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15 November 2024 at 22:21 #77001
Anyone else seen the teaser to Joy to the World shown on Children in Need tonight?
15 November 2024 at 16:13 #76999The considered opinion seems to be it’s neither BSL nor ASL. You mentioned Python starting on 5th October, could be semaphore??? Though without the flags. As in the Wuthering Heights sketch. Or the cover of HELP (The Beatles)…
nearly finished 73 yards. Keep getting interrupted. Still no insight as to what the woman means… could she represent the ‘untempered schism’, a reflection of the torment visited on Harold Saxon?? I’m really liking that connection, but then ‘famous spear ambition hat’ was also cool.
Can’t have both… though Saxon’s torment was visited on him by Rassilon.
15 November 2024 at 00:37 #76995oh… so the perception filter is mentioned in Sound of Drums and that’s also where we first realise who Saxon is… the man who’s moniker (and behaviour) is reflected in Rog Williamson.
Makes me wonder who Alien Life Form Garnett might be.
14 November 2024 at 16:53 #76992according to Perkins in Mummy on the Orient Express, 66 seconds is ‘about’ as long as it takes to change the phase of matter. So a meter per second means… what? Dunno.
73 yards cropped up again in the ‘time window’ and was one of my least favourite things in Legend of Ruby Sunday which, after all, was not a terribly impressive episode.
I did start watching this again… got as far as ‘look at the state on THAT’ in the pub. That was quite droll. I kept expecting Nardole to turn up as Dewi from Little Britain.
I wondered about Glengatwg and why Roger ap Williams should sport a full on (Norman) Welsh name… admittedly the leader of Plaid Cymru does, but you would think there was a reason RTD chose it.
2 possibilities…
he is famous spear son of ambition hat = Rassilon in full regalia??
or narratively he is the equivalent of Harold Saxon (= major knife boy… oh never mind), the guy who assembled a planet full of missiles and who RTD hinted was as big an abuser as Rog…
Will enjoy finishing the story tonight!
13 November 2024 at 13:24 #76988Fair point on political discourse. Though I don’t buy that this is a very different scenario anymore than Dylan’s insistence that his hard rain wasn’t atomic (been watching Don’t Look Back dontcha know)
October 5th… The Doctor, free from the DNA landmine declares the day as October 5th… presumably 23 something something AD… has anyone worked out the date from Ruby’s age?
This has been dismissed online as just a date… like June 26th 2010, though that was the date The Big Bang was broadcast.
Who on October 5th:
Mindrobber… seems relevant, complete with ‘a’ Master
Paradise Towers… never seen it. Mel. Screaming. I understand Richard Briars was awful in it. Some significant child actors though, maybe… can anyone help me?
Remembrance of the Daleks… full on Cartmel Plan story… soon followed by Silver Nemesis… working title ‘The Harbinger!’
12 November 2024 at 10:26 #76986US Election/Ukraine/Gaza…?
Moffat reworks his favourite themes… of course he does… but while this was being written it was Ukraine that was hot. What does the west contribute to the Ukraine war: tech. When it was broadcast, Gaza made the story particularly erm… poignant. More relevant than ever. Especially the faith element.
Why is Gaza so brutal? (beware simplifications but…) This is Putin’s model for urban destruction: Grozny, Syria, Mariopol. We’re going to see more of this. Perhaps, in the end, we may choose to sanction our ‘errant friend’… because their enemies are probably worse.
Will we really kick the door in and watch the Russian barn collapse? History says not. It’s not ‘the economy stupid,’ because Putin doesn’t think he needs much of an economy while he still has fear. Of course the end game might be Putin’s death, but not because Joe begged someone to kill him. I winced at the time, but really, where is a sensitive bloodsoaked tyrant supposed to look?
I could go on about US isolationism and indeed the Monroe Doctrine but, if you’re squatting on the really nice bit of like a WHOLE continent, why throw stones at someone else’s slum?
If Moff had built negotiation rather than surrender into the narrative, it would have been even stronger. That’s what happened with Smile. Boom is a good story though.
Any thoughts re October 5th?? Worth a rewatch just for that bit.
11 November 2024 at 16:37 #76981This is a difficult watch… for the right reasons. And that sounds a bit trite. I commented at the time that the story was ‘timely’ and I put that in quotation marks, not because I’m quoting myself or anyone else but you wonder why a soft sci fi show should be our conscience. For today. At the time, I thought/hoped certain on-going events would be resolved by now. And there you are.
So, this is no way Moffat’s fault. The story harkens back to numerous elements of the Moffat legendarium: militant Anglicans, bad stuff in the mud, malfunctioning tech, and Villengard.
It’s uncomfortable because the story takes the probably not apocryphal recruiting panel question ‘what would you do if your_____ was_____ by the____?’ and replaces it with ‘what would you do as a father?’ Then Moff invites us to surrender, like 12 in Mummy on the Orient Express. Well, would Gandhi have surrendered to Hitler? Dylan wrote both ‘Masters of War’ and ‘When The Ship Comes In’ remember, but not Culture Club’s ‘The War Song.’
Perhaps Moff is saying there are few genuine zero sum games, and nasty people can take up strong negotiating positions. What are you actually going to do? Is it that can’t negotiate with an algorithm? Or is the problem that you find negotiation distasteful?
This sounds like I have an agenda, but personally I haven’t got past the last point.
This story is actually bigger than Who. Difficult.
Best bit… ‘sharp scratch!’ And ‘thoughts and prayers’.
Significant elements:
the Snowflake… yes I connect that with the Snowmen.
