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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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Duh… except there was a female relative who was a time traveller?? Maybe the doctors ‘dad skills’ weren’t up to much and Danny remembered Clara under the bed?

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@dentarthurdent @janetteb

after ps digits alternate with letters.

Orson Pink… I think Mr Spock would say ‘insufficient data, Captain.’

Most likely explanation is that Danny had a previous relationship, and the Tardis mined that through Clara being distracted. Except there was s female relative who was a time traveller?? Maybe th

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@blenkinsopthebrave

ow! What do I know?

Kinda written in stone then…

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@ dentarthurdent

After Santa drops everyone off there’s a complex interlocked series of dream crab incidents, one of which occurs to the doctor outside the tardis seemingly in a volcanic landscape like the tardis key incident from Dark Water.

Now I remember that was actually a set up/test of the doctor’s… I need to look at it again. Maybe it was Clara’s dream crab dream?

Didn’t know Moff thought the Mondassians were pants; makes it an even better job!

Still no answer to Orson Pink though. If Clare is dead/frozen (and so is Danny) wherefore Orson? Unless the doctor doesn’t know what he’s doing and the tardis did it herself. Which I don’t like. Literally dieu ex machina.

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@dentarthurdent @janetteb

Bill’s Mondassisn conversion is particularly powerful. The early cybermen, like the Ice Warriors seem at first sight ridiculous, and dismissed as classic examples of the shortcomings of early Who. Of course there were far worse designs, who never returned, but actually both Mondassian Cybermen and Ice Warriors were supremely creepy and were presumably so created: better than multitudes of bland facial prosthetics as per Star Trek TNG.

Also Moff and Gatiss were instrumental in redesigning and retconning both. But Moff’s vision for the Cybermen was particularly superb. The originals were creepy because they were not just robots; they retained a disturbing element of humanity: imperfect, wounded and wrapped in bandages. It’s the 70’s and 80’s incarnations that grew progressively more ridiculous. To be Cyber was to be a Mook.

What did RTD do? Firstly he expunged ‘EXCELLENT!’ from the Cyber vocabulary. Secondly he explored what it meant to be converted, which I think (but don’t quote me) was only ever touched on in the otherwise mediocre ‘Attack of…’

If ‘Attack of’ inspired the Borg, the Borg transformed RTD vision in Age of Steel and Army of Ghosts. Moff handed Gaimen a Cyber outing where The Doctor was nearly converted and that was the best thing about Nightmare in Silver.

Then 11 hung out with Handles for several lifetimes and Danny was converted in Dark Water (and by the way has anyone ever explained the parallel volcano scenes in that story and Last Christmas? Or where Orson Pink came from?)

Bill, I’m afraid, is the natural progression through regression to the origin.

I’ll return with some other comments when I’ve caught up.

 

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@dentarthurdent @dwnerdfrommars

Azimov’s Psychohistory is kind of the final word on determinism within sociology and economics.

He also explored it in a short story set in the C20th: a sociological experiment designed to make a small unimportant organisation grow (and then collapse when it can’t grow anymore) accidentally becomes a populist political party. Disaster rather than hilarity ensues.

Within the original Foundation Trilogy he specifies three limiting factors.

It doesn’t work with powerful parapsychological forces, in his terms a mutant who can manipulate emotions. I am reminded of tropes condemning irrational ‘emotional’ responses when actually people don’t want to do what the commentator says.

The population itself should be unaware of psychohistory (no second guessing)… this seems to be an unsatisfactory plea to free will. Well the original trilogy was quite bleak if not fascistic.

Aliens have their own psychohistorical rules. The implication from the last Foundation/Robot book is this will also apply to novel hominid species and/or robot based societies.

Otherwise, in terms of physics pure and not very simple, I don’t get the butterfly effect at all. Yeah double pendulums do weird things but at what point does deterministic chaos become RNK (‘reckon nobody knows’ from The Plague Dogs by Richard Adams)?

WW1… essentially the end game of the Balkan Wars writ large by Prussian militarism. AJP Taylor did regard it all as a ridiculous series of accidents. The single determining factor of the strategic situation on the western front is that railways could deliver reinforcements before the enemy could make significant advances. The result ‘effects’ our view of the cause… an emotional response if ever there was.

 

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@blenkinsopthebrave

I stress… ‘I hope Disney doesn’t have.. (such an option)’

‘Season 1’ (I didn’t even know that!) should = ‘bye bye ZChib.’ Press big reset button. We been here before. When is Bobby coming out of the shower?

I made up the three year option. Really! I know nothing. If you hadn’t guessed that already.

