, especially given JNT and Saward were trying to meta ‘video nasties.’ The story might have stood up in any season.

The two shockers must be Mindwarp… worth watching just for Peri’s demise… otherwise pretty incomprehensible. And of course, Twin Dilemma is both utterly ridiculous and offensive. An incomplete story by a non sci fi writer, transformed by script editor Saward into a true abomination. But at least it didn’t have Anthony Ainley.

Yes my people, Time Flight WAS worse. Just.

Twin Dilemma is an aberration; don’t judge CB or even the production team on that eye-watering nightmare. The Ultimate Foe is also a nasty rewrite, and Timelash makes you giggle in a bad way. The rest was watchable if sad because this was the season that killed the show. Cartmel could only delay the inevitable.

 

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@dentarthurdent @winston @dwnerdfrommars

6 (and Nichola Bryant) undoubtedly copped the worst excesses of Nathan Turner and Saward. Not that 5 didn’t also suffer: The Myrka; Turlough going crazy; Anthony Ainley going crazy; the correct way to milk a giant bat…

But Nathan Turner’s sartorial sensibilities were as nothing compared to Saward’s instinct for the gruesome. Mooks in acid baths; you got it! Cyber crushing hand torture? Cool! Menace Peri with sexual threat and cannibalism? Mmmm. Can I have pineapple with that? Oh and can someone chisel this Starship Trooper out of the giant slug trail?

Truly, a production team made in hell!

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@dwnerdfrommars

Pineapple? Hmmm.

NOT mmmm!

Colin Baker… pretty much the same. Hilarity was there to be had: Varos, 2 Doctors (controversial I know), Revelation, even the weird and not that wonderful Timelash. Also the mindboggling Mindwarp.

You have to remember the welcome contrast between the second Baker and the Davison ‘surrender monkey’ era. Maybe putting two fingers up at Grade and Whitehouse was not a great idea. But some people cheered at the time, me amongst them. Twin Dilemma, however, was a disaster of biblical proportions (though personally I think Time Flight was worse).

None of which was Col’s fault. Can I say Nichola Bryant was easy on the eye? A quality oft mentioned in defence of Tennant you know. But the accent JNT demanded of her was ridiculous. Bonnie Langford, in contrast, made you both squint and cover your ears. Or, if you could, leave the room.

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@winston

Revenge of the Cybermen featuring The Vogans. (NOT Vogons).

Not THAT bad; better than Robot, but poor after Ark or Genesis. The Zygons and Planet of Evil are a bit clunky too. The Android Invasion however is better than I remembered.

I am revisiting 4 too.

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<p style=”text-align: left;”>@dwnerdfrommars</p>
<p style=”text-align: left;”>Do you mean The Giggler or Church on Ruby Road?</p>
Go to ‘forums’; it’s all there.

Either way… THE HAND gets many mentions. Waiting for the meme with said HAND and the spoken words: ‘that’s the spirit Thing, lend a hand…’

Otherwise… the Goblin Song got a lot of thumbs down. I thought it was acceptable and refreshing.

There was also the recurrent theme of foundlings and orphans. New query… what was Bill short for? Could it be LuluBELLE? I can’t let Lulubelle go… it’s like RTD is poking me with a stick. Blame Floyd.

Some people didn’t like the Goblin ship disintegrating: as if nothing like that has happened in Who before. The consensus is reality is in danger because of salt. Beats z neutrinos.

The big question, flagged by RTD at the beginning and end, was Mrs Flood. My money is on pre Mel River.

But then I home in on my own private DW theories, over which the kind souls here do laugh at and furiously scribble notes…

 

 

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@dwnerdfrommars @winston

THE HAND… reference to Last of The Time Lords… the means via which John Simm resurrected himself. I hope RTD doesn’t revisit that… it was in the worst possible taste, if not quite as bad as Anthony Ainley’s most extreme scenery chewing.