Munday Flynn… Sunday, Monday, Tuesday (Marti from 73 yards) are the days of Who when exiled from Saturday. Of course the Christmas episodes have been every day of the week.
October 5th. Didn’t spot that first time round… 3 DW stories were broadcast on Oct 5th and NOT Boom: Mindrobber, Paradise Towers, and Remembrance of the Daleks.
10 November 2024 at 19:40 #76978Ok tonight I rewatch Boom. I have been studying Smiley’s People, wondering where Lacon got the General’s keys, but tis the season to get Whoish.
Couldn’t really be bothered with Babies or Chord. They weren’t THAT bad. Maybe I’ll get back into it. And the 14 Specials.
Boom of course hearkens back to Empty Child/Doctor Dances and ALL that FILTHY innuendo. tsk, shall I ever be clean? So Rogue… no surprise surely?
Still think it’s all a (Gallifreyan) Matrix stylee recap, chaps and chapesses.
3 November 2024 at 19:25 #76968Great DW non-human aliens tend to be monsters.
The Boneless, for instance, seem to be relentlessly inimical; how would The Doctor deal with ‘nice’ Boneless, how would they manifest, one trick pony or superpowered? I mention them because they are reminiscent of Azimov’s race that has three sexes/larval forms (The Gods Themselves) who are trying to induce the physical rules of their universe into ours, hoping to blow up the sun thus supplying themselves with perpetual power. But there are also ethical weirdo aliens who object.
David Walliams’ Tivolian was droll, Paul Kaye in Before The Flood was less good. Toby Whithouse probably ‘owns’ them; if we got Toby back as part of the package, I would be quite happy.
In the classic series, Nyssa and Adric were both aliens. Peter Davison was reluctant for the showrunner to write out Nyssa because he thought The Doctor ought to relate closely to her… as an alien. But she was basically human, and the scripts were awful. They wrote just as badly for Adric who was adolescent and apparently on the spectrum… I hesitate to say that combination is the next thing to alieness.
Obviously, many of my suggestions were crack. The human companion is supposed to be a foil to The Doctor but it’s normally the Doctor who instructs as you imagine. Clara is sassy but only Donna ever challenges him. Tasha (obviously before she became a lady-pope so NOT super-powered), a nameless Kaled, or an Ood would ask The Doctor very different questions, which I imagine is what you’re after.
But could all the writers cope with a non-human companion? The track record (with Nardole in mind) is not good.
Gentleman Jack is a Brit biographical drama about a C19th cross dressing female land owner… an upper class Jenny basically. The Daily Mail is a ‘serious’ right wing tabloid which wouldn’t tolerate anything resembling that.
2 November 2024 at 19:14 #76966interesting points there…
Nardole… he kind of lost the script when a humorous companion was abruptly not required/not written half way through the series. Bill Potts had similar issues… great acting, love the character, but once her Mum had saved the mind of the World, it was pretty much a set up for the darkness of the final two-parter. Great writing, but Bill deserved more.
So, though writers can lose the plot with companions (in Classic Who that was the case for anyone who showed too much gumption and/or didn’t scream enough), I’m afraid Moff ran out of road.
Silurian companion? Well, we had the Paternoster Gang. I laughed. How about 14 finds Vashtra? I know it was supposed to be during a tube line construction but instead how about a visit to the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum complete with a Donald Trump Terrorbird character insisting it’s going to get cold real soon. Ncuti carts her round the universe for a series and then we have a mutli Doctor story including 11 who takes her back to Georgian/Victorian times where she receives an education from Gentleman Jack. Complaints from The Mail ensue.
Bowel evacuating people. Hmmm. Unfilmable. So was Foundation and I am giving it a try but I suspect it shouldn’t have been filmed.
Possible ‘sympathetic’ alien species.
Sentient Tree Humanoids. Fire extinguisher obligatory.
Vinvocci (+shimmer??) Wilf, those cactus comments were pretty offensive.
Zocci! (Cyborg enhancement not necessary).
Cyberman (or woman or whatever orientation) with modified emotional inhibitor (thanks Doc).
Kaled! Pre Davros obvs. No way you can tell him/her they’re human. Maybe a bit of historical denial happening??
Silence. The Doctor keep forgetting he’s travelling with someone. Aaahh! You surprised me…
Tasha Lem! Yes! Oh but she’s human. Does urban count as alien?
Ood? Why not? Seriously, why?
Jim the Fish. Could he be a Heth?
However, where DW scores over Star Trek is in the facial prosthetic department: aliens are more alien; Planet of Hats NOT.
27 October 2024 at 21:55 #76957To tell the truth I need to rewatch The Blind Banker. But, as I remember, Sherlock grabs an A-Z off a couple in the street. Isn’t that the point? The Mind Palace is a concentration and abstract of reality, while the book is something anyone might possess (before the days of google maps and satnav). The medium should be experienced in the frame of the world, as you would open a book or watch a program in life, not translated into numbers and then reinterpreted. As would AI.
But who would have guessed in 2010, that the A-Z would soon be irrelevant? Imagine the rewrite: ‘no John, all the victims had THIS one book in their flats, a publication entirely irrelevant in the age of smartphones and universal data coverage. Why do you think that should that be?’
The Mind Palace has been vandalised. It’s a little scary.
26 October 2024 at 12:14 #76953@dentarthurdent
Sherlock…He’s digital. But analogue is more mind-palacey.
Also this reflects the pace of technological change. The Blind Banker was 14 years ago. Who had heard of algorithms in 2010? In the previous episode Sherlock had to painstakingly explain smart phones and their potential.
You could say he was doing it for the benefit of Lestrange and Anderson.