Otherwise, there is nothing like NOT subscribing for making streaming output look like poo.

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@nerys
Hmmm. There’s a subscription world brewing out there. If the product didn’t look like cookie-cutter story-boarded committee stodge, I’d be be upset.

The trailer looks great; the Jurassic butterfly one had me wrinkling my nose a bit, but Ray Bradbury wasn’t it? That helps. How about an E E Doc Smith themed season?

Otherwise, yes! Why let them get away with paying once when you can sting them many many times? The Gatherer & Sil have instructed that the Marshminnow canapes be uncovered immediately.

In my selfish Brit way, I only hope Disney don’t have a secret exclusivity option after say 3 seasons.

Don’t want to alarm anyone…

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@dentarthurdent @nerys

Well… is it genetic heritage that makes you a Timelord? Or in vitro exposure to the Time Vortex? As per River, immediately following the Roman kissogram party in volving two humans (presumably in the room with bunk beds)?

Surely, the Mondassians specialise in human conversion because, as Dalek Sec pointed out, we get everywhere. In large numbers. Not that Shobogan physiology is necessarily beyond the pale, as the Timeless Children shows, but the Timelord’s practical immortality must have been mitigated by their apparent preference for parthenogenesis… Timelords were “woven on a loom” weren’t they? But we’re never shown Shobogan colonies, maybe they didn’t procreate enough… and that was why Tecteun was so keen on (practical) immortality.

You were right about The President’s wife… and there was that bit about the Moon too. Who knows? Moff never said which President, or of whom. And as we now know the Moon is really a space bat egg.

But certainly Bill is human. But what is a Shobogan/human hybrid who was never exposed to The Vortex? Maybe human enough. Of course they just give her a mechanical heart initially. And her conversion was imperfect.

This is part of The Great Reithian Forbidding of Moff theory. Bill originally had a longer story arc (Amy and Clara both got 2 1/2 series) in which she was a critical element for the rehabilitation of Missy. And The Doctor was being kind to someone struggling to find her way.

Moff was told ‘no!’ DW should be more like Eastenders (again). And we’re giving the gig to ZChib.

So, is Bill’s mum a Timelady? Which Timelady? Is she human but The Master took her face much as The Doctor took Caecilius’?

Don’t breathe so hard; it took me ages to construct this house cards.

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@nerys @dentarthurdent

Yes. Amy says something like that. The Doctor is the ‘damsel’ in ‘the husbands of…’ Donna introduces the idea… by her absence. “Things went wrong…” (The End of Time)

The point being… I think… is that The Doctor benefits from interaction (even with Rusty?) whereas The Master, in his thirst for power, never considers it…

until Harold Saxon??

Lucy, Martha’s family?

Pictures of grandchild (the daughter of the President; he was the father of the President?) and (second) wife (?) on The Doctor’s professorial desk. The actress featured as Bill’s mum was previously a Time Lord (Lady) in Day of The Doctor? Pictures being central to The Doctor’s relationship with Bill?

The Master on The Time War… “I ran…” (The Sound of Drums).

Interesting that RTD immediately returns to the theme of foundlings and adoptive parents. Like ZChib (a typo originally but I’m gonna call him that now) never happened…

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@dentarthurdent

I’ll leave Eaters of Light for you then.

In hindsight the development of Bill through the series was disappointing. It got squeezed out by the Missy redemption subplot which I frankly didn’t care that much about. So more no Moira, no Penny. They were fun. But maybe that might a bit ZChib????!

There again no further Iraxxa/Bill interaction (Gatiss ran out of time). But also no exploration of the professor/student relationship. We don’t know why The Doctor’s doing this… ok, being ‘kind’, but how can he predict Bill will get Firsts? Is this just another 12 ego trip? Or did he see something specific in Bill? Why did he choose THAT university to hide the intergalactic psychopath?

Got a feeling Moff was cut off rather… did he think he might get another series? That quote about going through to 2020…

Otherwise it was a bit reminiscent of Graham Williams failing to secure decent scripts for Louise Jameson.

Of course, we know what’s coming.

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The Empress of Mars

There’s lots to enjoy here and much that could annoy. I suppose. Mark Gatiss obviously remembers the Ice Warriors fondly. So do I. I liked the ‘Alien’ tinged Cold War, the previous IW outing, though David Warner’s Duran Duran obsessed dissident scientist could do with toning down. I like steam punk; it seems idle to point out that it looks a bit far fetched once transplanted into Who.