You will notice there is no wheelchair evident in the preceding shots…

Thanks for the Karen clip @nerys. I love watching open air footage of late 60’s early 70’s. My favourite is the MC5’s Tatar Field film from 1970. I’ve come to them very late.

Maybe the problem with the 70’s was Raack vs the rest (principally disco maybe reggae too). Most 70’s raack couldn’t crack a smile. I still run into this, people who sneer at the likes of The Move. I know Chris Brunton thought Floyd did.

In the words of Peter Buck ‘rock n roll is a joke and the butt of the joke are those who take it seriously.’

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@winston

In stark contrast to Karen, Robert Plant’s voice is like being dragged to the dentist. Always preferred Keith Relf.

Floyd… if only Dave and Richard had been prepared to tell Roger to shut up. I’m a bit picky about prog but it wasn’t all capes and lasers.

Alice was fun.

Baccara and The BC Rollers and countless others were abominations. Boney M and Darts were among the strangely classy, probably because they were blessed by a certain strangeness.

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@nerys @dwnerdfrommars

To say the 70’s was the decade that taste forgot is ridiculous. But, musically, there was dross of the direst ilk. Was there more dross inflicted in the eighties? Could be. Did the sixties struggle against tinpan ally and an audience of old gits whose only desire was to shove Englebert Humperdink where The Beatles art-school sensibilities did not shine? Damn right!

The voice of Karen Carpenter soars above all this like a glorious soary thing. And everyone is guilty about how she was allowed to die. Probably because anorexia is still not understood.

I don’t know anything about her brother. I only know some of the singles. It’s like mainlining apple-pie.  Not sure how her voice does that.

Abba spent a decade in the sneery hole too. I mean… WHAT?!! There are many cheesy aor acts who deserve oblivion. Yet their worship is compulsory. Tsk. Do people have no ears?

The BBC just broadcast the Microdisney retrospective. There are only so many times you can listen to the words ‘the greatest band you’ve never heard of’ without tuning out. I’m a fan or I wouldn’t mention them. To tell the truth they were very good and a little flawed.

But everyone knows The Carpenters.

 

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@dentarthurdent

Twice Upon a Time was a bit seventies sitcom. In a good way.

’sunglasses indoors?’

’What’s browser history?’

’Has someone been drinking this?’

’If I hear any more language like that young lady…’ that must be what you were thinking of. Some light relief after the horror of ‘The World Enough’ and ‘Doctor Falls’.

I suppose we must grateful that 4 never hosted a crowded Tardis with the cast of ‘The Good Life.’

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@winston

In Twice Upon a Time, the first doctor remarks that 12’s could do with a good dusting. He laments that Polly’s not there to do it. 12 is embarrassed but not about the dust.

I don’t think The Invasion of Time Tardis had seen a cleaner since 1960

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@dentarthurdent @janetteb @winston @nerys

I particularly like Bill Pott’s comment: ‘it’s a kitchen!’ shortly after she observed ‘you’ve had a knock-through!’

The kitchen was a reoccurring Moffat joke… remember Clara cooking the turkey? Also referenced by RTD with the coffee incident.

I also liked the actual library from Journey to the Heart of the Tardis. The most ridiculous Tardis interior has to be from The Invasion of Time, especially when Sonataran falling over a lounger by the pool.

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<p style=”text-align: left;”>@dentarthurdent</p>
I’d kind of forgotten about the Peter Davison aspect. Point is if some said to Georgia ‘hmm too much Who’ you can see why she might agree.

and maybe it was an RTD/Alice Troughton pitch for a spinoff, or character to feature in some of their existing spinoffs.

No conspiracy; just connections, synchronicity and maybe occasional outside pressure.

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@dentarthurdent

well… I would say ‘same difference.’ In the case of Jenny, her disappearance probably has something to with becoming Mrs Tennant. Don’t ask me who exactly made what decision, but you can see how it might work.