You could say, at the time, the majority of the population still had brick phones. The smart phone featured because that told the audience that Sherlock was being updated. It was quite a radical idea.
But we all know there was some read-through where someone pointed out that no one would get it as it stood.
Sherlock should encounter a forensic ChatGTP program and hack it to win, Kobayashi Maru stylee. Or has that been done?
26 October 2024 at 10:00 #76952DW with no disaster??? Disaster would seem to be a dramatic necessity. Therefore The Fam might be seen as a ploy to rewrite said rule. A disastrous one of course.
Stupid coincidence is more of an issue.
Sleep No More. Oops Clara ‘accidentally’ fell into of those sinister looking coffins. ‘Doctor… perhaps it’s a bed. Let’s try it out’ might be more convincing.
Empress of Mars. ‘I’ve fallen down a hole and, when Nardole went back for the ropes, the Tardis disappeared. For no reason.
Black Orchid. Just no reason. Unless it’s ‘lets show what an idiot Adric is before we fire him at Chicxulub.’
19 October 2024 at 22:37 #76944bigeneration… hmmm. Why? Make sure you have Tennant on tap if the crits turn nasty?
Past evidence? Seriously, for all RTD’s bluster, there’s nothing to be seen except for… 2. We never actually saw him become 3. He whirled about a bit saying ‘oh no’ and ‘my giddy aunt’, then… six months later… Pertwee just falls out of the Tardis.
The thing is Ruth has the same Tardis. Not the Death Star Elevator we saw 1 shuffle into. And not an American Diner. That was definitely a cop box with a cheap MFI interior. And a hat stand.
Could the watcher be Ruth after an explosion in a flour mill?
Also, wherefore The Valeyard? Was there suddenly a bad regeneration? I suppose, if you stand in a lake long enough, a fish will die.
What exactly IS The Valeyard? What exactly are ‘the darker sides of The Doctor’s nature?’ Could it be the result of someone invading his time stream? The face from The Rogue Scan?
If so, Clara also invaded The Doctor’s time stream. Will she turn up as a bigeneration?
The Curator? Well, we’ve seen Secret Agent Doc (3), Tudor Nob Doctor (10), Monk/Victorian Misanthrope Doc (11) and Mad Professor Doc (12)…
The concept of Curator Doc strikes me as being a bit sessile.
17 October 2024 at 10:40 #76939obvs I’m not a fan of Chibnall, so my agreement is guaranteed.
Personally, I don’t really care if the Tardis is the derelict council building from Invasion of Time, or the Doctor speaks like a Monty Python pepperpot, so long as the story makes sense and they left The Fam at home.
At the time I thought it couldn’t get worse. Hahaha.
17 October 2024 at 08:47 #76938The series… 4 good, 2 questionable, 2 (the finale) bad. My theory is it all takes place within a reconstituted Matrix (DW NOT Keeanu Reeves).
I still have a few spare straws if you need something to clutch.
My familiarity with The Mabinogion is cursory. The story of Tigernos, whose horses keep being stolen and cuts off the arm of the monster responsible is pretty remarkable… the British riff on Beowulf and Grendel??
10 October 2024 at 19:30 #76930I assume Rose 2 will eventually be given her own arc.
The Meep was launched from a cartoon. That was fun. And cartoony!
I think everyone assumed The V’linx was from the same place. I asked the question at the time and I got no answer.
The V’linx would seem to be a neologism; either it sprang fully formed Rusty’s Mighty Brain, or you need to knock the letters together.
It’s product of technology… Vinvocci? Cyber? Dalek? Gallifreyan?
V
Link
A link to someone called V… something… presumably not lizards…
ah! Vinvocci?? No, they could never compete with the NHS… not even if Trump got back in.
It’s on the tip of my tongue…
Something… associated with the letter V…
Someone to do with The Doctor…
Or Kate, Mel… Victoria…
Obviously nothing at all to do with REG.
I give up.
7 October 2024 at 17:04 #76926Straight in there with Adric… well! He was, of course, no thesp. His debut was ok, but come Logopolis, you can hear Tom Baker’s teeth grinding. Nonetheless, the source of magnificent legendarium. Campari vomit in Castrolvalva? You got it!
Great send off too. But Jamie is the best male companion (not a lot of competition)
Leela. Yes! Robots of Death… yes, yes, YES! Favourite line: ‘do not throw hands at me!’
You ignored Liz Shaw. Boo!
Peri was ridiculous and I wept with laughter. Mel made me weep and then leave the room. She was ridiculous.
Ace was Ace.
6 October 2024 at 16:39 #76924Forgive me if someone got here ahead of me.
The actual anniversary of Susan!!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly6kx3ywq4o
So! No impersonators???
Pity. I always thought Wilf’s phantasm woman might be her. It’s in the eyes…
24 August 2024 at 19:41 #76883I believe, but don’t quote me, that whitdoc wouldn’t boogie for anyone but Zchib. So that scenario would seem to be a non-starter. Yes! Gatwa was a busy boy last year, and they had to get the 60th anniversary thing in the can.
But think what you could do with 2 Doctors! Apart from bum around Seville shiving restauranteurs and perving up Peri. 14 can’t simply be watching the racing in the hostelries of Chiswick.10/14 could be the darkest doctor. Good Queen Bess will attest to that! Bring it on!
And what do we actually know about The Division? They’ve been there as long as the Timelords. So they could be there in earlier Who, getting up all sorts of nefarious stuff couldn’t they? But they couldn’t wipe everybody’s brain all the time, which is how come The Universe had to go.