I like the reimagining of the Warriors and Mars.The IW used to look ridiculous (make sure he’s got big hips Jethro) but it turns out that’s because they’re wearing uber armour. Late 60’s special effects may be a joke, even with the addition of a Wilhelm Scream, but the Moff/Gatiss take on sonic weapons make Star Trek’s excruciating Varron T disruptor look a bit tame.

The basic plot of both is noble lizards facing off against dumb apes. The military are idiots. The Soviets very nearly started World War Three in the early eighties. British Imperialism was a disgrace. We didn’t mean to invade, we just wanted the gold and diamonds.

In many ways, Empress reminds me of Nightmare in Silver: packed sketchy plot, underwritten characters, lost dialogue even maybe? Not sure if the flakey Tardis was ever explained. Wouldn’t be the first time.The writers need a way of getting Missy out of the vault but I’m really not sure about Moff’s raging psychopath therapy program. Not really sure about Bill falling down the hole at the start either… unless it’s a reference to an earlier IW story. Not interested. Literally a waste of time.

Also, the Ice Warriors in Cold War (unless I got the impression from Waters of Mars?) were exotic colonists of Mars, weren’t they? Kind of makes sense. They give Mars a bit of Terraforming (cos it’s been dead for 2bn years) and, when they leave, this breaks down. But there’s no mention of this in Empress; just the ‘Golden Age’ comment.

The science could be updated but its not as bad as the Space Bat egg in Kill The Moon or the dopey atmospheric science from Forest of the Night. Or ‘the Little Ice Age was actually caused by a monster underneath the Thames.’

Otherwise Catchlove is a Flashman caricature, Jackdaw’s name is Potteresquely apposite, Vincey from Chesterfield(?) is a statement, presumably just in case people got the wrong end of the stick about imperialism. There’s no time for Godsacre’s change in motivation to be explored; all part of Gatiss’ ‘you and whose army’ schtick I suppose.

The Empress channels Grilka from Deep Space Nine and predator. Nice.

The Gargantua is a bit meh.

Personally, I like to imagine not just Godsacre but the whole unit integrated into the IW Imperial Guard and touring the galaxy. Failure to mythologise.

But the fact you can speculate rather than dismiss, saves the story.

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@dentarthurdent

Empress of Mars!

oh well, there I was, doing Terror of the Zygons. Not all that good actually…

Have to watch EoM tonight I suppose. I remember it quite fondly. Let’s see.

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@krathoon

the zygons could also disappear upon shuffling from this mortal but that was because the boss zygon made it happen.
I doubt if RTD will explain it, but who knows? Im not sure how ‘daughter’ from the Family of Blood could be trapped in a mirror, or her brother become a scarecrow to protect Britain. Unless he’s the one pumping chicken poo into our rivers.

Unknown physics has been known in WHO before you know.

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Sorry… more about The Lie of the Land really.

After more consideration I think I would definitively state that the Trilogy declined as it progressed. Creepy labyrinth dwelling Monks are scarier than needy Monks who seem to need you tell them they’re great in bed. The Doctor REALLY does need to recruit Jah Wobble and arm him with a fire extinguisher, if only because that might be both funny and stymie Toby Whithouse’s surprisingly inept platitudes.

He ain’t Moffat or Mathieson but Tobe must have been a bit disappointed with the outcome. Maybe it was a question of trying to stuff too much in the stocking. I didn’t buy the Missy reveal either. I think Bill would be bound to say more about Missy but Moff wouldn’t want to go there because some comparison was bound to be made with Clara, to which The Doctor would say ‘who?’

That’s the problem with neural blocks. Someone will point out the obvious.

So, death by plot hole it is.

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@winston @nerys

sorry for the incoherent post. I was briefly incoherent

But pizza… pineapple? Stuffed crusts?? Jonathan Nathan Turner? Even the more foolish parts of Graham Williams’ tenure…

The man who doesn’t care what he eats will hardly care at all.

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@nerys

Chib… virtue/unforgiveable sin/urghh that man REALLY is an ijit… signalling… until the very end.

The man WAS part of the problem. The sooner RTD admits it, the better. (He won’t)

Moff is laughing like dog.

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@dentarthurdent

caricature of Trump? Jack Robertson in Arachnids in the UK maybe? And Revolution of the Daleks… I wasn’t really paying attention by then. Or he was just a generic dodgy yank. Apologies to all yank-kind.

But yes you did hear orange… I think its when The Sekjen mentions the president of earth and Bill doesn’t realise he means the Doctor.

I had a feeling Moff really only wanted to cross Hitler off his conceptual time travel wish list… LKH almost felt like he was going through the motions.

