Arbutus

I once took a course in Old English from a German prof who simply couldn’t understand that we weren’t all linguistics majors! He expected us to easily make connections that just weren’t always happening for us.

Of topic but reminded me of an English, Medieval Lit lecturer who had the same problem with us, mono lingual Aussie students and o…[Read more]

I have read through page one and made some many notes that I thought I would clear them before embarking on page two.

@bluesqueakpip Re post 33742 Excellent comment about the Doctor’s “defining” moment. I felt by “Mummy” that he was the Doctor but here he announces it. It was well done. Oh and also congratulations for the Graun…[Read more]

@scaryB Thanks for the link to Mathieson’s blog.  I thought the way they referenced Holbein’s skull in the episode was great, and scary.  Also thanks for noticing the Abbott estate – that had passed me by, I tend to look out for the details on a rewatch, which I’m due this evening hopefully.  Regaining health is a long-term plan –  ’nuff sai…[Read more]

@purofilion    @soundworld   Well said, regarding the Doctor’s character and what this episode displayed of it.

@ScaryB   Yes, I have also said before that I would certainly prefer Clara to sort out her issues on her own, rather than having the Doctor or Danny doing it for her!

@BadWulf    Oh, thanks. I am pretty fond of Pyramids of Mars, but t…[Read more]

@purofilion’s use of “buffa” to describe the comic touches in this series is interesting. It reminds me of the classification of many of Shakespeare’s plays, which were called comedies because of the wit of the dialogue and (I think) because, unlike the tragedies, they didn’t end badly.  🙂   And Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni, which he called ope…[Read more]

So many great comments, big and small.

@Bluesqueakpip    So Clara passes the baton; from Smith to Capaldi. He takes the Sonic, and he defeats the monsters.   Nicely put. The Doctor finally, definitely embraces the inner hero that he has been denying all series. A wonderful and (to me) unexpected payoff at the climax of this episode.

Nerd of the…[Read more]

@ScaryB Were the Boneless(?) draining power from the TARDIS? Were they accessing it through the Clara/Doctor “phone” link? The first victim we saw, and the policewoman were both on the phone when the attacks started.

There is definitely an ongoing phone motif in Clara’s story arc. Whether or not this is just an artifact of the show being about…[Read more]

Bloomin’ awesome episode

The Tardis in siege mode looks very like the Pandorica don’t ya think???? (@ScaryB I think you mentioned this first???)

The lying to Danny thing is (in my opinion, and thereby fueled by an intense arabica coffee) is all related to definition of being pushed too far, Clara’s perception of how Danny would perceive “too…[Read more]

@ScaryB

I suspect there may also be elements of – let’s take Colin’s turn as #6 and show how it could have been done.

If that was the strapline Moffat was giving to his writers, it becomes obvious why everyone was saying ‘you need Peter Capaldi’.

I don’t really like the ‘Clara as alcoholic’ thingy because it does have an aura of female trans…[Read more]

@ScaryB – thank you.

Ah, yes. I do sometimes paraphrase. 😳

I didn’t want to say Who nerd supreme because – to be honest – I thought that sounded like I was about to set out my fiendishly complex plan for taking over the entire universe. You know, the one with the over dramatic speech about ‘now, Doctor, I have you in my power!’

Besides, @P…[Read more]

@ScaryB Aha! thought i saw you podding about in the Nethershpere but when we both saw the…oh what? Memory worms you say? I don’t remember that at all. Apart from when we both suddenly woke up shouting at each other across a table…probably not related I’m sure XD

@ScaryB Yes he did call them “the boneless” – I think that was another sonic/ little Doctor joke given that he was pointing it at them at the time.

Graffiti saved the day. And didn’t the shut-down version of the TARDIS look like a miniature Pandorica? 🙂

I liked the shot of the Doctor’s hand scuttling the TARDIS across the railway tracks like a…[Read more]

@ScaryB   Oddly enough, that speech to the monsters at the end –  the equivalent of the  ‘I’m the Doctor.  Basically, run’ line of his preceding  incarnations – was one the bit that jarred for me. It seems to me that, although this Doctor is every bit as, if not more arrogant than Tennant or Smith’s Doctors, his arrogance is much more containe…[Read more]

@ScaryB

There’s a load of stuff in this episode that we’ve been discussing. The ethics of ‘no good choices’ and ‘yeah, but we saved the world’.

Clara’s lies do indeed make Danny sound like a controlling and potentially abusive boyfriend. Is that an accident? She’s lying, after all. Or are her lies coming up with something that she’s…[Read more]

@ScaryB – Yes, I concede he has at least chosen the lesser of two evils off camera during the Time War. And I really enjoy that it is explored further in The Day of the Doctor, and similar ideas this season.

Maybe I’m cynical but I think these sorts of impossible choice would face the Doctor more often, given the life he leads. The real ones,…[Read more]

@wordmuse — as @scaryb says, you don’t need to worry RE. ratings. The show is doing as brilliantly now in terms of audience than ever. And as SM has pointed out, the show is now a global brand. It’s kind of pointless to just focus on UK overnights (which don’t take account of things like time-shifted viewing, iPlayer etc). The final viewing…[Read more]

@mudlark @JimTheFish @scaryB

Ah – Z-cars. I’ve only seen a couple of episodes in retrospectives. I’d love to see more. I think the episodes may be lost now, but I remember that Who producer Barry Letts appeared in the show for a while in one of his acting roles.

@ScaryB

Re his second date accusations of lying – yeah, that was a bit off.

Yeah. What’s even more off about it is that somebody in the school (probably the School Secretary and the Head) would know his original name. The criminal record checks that any teacher has to have (and keep updated) ask for all the names you’ve ever used.

It’s like t…[Read more]

<p style=”text-align: left;”>@ScaryB</p>
<p style=”text-align: left;”>at 31min 21 secs in River says “…he will be trapped in the Nether Space, the void between the worlds”</p>
<p style=”text-align: left;”>so not entirely the same but close…</p>
<p style=”text-align: left;”>and I did not see that on the official website, thanks for pointing…[Read more]

@ScaryB @JimTheFish @mudlark

Allan Prior, co-creator of Z Cars (with Troy Kennedy Martin), was a past President of my old writers’ group. He came along once – not long before he died – and talked about the creation of Z Cars. It really is quite impossible now to grasp how very innovative and daring it was, how very much it was the antithesis of…[Read more]