Actually, no has been prepared to straight-jacket me and stick me in front of TTC + T’Floox yet, so I shouldn’t really comment.re the Ruth’s policebox tardis… was the impossible girl directing 1 & Susan to the right Death Star elevator yet another bit of Division flim flam? In Zchib’s dreams maybe.
And wherefore REG? And what exactly is the Vlinx??
24 August 2024 at 10:11 #76880Who is to say 14 is gratuitous? Who is to say he a positive incarnation? This is the same Timelord Invictus who wasted a whole regeneration to preserve himself. His metacrisis version commits genocide and is viewed by the original as ‘born of battle full of blood and anger and revenge’ just as he was. Perhaps he contains an ‘amalgamation of the darker sides of his nature??’
The War Doctor and Fugitive Doctor were in The Rogue scan but 10/14 only appeared once. The shock face was REG. REG/GI insinuated himself into the Doctor’s timeline at Trenzalore.
What exactly is the Vlinx… the ‘V’ link??
By the way the only regeneration NOT seen on screen (if you don’t count McCoy in the Colin Baker wig) is 2/3, a regeneration forced by the Timelords… or was that actually The Division? It could have even been another bigeneration. btw Bernard Horsfall, the chief Timelord in The War Games, turned up again as Goth in The Deadly Assassin…
The Fugitive Doctor’s Tardis is a police box; why if Ruth predates 1?
16 August 2024 at 16:15 #76867RTD Christmas Specials, apart from EoT, but more specifically VoD, were serviceable but a bit drab. The Next Doctor was a regeneration tease, and part of the Doctor sans companion arc. I liked Dervla Kirwan… oh and ‘that is designated A LIE!’
We’re comparing that with Moff, who turned Christmas Who into a fantastic panto-like experience. The second, The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe (which turned out to be card box didn’t it?) underwhelmed, but criticism is a bit unfair; there were a lot of nice touches. Maybe it’s the cast. I mean everyone is good these days, but you can’t always have Michael Gambon. He made Christmas Carol. How nervous must Matt Smith have been, playing against him??
Later Moff xmas fare? I’ve heard people knock Dr Mysterio and it’s ‘Brixtonesque Manhattan’ but it was charming really.
The Snowmen was odd because not everybody lived. A redemption story ought to be appropriate… but can you successfully splice redemption and continuity? It’s just a little uncomfortable.
‘Husbands’ was fantastic. Probably didn’t do Moff’s Who career any favours and the final shot was a bit ill judged. Otherwise, the only time Greg Davies made me laugh: ‘do NOT put the head in the bag!’
Last Christmas was a thing of wonder… though I still wonder about the volcanic landscape at the end.
The Time of the Doctor… the beginning promised so much. Exposition: never use it but, if you do, make a deal at the crossroads. The actual regeneration scene was very moving. A curate’s egg.
Twice Upon a Time… was fine. Subtle stuff, like the western front meshed with the crapsack woild of ‘unshelled’ daleks. The dialogue between the Doctors. Jobs for loyal allies. Underwhelming? Well, it is the other Moff regeneration story… it’s not an evil plot, but it is half way through the dark.
Well done.
15 August 2024 at 15:51 #76862@dentarthurdent @nerys @janetteb
AU… alternative universe: generally it adds a new perspective to the run of the mill stuff we’ve become too comfortable with. Always tell a story 2 different ways if you can.
exposition… it’s a sign that the story can’t be resolved through narrative and really doesn’t add anything.
So Family of Blood. The voice over at the end, mixing science and fantasy is supposed to be the Baines Scarecrow. How is he stuck there? And how does he protect England? How do you trap a girl in a mirror? Event Horizon? Cool, but at what point does Mum get sufficiently irradiated? One feature of the messy end to what should have continued as a fantastic story.
The Time of The Doctor. An unusual Christmas Story. I loved the first twenty minutes: Clara’s Turkey, Tasha Lem talking urban, but the siege was rubbish and the voice over a very unsatisfying filling in of the stuff that hadn’t been explained in series 6. Without explaining most of it. Again. Actually that is probably the worst Moff story.
The End Of Time. Skeletor vs Food. ‘They’re going to BE me!’ ‘Financial Crisis? Deleted!’ But then it kicked off with Prisoner Cell Block H. Hmmm. And part 2 was quite tedious in places. Here, the exposition, like Sardik in A Christmas Carol, was an attempt to ‘do’ Christmas. RTD obviously HATES Christmas so Dalton treats us to the full 9 lessons. Annoying. Didn’t get it at first. But allowable. The real problem is the story is overlong.
Lastly Fugitive of the Judoon. It was pretty incoherent. I wanted to know about Lee. Open goal really. That could have been a 2 parter if not a properly constructed arc. And police box tardis?? We’ve discussed this. Wherefore Impossible Girl’s sales rap in Name of the Doctor? Is it a mistake? Is Ruth really post 1? I go back to 2’s regeneration…
15 August 2024 at 15:51 #76861@dentarthurdent @nerys @janetteb
AU… alternative universe: generally it adds a new perspective to the run of the mill stuff we’ve become too comfortable with. Always tell a story 2 different ways if you can.
exposition… it’s a sign that the story can’t be resolved through narrative and really doesn’t add anything.
So Family of Blood. The voice over at the end, mixing science and fantasy is supposed to be the Baines Scarecrow. How is he stuck there? And how does he protect England? How do you trap a girl in a mirror? Event Horizon? Cool, but at what point does Mum get sufficiently irradiated? One feature of the messy end to what should have continued as a fantastic story.