Pope Joan is obviously a fable: I think it’s first recorded during the C13th row with Frederick II (aka stone cold genius). A historical dealing with the Guelphs (papal supporters) and Ghibellines (imperial supporters) would be interesting: you could shove in Romeo and Juliet, Shylock, (rewrite) the Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado about Nothing; Frederick II refuses to defend Hungary against the Mongols (‘Are you crazy?’)

The laundry basket… https://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/documents/doctor-who-s10-ep6-extremis-shooting-script-steven-moffat.pdf

I was wrong. The Tardis had materialised around the laundry basket. Nardole warns the priests away from it. So the ‘hell’ line comes previously; must be just Bill’s frustration when Penny runs away.

Moff is on record as saying he just wanted to see what was the worst thing he could do to Bill’s date. He did the same thing with Clara in Listen. RTD only ever humiliated Jackie in ‘Love and Monsters.’ Funny though.

 

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@dentarthurdent

I thought I’d post on the Extremis thread, but I had been following your reviews of series 10 and reacted to your comment on The Winchester.

When The Monks were first broadcast I was still smarting from the apparent unresolved elements from the previous arc, and didn’t really appreciate Moffat’s work here. I really like Bill, from the ‘I fatted her’ digression in The Pilot to ‘you are an arse!’ (and 1’s reaction) in Twice Upon a Time.

Yes, the BBC apparently did tell Peter Harness he could notuse Jezzer, Don and Kim. Or maybe it was caricatures of those three stooges. Of course RTD referenced Obama directly and Harold Saxon was a bit Blairish. Geopolitically you might think the three interested parties should be Vlad, Xi and Modi. Don’t suppose anyone took Modi seriously then; saying nothing about Novochok or Winnie the Pooh!

Benedict IX was deposed and reinstated at various points in the C11th. The legendary Pope Joan may have been confused with the C9th John VIII. Interestingly, the survival of the legend of Joan is cited as ‘feminist and anti Catholic wishful thinking’ by Philip Jenkins in ‘The Last Acceptable Prejudice’… Moff lampshading his own knee jerk maybe?

I remember seeing a read through script of Extremis in which the Priests in Bill’s bedroom are very interested in her laundry basket. Shortly before the ‘you’re going to hell!’ line.

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@dentarthurdent

saw/anticipated your post on The Monks and decided to revisit them myself… I remembered it as impressive and a bit flawed.

So, my considered opinion on the The Monk’s Trilogy…

In many ways it’s a four parter, ‘Oxygen’ being the basis of The Doctor’s blindness, the chink whereby The Monks conquer earth, having run their pesky Veritas simulation.

Within the Whoniverse, The Doctor is being called out over the ‘this world is protected’ schtick. Interestingly The Monks didn’t see fit to run their simulation for another six months. Apparently that’s how they roll.

Now, the meta method being my fave, I do wonder what The Monks really represent in the mind of Moff. Interesting that Missy had encountered them before. Obviously, The Monks ‘control’ method bears a passing resemblance to The Archangel Network utilised by the Master in Sound of Drums/Last of the Timelords.

Well, nothing in Who is very new. The view within the Whoniverse might indicate the Master stole the tech or even that the Monks were also somehow behind the Toclafane. Woah! Otherwise, my meta hat safely installed, its worth noting that the Archangel network satirised demagoguery. Now, don’t start shouting at me but could The Monks have something to do with that there social meeja and cancel cultcha?

No, please don’t shout. Compared with what preceded it, my considered opinion is that most things ‘woke’ are utterly unobjectionable; I may have decided to dismiss a handful of elements, but I also note that opposition in those areas was woefully devised. What I really don’t and never will buy into is the populist ‘faux traditional’ reaction.

Actually, all this populist outrage seems a bit weird because wokery is hardly an adequately defined ideology, more the logical conclusion of single issue politics. Aside from the manufactured positions created by The New Despotism, hostility for the World of Woke stems directly from the attempted denial of the digital world to ANY opposition.

‘You people caused the problem, so we will redact your opinion and eventually you will die and your ideas with you.’

And the IRA were in due course saddled with Eamon DeValera.

And yet the algorithms assume OUR consent everytime WE like or unfollow. Rewrite the past. Colonise the past. Never grow old. Never learn; doomed, frozen, withered and pseudo religious. They are Monks! They gain control through ‘love’. That’s Moffat/Harness/Whithouse speaking.

Or, more obviously, The Monks are the opponents of democracy. Vote for me and… that’s it. Could they be The New Despotism itself? The West is bankrupt: that thing that happened in 2007? Nevermind Dubbeyuh, Bliar and the fall of International Law, the Hague went and stuck what the Despots regarded as perfectly serviceable dictators behind bars.

