You make some very good points, @tardigrade. The interesting thing is that as Missy firmly clasps the Doctor’s hand, the words she speaks indicate she will not stand with him. But maybe her gesture is “the other mind” side of it. That’s why these “layered” scenes are so good; the layers can lead to many different interpretations.

@tardigrade

I’m sorry, for what was obviously poorly wording, but you have read much more into that phrase than I ever intended. I agree with you, regarding looking at morality outside any religion context. I’m not so sure that faith in some reward in an afterlife necessarily makes much difference.

I certainly didn’t mean to infer or imply this…[Read more]

@tardigrade  Somehow I find it difficult to imagine Missy preparing a confession dial, but perhaps she may have, in the lonely hours in the vault, particularly towards the end, when she began to feel that she had something to confess.

Great point — A Simm Master Confession Dial would have nothing but snarks and boasts, and I don’t think Missy…[Read more]

@tardigrade  We did get the answer to the question “Missy, would it kill you to be kind for once?”. That answer appears to be yes :). It wasn’t only Bill who was unwilling to live if she couldn’t be herself. It seems the Master felt the same and didn’t want to become what Missy was becoming.

Indeed!  All that “things end because they have to” is…[Read more]

@jimthefish I agree that the Valeyard probably will never be revisited on screen and instead remain left to Big Finish to play with.  The contemporary series has done interesting things with the Doctor’s darker aspects as it is, so the Valeyard would be redundant.  And yes @tardigrade, we have to acknowledge the War Doctor!  🙂

@tardigrade—

I think it’s the fact that the Doctor has been through a set of full regenerations that means we won’t see the Valeyard. Capaldi’s Doc strictly speaking is Doctor 1.1 rather than Doctor 13 (why does the War Doctor not still count as a proper Doctor? Surely he was redeemed and earns the right to be the Doctor again?)

I actually…[Read more]

@bluesqueakpip

… has the man become lost, becoming nothing but an ever-changing role, always changing, always dying, always a story rather than a real person.

I agree, although, as the Doctor himself once said ‘We are all stories in the end’

As @tardigrade noted, the Doctor’s unwillingness to change was foreshadowed in Bill’s insistence that…[Read more]

@tardigrade       At the very least, Moffat has to leave a window open for the Master’s return, future writers wouldn’t thank him for writing the character out irrevocably (although, as we’ve learned over time, nothing in DW is irrevocable!). I think Missy did hand something off to the Doctor, I wondered at the time what it was.

I’m hoping that…[Read more]

@tardigrade and @countscarlioni

I’ve got a vague recollection that there was a paper presented a couple of years back which considered the possibility of thermodynamic time reversal in black holes. In the popular press it got translated into ‘time going into reverse’, which might well have caught the eye of one S. Moffat.

What would happen in…[Read more]

@nerys  Insignificance Terrific movie! As well as the explanation of relativity, it also carries a very powerful punch and moral message at the end. Here’s Marilyn (played brilliantly by Theresa Russell) explaining special relativity to Albert:  

@mudlark @thane15 @nick @ichabod   As I understand it…[Read more]

@thane15 @tardigrade @wolfweed @ichabod

This is why the tardis has an R in its name 🙂

Keeping the science simple, time passes for each observer at the same rate everywhere in the universe. 5 years is the same duration whether you are on the earth, the lowest level or deck 0f of the ship.

If you travel at close to the speed of light, or get…[Read more]

@ichabod Over at the essay/discussion site DoWntime, the roundtable on this episode pointed out that privilege is a big part of this story.  The Doctor is hyperfocused on helping out his fellow wo/man Missy, convincing the reluctant Bill and Nardole to help with the test.  But when things go pear-shaped with Jorj, it’s poor Bill, a person with n…[Read more]

@tardigrade Yes, that’s how my husband explained it to me. He’s a science guy, I am not (neither science nor guy), and so my understanding of this in the abstract is limited. Thanks for correcting me!

@tardigrade, Last year, Titan Comics did a five-part miniseries, Supremacy of the Cybermen, specifically about Rassilon trying to get vengeance on the Doctor for the events of “Hell Bent” — he turned out to have a place to go after all and enlisted the help of the very last Cybermen.  They conquer Gallifrey, completely rewrite the universe with a…[Read more]

@tardigrade I’ve interpreted that to mean that TLs tend to recognise each other when directly talking to each other- a skill that would be handy when friends can regenerate into completely new bodies…

I would agree with this.  In The Five Doctors, Three didn’t immediately recognize the Master (admittedly though he was in a stolen body) but di…[Read more]

@tardigrade—

I’m not sure why you’re so down on the TLs. I think it was an important piece of exposition for the Doctor’s roots to be shown over the course of many seasons of BG Who

Not sure I’d agree. The only really essential TL appearance, I think is The War Games. That one, I think, serves a point, and serves the purpose of deepening and m…[Read more]

@tardigrade

I’m not saying that I’d be super enthusiastic but I think of it like the Master’s return..

Its what you can do with a character.   I’m really liking the return of  Saxon in this

better then the last time around.

Curious  about his return  is that the last time we saw him the Time War was

a thing.  I wonder if we find out that i…[Read more]

@thane15  Thane, that is a good point about happiness you make.  Here in America at least self-happiness has become the name of the game, not helping others and being curious.  Explains a lot actually about where society is going.  But I hope for some sunshine next week anyway.  Twelve hasn’t had his Big Bang yet, his day of glory, his happy seas…[Read more]

@tardigrade

On Bill’s fate- hers is a character I’d be sorry to see killed off after such a short period, but the cyber-conversion process hasn’t, I think, been reversible in the past. This is a very early version of the process though, so maybe that’s not 100%.

I’d be surprised if the technology existed on board the ship to do this. I would e…[Read more]

@tardigrade I’ve lost track of who said it now, but I’ve got to agree that the initial scene with Missy was the weakest part. Much as I enjoy Michelle Gomez’s portrayal of Missy, this felt like she was channeling Captain Jack Sparrow, or was straight-up drunk (the distinction is slight). So a little too over the top for me, even allowing for Missy…

[Read more]