The Time of The Doctor. An unusual Christmas Story. I loved the first twenty minutes: Clara’s Turkey, Tasha Lem talking urban, but the siege was rubbish and the voice over a very unsatisfying filling in of the stuff that hadn’t been explained in series 6. Without explaining most of it. Again. Actually that is probably the worst Moff story.
The End Of Time. Skeletor vs Food. ‘They’re going to BE me!’ ‘Financial Crisis? Deleted!’ But then it kicked off with Prisoner Cell Block H. Hmmm. And part 2 was quite tedious in places. Here, the exposition, like Sardik in A Christmas Carol, was an attempt to ‘do’ Christmas. RTD obviously HATES Christmas so Dalton treats us to the full 9 lessons. Annoying. Didn’t get it at first. But allowable. The real problem is the story is overlong.
Lastly Fugitive of the Judoon. It was pretty incoherent. I wanted to know about Lee. Open goal really. That could have been a 2 parter if not a properly constructed arc. And police box tardis?? We’ve discussed this. Wherefore Impossible Girl’s sales rap in Name of the Doctor? Is it a mistake? Is Ruth really post 1? I go back to 2’s regeneration…
14 August 2024 at 21:03 #76857@nerys @dentarthurdent @janetteb
It’s interesting that there seems to be broad agreement here… I guess that a lot of the chosen episodes either show:
a strong sci fi idea
or a good spiky script ala Moff, even if it’s not Moff
Moff and Mathieson alone deliver both the swerves and the big image… this is what foxed everyone in Empty Child/Dances. It’s gasmask zombies and The Doctor’s valediction for the Time War but actually it does seem to be the start of a ménage à trois. Or we are misreading the script? Let’s face it, we’re not.
Personally, I like,
AU
reference to speculative physics that isn’t dumb
ditto classic sci fi, ditto not dumb.
Don’t like…
exposition. You CAN tell and not show. It’s how you do it. Rassilon gives us a sermon. It’s a bit ridiculous but it is Christmas and RTD also delivers The Master Race… after a brief foray into Prisoner Cell Bock H. Well it was brief.
Also Uncritical fantasy. In particular worship of CS Lewis. To paraphrase Pratchett, ‘if you didn’t like him when you were ten, there was something wrong with you. If you still like him when you’re seventeen, you are an Incel.’
Ludicrous plot devices. You get a lot of those. Oh for the complex simplicity of Blink.
Continuity? You got to do it right. And no one will like you for it even if you do manage it.
Bad Moff? Beast Below was a bit average… reworking of an unmade classic script. Not sure about Flesh and Stone/Time of Angels, or Go to War/Kill Hitler. Brilliant bits. Do either really add to the arc? Hitler in the cupboard in 1938, Tesselector rocks up. Hmmm. Are Rory’s actions suddenly a fixed point in time?
13 August 2024 at 22:13 #76852the challenge are to find the best episodes NOT written by Moffat.
As a friend of mine commented Moffat was the best writer for RTD, and also the best writer for Moffat. What of the others? What makes good Who?
To that end, I suggest, aside from the obvious ‘seasons’, the specials and Christmas Specials are their own categories, outside the arc and… into the world.
Or you can just pick your favourite stories, so long as it’s not by Moff. Cos he’s too good.
13 August 2024 at 09:41 #76847Non Moff best eps
Series 1: Dalek. Nu Who has arrived.
Series 2: controversial… Rise of the Cyberman/Age of Steel, but only because I know Love and Monsters would be howled down
Series 3: controversial 2… Human Nature/Family of Blood should do it but it is saddled with that voice over exposition. Boo! The Shakespeare Code was fun. Expelliarmus!
Series 4: Turn Left. Midnight was excellent too but I like AU. Strong series.
Series 5: Amy’s Choice
Series 6: The Doctors Wife… though God Complex was a worthy challenger. Strong series, pity about Go to War and Hitler.
Series 7: Power of Three?? A Zchib story?? If not then Hide
Series 8: Flatline just pips Mummy on the Orient Express
Series 9: some people like the Zygon story but I found it a bit tiresome. Under the Lake/Before the Flood is flawed but pretty out there.
Series 10: Oxygen
Series 11: Scrape that barrel! It Takes You Away for originality
Series 12: Villa of the Wicked Poets for addressing the Lady Doctor issue. And good dialogue. Well dialogue rather than muh muhmuh muh
Series 13: no no no I can’t do it mummy!
Series 14: Dot and Bubble. 73 yards was fantastic too but I don’t understand it (yet)
Specials, sundry, all eras: Waters of Mars. But only because End of Time is a Christmas Special
Christmas Specials: ironically, Voyage of the Damned
12 August 2024 at 09:45 #76843Not just Jack.
”Yes! Much bigger on the inside.”
And Rose’s reply/aside.
The Doctor’s Wife was fantastic. Michael Sheen, super voice ACTOR! And Uncle and Auntie. And the return of the Gallifreyan message boxes… last seen in The War Games.
Similar, but different, was Amy’s Choice with super creepy Toby Jones.
Best non-Moff story for each season anyone?
12 August 2024 at 00:46 #76839Careful on that roof!
What I liked, in hindsight, just in case the viewer still hadn’t got it, is Mickey meeting Captain Jack in Boom Town. ‘Is cheesy good or bad?’
Also, someone noted, the bit when Moonlight Serenade comes to an end and In The Mood strikes up… from waltz to swing! Truly, the Whovians are mere innocents to RTD and Moff.
Also the Squareness Gun and The Doctor’s sonic… is that a nod to Hollywood comedy where progressively bigger guns get pulled?
10 August 2024 at 19:44 #76837More incoming! They think we’re all dead. Maybe we need to make some chat.
Empty Child/Doctor Dances for instance… unbelievable innuendo. In fact, beyond innuendo, I really didn’t get it at the time…
More interesting stuff.