Real events leave marks in the narrative, like Shona being lined up for a companion hand over in Last Christmas before Jenna Coleman decided to stay. Or BBC policy giving everyone a headache with the problem of how to handle Jodie Whitaker.

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A historical… and this alien intervention is interesting if internally derivative.

So, the Eaters have similarities to The Boneless, and Leandro’s fire breathers, and the flying metal horseshoe crabs of Planet of the Dead, and The Gelth. Though none of those wanted to switch the sun off which, as Akhenaten knew, would be proper lethal. Though the Angels were also going to achieve something like that with the Tardis, apparently. Better than that, the Eaters will then go and eat all the other suns: like entropy in Logopolis, the Reality Bomb, the aftermath of the Pandorica and Trenzalore and The Floox… ‘I am become Woobie, destroyer of worlds!!’

It ain’t a good look.

The thing is, if the Doctor had said ‘the beast won’t stop until it’s turned Caledonia into a blasted wilderness!’ we might not be quite so engaged, but really that’s peril enough. Bear in mind Procopius thought Hadrian’s Wall marked the limit of the habitable world, and/or the boundary of the land of the dead. Are you listening George?

The Doctor’s explanation as to why the Eaters like lots of bone to wash all the photons down doesn’t make much sense; something about vitamin D, I think. This script shows signs of being reworked. Perhaps the stakes weren’t so high at the start. Or it so supposed to explain why the IXth vanished; all the bones disappeared! Nothing to find. Or else they just went to the Netherlands. And then maybe Armenia because we know 2 legions disappeared there (though not which ones), whereas nothing is actually reported in Britannia. Though absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

The story is Rona Munro’s, who wrote ‘Survival’, McCoy’s last story from 1989. Gatiss and Whithouse guest in Twice Upon a Time. Moff is speaking to us… this is the end of an era.

It works. Mostly. It doesn’t offend. There are problems, and not just the question of how no-one important noticed the monster-leaking crack in reality before, if it was indeed such an existential threat to the entire cosmos, and not just the land of horizontal rain.

Bill has come a long way from the Alexa challenging question machine of The Pilot. Now she’s giving motivational speeches to Legionaries. That’s after she’s fallen down a hole. Again. She meets a Roman, who promptly dies, and then some more who confound our current gender based obsessions with an insight from the classical world. Personally, I think they’re a bit too nice. But Bill is obviously speaking proper Latin like a Roman Lady (in trews) and maybe the slime put them off. It’s still a kiddyish show, what else is going to happen? And after all the real problem is the (potentially) star-eating monster. Isn’t it?

Essentially, this is a simple story: nasty critter has to go back in the hole. Otherwise, we’re in Classic Who territory, filling in the middle by crawling down ducts, running down corridors, and sorting out trivial hostilities so that the next episode won’t have too much recap. Oh it’s a stand-alone. So why does it drag? Even more so in that the last five minutes is devoted to Michelle Gomez looking moody.

The narrative is a bit clumsy. You would have thought we’d start by actually seeing said Legion being attacked, and indeed attacking the Picts, rather than having Bill and Kar both go on and on about that later. Tsk. Bad Romans! We could see Kar release the beast. WHAT IS THAt? Only then do our heroes arrive and say ‘there you are! Been looking for you.’ And mortal peril ensues.

Maybe that would have been too expensive. Though you wouldn’t really need a cast of thousands, just clever angles and some blurry cgi.

There’s also the problem of Nardole; a Crowded Tardis issue would seem to be developing. Nardole copped a bit of disappearing bother in previous outings didn’t he? This time he gets to play with the sharpies and wonder where the next funny line is coming from. And that’s it.

But I quite like the story. Historicals are still a bit problematic, obviously. It got messed up somewhere down the line.

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@dentarthurdent

it worked!

this whole Orson thing as well The Girl Who Died makes me wonder about abandoned arcs. Maybe its as simple as the execs looked at the drafts and thought ‘what is that going to cost?’

with a little bit of kickback against the loons.

That’s you and me that is…

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