There is a great deal of catching up for me to do and it is probably a bit late in the day for me to be commenting on this thread, but I got to watch World Enough and Time only yesterday evening and need to collect my thoughts and, for preference, read the comments on that before contributing my ha’p’orth, so I may as well start here.

Given the…[Read more]

@missrori  (Bill)  She freely made the choice to help the Doctor and knew the risks.

But *did* she know the risks?  As far as we’ve seen, she still doesn’t know what a regeneration is, does she?

[Of Razor]  He teaches her to settle for less, to not be so curious, and soon she’s mopping the floors and no longer treating the world around her as a…[Read more]

@soundworld:

Very interesting post. is seems that most of us enjoyed this episode.

Missy

Another well put together standalone episode (with a nice sequence with Missy added on the end). I won’t comment on the historic elements, since others clearly know much more about than I do. @soundworld Agreed that this felt a little longer than usual- the pace wasn’t rushed as the story didn’t demand too much to be completed.

I know it’s tra…[Read more]

@ichabod  I wonder whether taking on the gatekeeper’s job (for however long before devising a way to shut the gate for good) was almost tempting to him, as a respite from all us “kids” and our mistakes and foolishness for a bit . . .

That’s a really interesting reading. In Series 9, the Doctor moaned about the pudding brains, but his attitu…[Read more]

Interesting bit about the Doctor translating. I knew the TARDIS did a sort of auto-translation, so that everyone, whether human or alien (or humans of different languages or eras), understands one another. But how does that explain what happened last week on Mars, when the TARDIS was largely absent? How were Iraxxa and Friday able to understand…[Read more]

@wolfweed. As always great images and links. Loved the Vitamin D pic.

@soundworld You can’t say too much about Scottish history/archaeology. Orkneys are very high on my “to go wish list”. (Every so often I re-watch the Neil Oliver docos on the subject) There are also several stone circles which I have not seen and for family history reasons I am…[Read more]

@soundworld

5000 Romans of the 9th Legion defeated an army of 30,000 Picts – according to the Romans.  It was on their journey back south from this battle that the 9th seems to have disappeared.

when i read this, my gut reaction was “simple propaganda.” most likely the picts defeated the romans, but the leaders back home couldn’t report that, so…[Read more]

Another fine episode, & especially good use of landscape.

The Doctor is quite testy by this point and not his usual self. He struck me as harsh towards the Picts (“embryos”), and acted in a way that went beyond his usual lack of social skills and indicated that he’s getting a bit fed-up dealing with the “children.” The key point I thought came…[Read more]

@arbutus  @soundworld and everybody else who loved this — I loved it too!  It seemed to rip right along, was full of good jokes, and ended with a beautiful set-up for the end of this series — the idea of the Doctor being a tad irresponsible (as well as off-handedly heroic, of course) in signing up for who knows how long as the guardian here, a…[Read more]

Well, an enjoyable tale, perhaps a bit a bit slight, but with some good moments. What I especially liked about it was that it really did have an old Who feel about it. The whole construction of the story, where the Doctor casually lets Bill go wandering off in 2nd century Scotland by herself while he tries to prove his own theory is something that…[Read more]

@soundworld

Maes Howe is a fantastic place to visit. What makes it even better, is the walk down the road past the Stones of Stennes, across the Ness of Brodgar to the Ring of Brodgar; the view across the lochs to the low hills that surround the site (there are various possible landscape alignments as well if (!) I remember correctly). Its then a…[Read more]

@Soundworld  Great post. Particularly interested by your Camster tale. Enlightening!

The Scottish contingent is strong!

The country is steeped in ancient historical sites. Glad that Rona Munro utilised these elements for her story.

Archaeological experts will no doubt be getting their knickers in a twist about all the inaccuracies (like…[Read more]

@soundworld  I really liked the ideas up-thread that Missy might be a regen of the Doctor, although I don’t think that is likely. The Doctor has already made a lot of acknowledgement of his dark side and many moves towards integration, I don’t feel that his character would go through that kind of total flip. His need to have his friend back, and…[Read more]

oops – been away a coupla days so haven’t replied to a few people (bad me!).

@soundworld
When I said I really liked Gomez’s Missy I wasn’t intimating anything lustful (tut tut).
Though she is quite attractive….

No, I really like the way Gomez delivers lines – she seems to find words delicious if that makes sense.

I’m no wordsmith so can only…[Read more]

@soundworld  he would be able to link directly into the ‘hall of records’ and access the full horror of what he went through.

Hmm, a tulku who can visit the akashic “library” — but then wouldn’t he also remember everything about Clara that he’s forgotten, neural blocker or no neural blocker?  kind of undercuts the end of HB for me.  And yes, I…[Read more]

@soundworld  I agree that if any Doctor’s been aware of his dark side, it’s been Twelve.  That was the core of his identity crisis in Series 8, and the Series 9 finale was all about him temporarily slipping into villain mode after his ordeal with Clara’s death, the confession dial, etc., and there was plenty of foreshadowing of how badly he’d t…[Read more]

<p style=”text-align: left;”>@soundworld – ‘warrior’ wasn’t it? But mine too.</p>
<p style=”text-align: left;”>@pedant @nick – the tardis said she ‘always takes you where you need to go’.</p>
<p style=”text-align: left;”>Why did the Tardis need to take Nardole away? When he is clearly not as good as his former boss at driving it? So he had to…[Read more]

@soundworld  Better late than never as me old Mom used to say. I also need to rewatch all 3 together to form a better idea or make a bonkers suggestion. For now I will only say I liked them quite a bit and that I am excited to see how they play out. I was confused by the Doctors part regen and I am so curious to see if it meant anything other t…[Read more]

@soundworld

Unfortunately our Westminster leaders are too in love with gaining absolute power from a minority of the electorate for any form of reform to be impossible. Clegg’s biggest mistake (apart from taking a centre-left party into a right wing  party coalition) was not to insist PR as the price for the deal (not a referendum than nobody…[Read more]