Please!
4 August 2024 at 21:15 #76821I did warn you
28 July 2024 at 09:50 #76812@robertcaligari @dentarthurdent @devilishrobby
Any story can crippled by acting, production, or effects (remember Capdoc on the prop horse in The Woman Who Lived?) but Whovians like to think the show lives or dies by the script/story.
Sometimes villains remain on their backside (Sutekh, numerous Master stories, The Gatherer) sometimes it’s The Doctor (Boom, Extremis, Flatline); as a means of telling a story it can be as valid as any number of corridor dashes.
I wonder if it’s the use of CGI that degrades story telling, or the proliferation of story-boarding. Directors in the ‘70’s or 80’s frequently vandalised a good script by making the shoot static and stagey, but if you didn’t have the effects, you had to go back to people talking to each other on camera. Once you can achieve almost anything that can be represented in a drawing, this erodes the opportunity for actors to act and writers to amuse and horrify.
Or worse, you write through the story board.
‘Ooh. We can do this twist!’
’Er… That makes no sense.’
’Yes. But it’s s twist. Twists are good. And we can fit in another bang.’
Jodie Whittaker: I thought the convincing part of her interpretation was the frequent deployment of the bewildered expression.
Otherwise, a feature of all The Doctors is their annoying idiosyncrasies. Reading The Lady Doctor as ‘being Mom’ is more than a bit iffy. This was the showrunner’s call I assume. And the scripts were awful. The good script writers had been ditched.
McGann… I always think of neurotic ‘I’ from Withnail. It might have been a good fit. As much as I enjoyed John Hurt’s War Doctor, I would have loved to see McGann becoming ‘Woobie Destroyer of Worlds’ in Day of the Doctor.
27 July 2024 at 18:03 #76804Web of Fear… I remember watching this. Rather liked The Yetis as a nipper. All the critters from this era made a big impression. I suppose identifiable mooks are good for kids.
The pictures of Jasper are horrific. When the UK had its record breaking day (40 degrees) 2 years ago about a 1/4 of a village called Wennington went up in flames. Tiny place. The fire started in an over-heated compost heap. Many years before I would cycle down the high street on the way to work… just a row of Victorian cottages and a 4 square medieval church. But it was the first rural place outside London. Familiar. Very much of a shock. Homes visibly destroyed. Horses running in panic. Nothing to what a Mediterranean country faces most years.
The reality of climate change is dwarfs the relevant debates and political manoeuvrings around what ought to be possible.
25 July 2024 at 10:20 #76794Apologies, I too tend to oversimplify.
I suppose most ‘just stop’ agitation is bound to appear self defeating, but no plastic recycling technology was available in the early 70’s when plastic was considered relatively neutral in the environment. But concerns were already being raised then. Fifty years later we see the threat of microplastics.
It does look as if it may be possible to prevent plastic introduction to the ocean via estuarine capture, but most plastic recycling is one generation only, if it takes place at all. Let’s face it, historically, most ‘recycling’ was actually export. Incineration is vastly polluting. Is there really no option for widespread ‘feedstock’ recycling? If ever there was a role for green energy, it is there (hey! Let’s do the plastic recycling on sunny and windy days).
Industrial and tech plastic recycling should be easily managed because of the higher value components retrieved. But you still need to make the plastic elements amenable to reuse. That must be a role for international governmental intervention. Any objection is pseudo ideological, in that no one espouses an ideology anymore… it’s just power = money… drill baby drill.
In short, plastic packaging could be largely eliminated, with some difficulty, but it has to be done with international agreement, or you’ll just import the problem or export it to BRICS and Wagnerland.
It will, I’m afraid, be a globally warmed world but let’s not make it a Paleocene/Eocene thermal maximum… I assume a Permian/Triassic event is beyond us… famous last words. Saving our civilisation is enough… if fear it will become a ghastly Spartan autocracy but let’s see.
It is happening. Even tRump knows it must happen, but he can’t turn down donations, just like our own delightful Mr Rees-Mog.
Plastics need to be sorted pretty quickly. My advice: wear sandals on the beach.
24 July 2024 at 21:40 #76791Harris vs Trump… it does seem like a contest again. I don’t know enough about that particular political system to comment really… to quote John Cleese in Clockwise, ‘it’s not the despair, but the hope I can’t stand.’
Trump was quoted as saying Harris is ‘very, very nasty and disrespectful’, and some time ago as I remember but Donald always doubles down. We can expect more of that. Now I am struck by the irony, the paradox of the man. For all his poisonous moronisms, and obscene wealth display, it turns out all he really wants is respect?
Nasty and disrespect of course means woman and not white.
The planet? You need a supervolcano or maybe a bolide to make it uninhabitable, if only for of a few years. We’ll be gone long before the planet is uninhabitable, though I’m not sure anyone has effectively speculated how that end would look. Not all armageddons are equal and many are cliched. But the biosphere will be changed.
I wish the people in the firing line would effectively get on the case of those applying inertia against progressive climate policy. The money knows what’s up but it takes so much time to adjust the portfolio. So fiddly.Just stop oil is dumb. How? When? Now, just stop plastic? The public might buy that. And that might really be awkward for the petrochemical industry.
Apathy is entirely misplaced. It’s not everyone’s fault or particularly inevitable; the money will try to get out while making us pay, the tyrants will use the pressure to destroy the west. Who needs the will of the people? That will never deliver sustainability. Trust me comrad. There never was a Sea of Azov. And Shanghai was always smog city.