Well, they’re not doing that to us. Nah. We don’t need you anymore.

Or is it both, because this is BOTH sides of t’internet? The Despots looked at the net pumping the West’s chaotic mind into their tidy Corporate computers and yelped. They were reminded that they really could not tolerate any alternative: Taiwan, Ukraine, Xinjiang; the oppressed below the 38th parallel; oh and you never stop being Iranian no matter where you hide.

This is interesting because not all of this had taken form back in 2016. Moff IS making a remarkable farsighted point. Never mind the coincidence of the deadly microbe in the lab, the whole concept is incredibly impressive. Also imminent cultural extinction doesn’t just sell well, what it is NOT is Woobie Destroyer of Worlds. Or ‘Reality’ or ‘Time’. Hoorah! Seriously, got to be a good thing.

Whatever. We also need to remember what the developing digital burden of the internet meant for the creative in the West. Cos Moff does have a history with feminist critics. Having epically and serially failed the Bechdel test, he and Mathieson had even set a joke about it in the luggage car of the Orient Express!

This is what makes The Monk Trilogy slightly uncomfortable. It might logically be Piers Morgan and Laurence Fox’s fave Who.

Truth be told there is indeed something just a little creepy about Moff’s women, even or especially the overlong ‘welcome to Darillium’ closing shot from the end of ‘Husbands’. I can hear Capaldi saying, ‘not sure I can bring this off Steven.’

Well, this is Doctor Who and at that point he was still a bloke and his companions predominantly female, many of them really quite young. That’s nought to do with Moff. Nonetheless, he insisted ‘yes, I’m a bloke, but I’ve won awards, and I think women are great!’ Really, that sounds more than a little like the bass player from The Stranglers. Not saying anything at all about The Stranglers’ sexual politics, just that the world has moved on.

More nit picking.

I haven’t really got a problem with Rome getting a pummelling, just question how medieval you really need to get on their sorry asses. Obviously, an equivalence is made between Rome and The Monks, the new religion on the bloc. And its just a bit of fun. Like Father Ted.

Harness’ original plan called for Trump, Corbyn and fat Kim vs the Turmezistan Pyramid. Now that could have been a LOT of fun. Without them, the Bill part of the story, The Monks juggling various military hardware and reducing the Sekjen to dust, sagged just a tad.

Critics liked the third part the least. Basically The Monks Broke like the Wind; if only solving the issues of the digital world was so simple. If indeed that is what the trilogy is about. Perhaps it was only ever Moff and his mates Pete and Tobe throwing mud at the Wall on Which the Prophets Wrote. Whilst disposing of some agreeably ugly aliens.

Despite all the talk of sacrificing Bill (far too interesting a character to be any kind of Messiah) the denouement is very very reminiscent of Last of the Timelords except, rather than The Doctor rapidly progressing from Dobby to floaty god, Bill airdrops all the pictures The Doctor handily took of Bill’s biological mum into the collective brain of humanity. Poor Moira: bit of an obvious target. I’m sure she meant well.

So, All You (really do) Need Is Love.

Aahhh.

Have you ever heard Fodderstompf by PIL? Jah Wobble could have defeated The Monks with a fire extinguisher, couldn’t he?

Or are Moff and Tobe saying, ‘don’t listen to that. Just remember who you are?’ That didn’t really come across.

The pyramids and the memory crimes are indeed straight out of Orwell. Always nice to see.

So, not perfect. Maybe not quite as coherent as the previous Zygon two parter (also by Harness) which it superficially resembles. But The Monk Trilogy was insanely ambitious… made you think, made you stare.

As for Moff’s feminist issues, that was only going to be solved by A Lady Doctor. And lo! One day Dull Chris came to town and he said ‘I can do that! Gissa job.’ Except apparently he couldn’t.

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@vickymallard @winston

Yes, those interesting aliens (a nod to the 70’s series The Curse of Peladon?) and lots of hints as to the fate of Gallifrey. And without the oft unsuccessfully employed device of the ‘regeneration trauma’, Ecclestone makes a convincing and intriguing alien in a humanoid body.

If you’re a huge 10 fan (and there are a lot) then Ecclestone must seem an oddity. He clearly left the show unhappy with someone and we must assume that was RTD. I thought it was a great performance. Having (unfortunately) also seen his teeth grinding, shouty Macbeth, I thought this Doctor was a great interpretation.

Series 1 had its issues (as you will see) but The Doctor wasn’t one of them.