22 July 2024 at 00:30 #76784Dalek Sec? That story could have been interesting. The daleks are a parody of racial supremacist ideology and mechanised warfare. But they’re as rubbish as Cybermen unless they interact with humans. So Evil of the Daleks, Resurrection and Revelation (to an extent). Dalek and Parting of the Ways. Asylum and Into the Dalek. These all ask ‘are we a bit dalek?’
Why do The Cult go to 1930’s Manhattan? You see if they didn’t all die Hamlet stylee, we might end up with Man in the High Castle.
So, lots of potential, not really thought through. Sec’s conversion to humanity was visually brilliant and thoroughly unconvincing. And/or the Doctor too easily fooled.
Also it has Sec intentionally jump in front of a bullet. Energy ray. Never mind would he do it? I can’t stand that. People can put themselves in the line fire. Slowly, compared to the bullet. Or ray, if you must. Or the wrong person can get hit. No one ever jumped into a bullet. Or ray.
19 July 2024 at 19:58 #76780@blenkinsopthebrave @janetteb @whohar
What pleases the Whoheads is probably not going to please a new audience across the pond, whoever the paymaster is.
Having said that there are hints Boom, 73 Yards, Dot and Bubble, and Rogue had a better reception. Which you would expect. Did that translate into numbers. Is Russ trying to gauge what might work?
Selling Who to the States is obviously tricky. Terry Nation couldn’t sell the Daleks in the late 60’s. I think Moff pitched for it and failed… too high brow. And not serious enough.
So Zchib was given the job: too no-brow… I mean, what was it really? Imagine…
Cute little monster.
Yawn.
I can do another story with it?
No thanks, Chris.
What about all the old faves?
I didn’t think you were going to do that? Try and make sense with it… oh…
So Russ probably doesn’t know. Maybe the noise is to keep the Whoheads happy? Hmmm. Sounded better in his head I expect.
13 July 2024 at 09:05 #76755You say bonkers…
Sunday, Monday, Mardi/Matedi/Martes… surely no coincidence. This is about the show under attack from the corporation.
Saturday is named for Saturn, the Roman god of time, generation, dissolution, abundance, and periodic renewal. But there are also associations with Saetere a German deity possibly related to… Loki!
Going back to Doc 1, Galaxy 4 is a September story and you could equate the Finetime Flakes with the glamorous Drahvins in that they both subscribe to the fake cutie trope.
All but one episode was wiped but apparently the story was a dog.
12 July 2024 at 23:10 #76753OK… returning to an earlier theme… stay with me on this…
Ruby Sunday… references the move of Zchib’s Who to that day of the week.
Munday (Flynn, Boom) & Marti (Bridges, 73 yards) = dies martis, the day of Mars, that is Tuesday… these are the two days of the week to which Doctor 5 was exiled.
Ricky September… I got quite excited by the idea that the autumnal Who series started with Trial of a Timelord followed by 7’s aborted tenure (and the Cartmel masterplan). It turns out Doctors 1, 2 and 4 all featured September stories. Oh well, ignorant as I am of much of 1, we also have Cybermen, The Mind Robber, Zygons, The Mandragora Helix, Rutans, Guardians (boo), Daleks, Foamasi and Argolins (one of my faves actually), or the Valeyard, the Rani (boo again), finally UNIT and all that Arthurian nonsense…??
Take your pick. Obviously, I imagined Russ was going all meta on us, and it was just be the V person. Still, interesting selection.
12 July 2024 at 20:56 #76752Who knew Villengaard also made spacesuits?!!
11 July 2024 at 11:16 #76749Well… is that good art? For any reason? If the fans keep making noise we’ll keep getting this nonsense.
In any case, Russ can never say ‘yes, that’s what it is. You’re absolutely right,’ before the reveal. Or there would be no reveal.
Is this the real divide with those who sporadically want to forget continuity and reduce the show to a soap (in which the only continuity can be cliche?)
The soufflé is the recipe. The recipe is continuity. And Russ is probably going to play all the right notes… but maybe not in the right order.
9 July 2024 at 09:39 #76744Project 2025…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c977njnvq2doThe Handmaid’d Tale…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmaid%27s_Tale
see links in this article to The Moral Majority & Christian Coalition.
The Left (and I) would say the root of this is ‘The Lost Cause’
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cause_of_the_Confederacy
You WASP women aren’t having enough kids! Hey, we’ll sell it as religion.
Well, many planets have a north and most countries have myth. The UK’s is either The Mother of Parliaments or The Greatest Generation. Now, I am very grateful indeed not to be part of either Reich or Soviet, but there were more than a few non-politically minded dark angels present and correct Sah! Thank goodness for tea and bromide!
8 July 2024 at 21:44 #76736La Nina may be warm and settled for Europe; El Nino, relatively wet and cool. But the engine for the phenomena is on the other side of the world and the results often masked by solar activity and volcanoes going off.
I hate the heat. El Nino is for me, quite literally, cool.
8 July 2024 at 20:48 #76734Up until mid June I was happy to say ‘this is normal, you’ve just forgotten what a real British summer is like.’ But the last 5 days have been a tad wet.
To paraphrase tRump, ‘it’ll get warm again real soon. You see.’
Climatic links between Europe and El Nino are speculative (Nino is blamed for poor climate preceding the French Revolution though there were also two serious incidences of Icelandic volcanic activity in the 1780s) but La Nina has dominated from 2017. Those were the years we noticed the heat.
New La Nina predicted next year.8 July 2024 at 19:23 #76732@ dentarthurdent @nerys
2 confessions. I didn’t thoroughly fact check either of my statements. tRump’s actual words were, ‘Nigel is a man who truly loves his country.’ Perhaps there is a subtle difference there somewhere but ‘Gold Lift’ DJT ain’t known for his subtlety is he?