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<p style=”text-align: left;”>@dentarthurdent @vickymallard</p>
if you are to venture into Classic Who, Phillip Hinchcliff/Roberts Holmes tenure is by far the best… 1975-1977. From ‘ark in space’ to ‘talons of weng chiang.’ Mostly gold. It fell foul of the ‘is this a kids’ show or what?’ controversy.

There are classics from all eras… ‘terror of the autons’ is terrifying and rightly revered… but, apart from the Tom Baker golden age, you must expect at least one utter clunker per series and several more with pointless crawling in ventilation shafts, or perfectly reasonable characters crucified by the terrible dialogue of moronic hacks.

And there were lots and lots of quarries, laughable monsters, worse effects and teeth grinding male chauvinism.

You tuned in and you didn’t know what you were going to get.

Tell it like it is.

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@vickymallard @dentarthurdent

Plastic Mickey. Man eating bins… ‘leave it to me, I’m  a gymnast!’ (in so many words) and yes lots of planets have a north.

Rose the story was lightweight in a good way. Light touch. We all know Who can do Preposterous and Pompous. But a nod to Spearhead from Space/Terror of the Autons, nothing too alarming, and away we go.

Well done RTD. And well done Chris Ecclestone. Possibly the best actor in the role, as good as Davidson or Troughton (saying nothing about the script)

Not sure what the final analysis of his departure was. The fact that Tennant became the new Tom Baker can’t be a coincidence. Presumably RTD wasn’t bothered about keeping Ecclestone on board.

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@vickymallard

did you START with Ruby Road?? You need to see the previous 3 too really… I’m sure you are/have…

the singing… a shock I admit. But I think RTD was channeling the Steven Moffat’s annual raid on popular Xmas culture. Otherwise everything will be fantastic after The Toymaker (which is why you need to watch the others).

I took a breath… and thought it was fine.

Most companions only last a season.

ratings? Do they matter that much once you have s deal? Not saying that aint a poisoned chalice. But really, who are the people chucking bricks? You tube? Ooh 10,000 zombies vs Alexander the Great. Memo to self: stockpile bog rolls.

The Chibwitch is dead. Hooray.

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@dentarthurdent

cheers. I need to look at that!

Blink territory? Absolutely! I stress ‘almost!’ Blink is the gold standard, from the casting of Cary Mulligan to the gorgeous subplot with the detective, and the scene in the backroom of the video shop.

A shame the Angel’s mystique then became a bit tarnished.

Those Moffat stories from NuWho 1-4 were all incredible.

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@dentarthurdent @janetteb

Mummy was Mathieson’s favourite? I really like it. Almost Blink standard. Maybe the questions of why Gus suddenly releases the girls or who it was/represented nag a bit. And the business of not seeing the Doctor rescue everybody at the end. In an AU that’s the season ender and Missy was actually manipulating the Foretold while she shoves stiffs into the Gallifreyan data slice.

hmmm. That could have worked…

Is there really an issue with Flatline? So much to admire, from the ‘hard’ speculative sci fi to the characters and dialogue. What motivates the Boneless tho? It’s horror, stoopid! Very good too!

 

Someone mentioned crime dramas… I think these two are on a two year production run, but did anyone catch:

the ‘darkness’ series… the remake? Scandi noir but limited misogynistic horror (after the first one) and the female lead is believable and presented sympathetically.

Top notch psychological drama. I highlighted the first one but it’s a peerless examination of the mind set. As chilling as ‘Oxygen’ in its own way.

Also the ‘paris 1900’ series… the end of series 1 was slightly daft, but not completely ridiculous; there must be at least one more in the pipeline. Love background of why France imploded in the C20th

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@janetteb @dentarthurdent

The Girl Who Died was co-written with Moffat. I love the hints of what I see as an abandoned story arc – unless it’s yet to ‘mature.’ Not many people agree and I doubt anything will come from it. But I haven’t quite given up yet…

The Girl Who Died… Katarina died and so did Sara (in the same series!) AU uberLiz got roasted with ze entire AU Reich. Peri was terminally mind wiped… and then she wasn’t. Hi Brian! Turn it down, mate.

Jenny died and regenerated. Bye!

Amy lived by finally going to a place where The Doctor can’t get at her. That sounded a bit weird.

Clara and Bill have treats in store!

So, is TGWD just a random story? Two parter… a story-arc ending in The Doc getting mind wiped?? Is this about the lethality of the Doctor or the objectification of his (many) companions? Moff has kinda planted his flag in this territory… without really wanting to. But yeah… it’s a recurring theme.

So, The Doctor intervenes and Ashildr survives. After that she becomes as big a problem as getting Tegan to Heathrow.

As a random story, even serving something like a whole series, can you really say that works?

Then you have the eels. And the Benny Hill Theme. And baby talk! One of these things has to be lazy writing. Nevermind a fake Odin turning up when it really didn’t matter… that is if it really was just The Girl Who Died.

It still beat any one of Chib’s output into a cocked hat.

Mummy, Flatline & Oxygen were certainly all way better. Jamieson is great writer tho…

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@dentarthurdent

Huge fan of Oxygen… to paraphrase 4 in City of Death, ‘I love your high threat space horror. It’s so scary.’

If Mary Whitehouse had still been with us she’d have been frothing at the mouth.

Awesome. Curiously quite difficult to rewatch. I tried and maybe I was depressed about Chib and the damage done. Maybe I was genuinely chilled. The Monk story arc needs careful analysis too… if I was to apply the meta-method, what the hell would they be?

Gonna have to rewatch the whole series, straight after I’ve finished Invasion of Time…

That was probably the best series since 4 (if you ignore RTD’s habitually rocky season-ender)

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Of course the ‘Hand’ taken by 7 was Omega’s, not Rassilon’s. This also effects my comment on Hell Bent.

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@graemelewis

this is all very well and good but give us some jokes about cheese…

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@dentarthurdent @vickymallard

No. The jump from Vinvocci ship wasn’t great. I suppose the glass ceiling slowed him up, and he’s been around so long that by then, like Ashildr, he’s become brilliant at Crazy Stuff that should kill you. And we know he’ll regenerate soon.

One Vinvocci is a very funny man from the Horrible Histories team. The other was a Werewolf in Being Human (alongside midshipman Frame). They’re one reason I watch this every Christmas.

Then there’s John Simm. Not everybody’s cup of tea but I’ve previously expressed my admiration for ‘I like you. You’d taste great!’ and ‘No no no. You’re not going to THINK like me. You’re going to BE me!’

And that cliff hanger! Wow!

The problems?

The big jump maybe. Never sure about voice overs and exposition… then realised RTD was doing his own nine sermons and carols. He really doesn’t like Christmas. People eat too much. It’s commercialised. And it never snows. And someone will get bloody self important sooner or later, if not accidentally spit in your face. This time it’s Rassilon who’s rocked up with his own brand new ‘fighting’ hand (7 nicked the other one).

But maybe the voice over isn’t too bad in this case: better than the end of Family of Blood or Time of the Doctor. And at least the voice spouting off doesn’t belong to The Master (yes Timeless Children talkin bout you).

In fact the one thing I really can’t face is the ‘Broadfell’ explosion. We know you like camp Russ but… uhh really?? The ‘chuck the white point star across the universe while the doctor does silent running’ was a bit of a yawn. The Visionary is ridiculous but a homage to The Ribos Operation I suppose. I laughed.

It kind of holds together and we know RTD likes to take the mick. And so I watch it every year.

And the more I watch it the more I notice 10’s glance at Donna when Wilf asks ‘who was the woman.’ I know RTD denies it but that’s spoilers; what else is he going to say?

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@dentarthurdent

Just a theory… application of The Razor of Occam; do not duplicate broken chamelion circuits unnecessarily.

As far as we know only the Doctor has a sentient tardis. But maybe not. Maybe chamelion circuits are always prone to failure. Like the legendary British Leyland fully detachable door handles…

Not even saying that it’s a ‘live’ plot line… still think Moff was got-at/changed tack after aeries 8.

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@dentarthurdent

well… actually I SPECULATE there could be just ONE police box/diner/sexyidris tardis

My bonkers flow chart looks like this:

Hell Bent: 12 steals tardis

> taken by ‘frozen’ Clara and Ashildr, who reunite mindwiped 12 with his tardis and tour the cosmos in an American Diner

> in due course one or t’other or both realise 11 has a potential exploding Tardis issue (never really well explained) but the universe and eyepatch baroness is out to get him, all that, so they help him host the River Song face-slapping party in the Diner Tardis

> eventually they go back to Gallifrey, find renegade doctor 1 and donate the SAME Tardis, complete with its now knackered navigation system and chamelion circuit, unless that was sexy/idris gone all ‘Moment’ while in prolonged contact with the awesomeness of ‘frozen’ Clara and Ashildr

> 1 uses the tardis to deliver the Hand of Rassilon to London (question: why did he do that? It might seem like a handy  thing to have around but really quite likely to attract Daleks and/or other intergalactic gits… so not that clever)

> events of unearthly child etc

> somehow Clara gets back to Trap Street I suppose. No rush.