Project 2025… my comment was very off the cuff. Sorry. I have now read up on it. Yeah. It is terrifying. Still, it would seem to be a development (I hesitate to say evolution) of the ambitions of The Moral Majority and Christian Coalition in the 80’s, the very ideologues who Atwood satirised in THT.
In the ‘80’s even the right in Britain looked at the American right as very special lunatics. ‘They’ll start another civil war,’ was the normal muttered dismissal. I don’t think anyone here realised it wasn’t just nutty religion but the historical negationism of the Lost Cause coming home to roost. Revanchism and irredentism within your own borders and constitution. This ain’t going away. These people will just keep throwing mud at the wall.
Actually, I really don’t think tRump is that keen. Too high brow. Not mean and vindictive enough.
The mud at wall method was also utilised by ‘the nine entities’ of Tufton Street, heavily backed by Koch bros and Mercer, and responsible for the trajectory of the Truss premiership. In their mind they only have to get it right once, a bit like a suicide bomber.
8 July 2024 at 14:27 #76729Thanks for the reply, and no problems being late. The more considered the better.
My own position? I do like to talk up this version of the show. I did not like Zchib’s and 13. The first female Doctor (if you ignore Ruth) deserved better writing… as it was, it got so bad that I can’t comment on Yaz post Fam. Couldn’t watch it. Yes, I’ll have to sometime.Otherwise, eps 3-6 were both mystifying and extremely strong. IMHO. The first two of the series were underwritten… RTD probably didn’t want to give too much away. Or they were just bad. The last two annoyed a lot of people (here). We suspect misdirection.
This is what we hope.
OK, sensitive 15 Doc seems to be a thing. Maybe you never considered or can’t bear to watch Classic Who. Well, it did define uneven. But the Doctor, for the most part, defeats his enemies with cricket balls and crystals, screw drivers and helium. Buck Rogers NOT.
Donna was an attempt to find a companion who wasn’t a love interest but she still needed to have some reason to be there. Russ obviously likes the character. Her return came over to me as a better resolution than the Amy or Clara arcs. Though are we certain everything is really over there?
Which brings us back to 10/14: the bigeneration. Soft Doc 15 WAS the one who ended up with no trousers. Remember hand Doc? Human, suspect and full of anger? Dumped in another dimension? What HAS happened to 14? Did he get dusted by Sutekh? And whose was the strange face seen in Rogue’s scan?
Not all had better be as it seems. Patience.
7 July 2024 at 19:13 #76727Donald denies having anything to do it. As Mandy Rice Davies would say, ‘well, he would, wouldn’t he.’
Otherwise the project and the tale… what came first? The answer is the Lost Cause.
7 July 2024 at 10:04 #76724@blenkinsopthebrave @dentarthurdent @mudlark @nerys @ craig
Well, in current circumstances, and particularly after the 1999 reform, discussion of tHoL is a bit like turning your lounger so you can better admire D-28.
But… is a bicameral system needed or are they all based on the model of tHoL?
What would I like? More effective checks and balances. Less theatre. Rename it the House of Peers (=equals). Genuine expertise. No more coronets. No timeservers. Real safeguards against manipulation. Smaller. More teeth in key areas… but no absolute veto and obviously no control of ‘money bills’.
Some of those things are already there. Some are blindingly obvious.
In the ‘beige’ discussion, did someone mention Attlee? Apparently Churchill denied saying Attlee ‘had much to be modest about’… and I wonder if that was because it obviously sounded like one of his more inebriated and illogical pronouncements.
I’m not a huge admirer of Churchill or Thatcher but they both regarded him as a patriot. That Trump uses the same word to describe Farage makes my teeth grind.
7 July 2024 at 01:15 #76721@mudlark @dentarthurdent @blenkinsopthebrave @nerys @craig
What do we have?
Starmer’s government seem to acknowledge the limitations of their mandate, which is awfully humble of them. But they already sound a bit like a man trying to get out of a straight jacket. This hole is not going to be scaled by some Johnsonesque wheeze or flim flam.
I’m not anti PR… but it doesn’t solve the issue of people who don’t want to participate or rule within the framework of democracy. In other words is the problem people who don’t want to vote, maybe never have… or others who think it a waste of time when you could solve ‘your’ problems with baseball bats and bullets?
Because people like this are fixing the courts. Internationally. Like Orban, they only have to get in once and then it’s gone.
Which is my biggest problem with PR… sooner or later the likes of Farage will make themselves power brokers. To tell the truth Nige himself is probably just a windbag, but he could enable someone more dangerous.
Ironically, Meloni and Le Pen might assist Starmer in that they could demolish Shengen between them. Of course that’s just transferring the misery; the movement of people won’t stop until there is a solution to the religious, sectarian and climate issues in the ‘donor’ countries. Perhaps this is what Starmer has in mind. Seems like a tall order even before you take Wagner into account.
But I did enjoy listening to The Associates! Did you notice Alan Rankine wore a fencing suit and had chopsticks in his hair! Whattaguy!
Anyway, here is Keir c’82, listening to New Gold Dream, whilst waiting for Neil the Hippie to dish up the lentils.
6 July 2024 at 18:08 #76713Alan Rankine feeding a chocolate guitar (from Harrods I believe) to the audience on TotP
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Pj-CJ9FEW28
This was about the time they recorded Sulk. Billy McKenzie thought it was a good idea to feed his Whippets on smoked salmon from room service at The Holiday Inn.
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