 

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@vickymallard

sorry for the spoilery… in fact, although some sources quote The War Games (1969!) as the origin of the idea of the stolen tardis, I can’t find a single mention. The doctor admits to being a renegade and at that point his navigation is hopeless so you might infer that he shouldn’t be left in charge of a tardis.

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@dentarthurdent

The doctor lies. The writers mislead.

but apologies for spoilery…

We think Clara stopped The Doctor from stealing the ‘wrong’ Tardis because…

1. That was the point of the episode

2. Clara said ‘I’m the impossible girl!’ So the event must be a case in point (??)

BUT

in Hell Bent, the Doctor also stole a tardis which ended up in the hands of ‘frozen’ Clara, and Ashildr, and they disguise it as an American Diner. In this guise it seems doomed to remain because, believe it or not, this one has a faulty chameleon circuit! Fixable maybe but not for long.

Well maybe that was a problem with the type 40; can’t get the parts guvnor. Or it was the same tardis, maybe even a crazy one who thought it could steal a timelord? Gone a bit ‘Moment!’

Was it frozen Clara who sold her dodgy type 40, with god knows how many miles on the clock, to Doctor 1? Or timeline Clara, who just did that weird abstract thing that Moff presumably understands but doesn’t really bear inspection?

But… why The Diner in the first place? You have to suspect it’s the same one in The Impossible Astronaut. Which begs another question. Was Ashildr (assuming she was still travelling with Clara) in contact with Doctor 11 over Trenzalore? Which might be one reason 12 recognised her in Scandinavia.

Presumably Clara stayed in the back room when River slapped 11 in the mush!

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@vickymallard  @dentarthurdent

Planet of The Dead got a lot of stick when it came out. Cracking adventure, I thought, with lots of interesting angles: no Tardis; interesting alien species – maybe reminiscent of the swarm in Invisible Enemy and the Formasi in Leisure Hive – but there a finite number of tropes; antagonistic prospective companion; proto fam on the bus even?? The fact that the double decker bus was dropped in transit to north africa (hence the damage to the top deck) sold it to me.

I’m interested in the stolen tardis origin. Was it hinted at in The War Games?? It certainly became a big thing in The Doctor’s Wife (Thief! Where’s my thief??) Did Moffat discuss that with Gaiman? He had a big hand in writing the dialogue apparently.
<p style=”text-align: left;”>Observation… did the Doctor steal a tardis twice, or did he steal the same one twice over? Or rather was the original stolen tardis donated to the doctor by Clara and Ashildr after they’d got bored with it?</p>
<p style=”text-align: left;”>And when will we see The Diner again??</p>
<p style=”text-align: left;”>How common are faulty chameleon circuits? Everyone assumes the Clara shown at the beginning of Name of the Doctor is ‘Clara in the Doctor’s Timestream’ but that was lampshaded by Clara’s impossible girl soliloquy.</p>
 

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@brewski

… no footprints in the snow…? Legolas? Maybe Galadriel… it was an episode with goblins!

Or just bad CGI!

Mrs Flood? Still haven’t given up on River post spacesuit girl, and pre Mel. Maybe Captain Jack rocks up with vortex manipulator and sends her back to Amy’s timeline.

Clearly the no DNA match for Ruby is a big deal. Elf you reckon? Viking? (I have my own line on this one) Shobogan? Leela??

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@dentarthurdent

The McGann conundrum deserves a bit more research… the one quote that keeps coming up is that Moffat couldn’t ‘envisage 8 as the Doctor that ended the time war.’ On Reddit someone quotes ‘DW & the end of the Time War’ where RTD seemed to show he definitely thought 8 burned Gallifrey. I suppose it was a complex creative decision with both the Pandorica and Trenzalore being developed.

Or did Mofffat take the character development of the novels and audio dramas into account? I don’t know them. Just rather liked both McGann and Hurt.

Grant was also an incarnation of the doctor in the Curse of Fatal Death.

Withnail and I is both cult 90’s student fare AND hilarious. Don’t do the drinking game.

’What’s your name? McF**k?’ I can also imagine Nicholas Briggs doing that line with ring modulator.

The Moment might be Moff’s greatest achievement if you can ignore the fact that Doctor seems perfectly willing to ignore/accept Billie’s sudden appearance. Perhaps it’s a kind of ‘psychic paper’ power. The War Doctor needs to concentrate on the fractals.

 

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@dentarthurdent @vickymallard

Re my comment about RTD’s choice of villains, I meant of course David HAREWOOD (not Haywood) in The End of Time. Doh

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