That was highly enjoyable, starting off, lightly enough, in the style of regency romance – if more Georgette Heyer than Jane Austen, or perhaps as Ruby enthused, more Bridgerton, (though I can’t speak for the latter, since I have never watched the show). Even the avian aliens would have been fun and quite appealing if it had not been for their…[Read more]

Quick thoughts – I really enjoyed that – fluffy and silly, but really well done. And lots of fun.

Loved the Doctor and Rogue’s rivalry with gadgets and their spaceships. The Doctor waiting confidently outside as Rogue goes into his “shed”! (I noticed the console on Rogue’s ship also had a hexagonal design – coincidence?).

I like the TARDIS’s new…[Read more]

@pufferfish <waves at fellow fish!>

@thane16 @blenkinsopthebrave @mudlark  – loving the speculation that Ruby could be her own mother.

However, whilst I can see someone being their own father as theoretically possible (Back to the Future gone full Oedipus) wouldn’t being your own mother create an immediate temporal paradox of the kind that, in…[Read more]

@thane16, @mudlark, Was thinking about the point you both discuss–ie, could Ruby give birth to herself.

If Ruby, at some point does give birth to a girl, could we imagine a scenario where Ruby herself, with the aid of the TARDIS or another time machine, takes the new-born back in time and leaves the child in front of the church. In other words,…[Read more]

@devilishrobby Best wishes for a speedy recovery and I hope that you get lots of time to watch Who.

@craig. Thank you for sharing that. Your wife was indeed inspiring.

@mudlark. I loved your description of the ring. An example of how “provenance” gives meaning to an object. The S/O and I didn’t bother with rings, not having bothered with the…[Read more]

@craig

Thank you for posting the links – how inspiring, and what a terrific attitude from Rachel in the face of adversity.  Amazing indeed. And, as @juniperfish says, a lovely picture.

@devilishrobby

And to just add to the chorus of well wishers, and my hopes for your complete and speedy recovery.

Wonderful also to see others such as @mudlark…[Read more]

@juniperfish

This time, Ruby sees Old Witchy Ruby before the circle break and therefore knows (without knowing why) to stop the Doctor breaking the fairy circle, and this time the Doctor knows to tell Ruby not to read the circle’s messages out loud.

Yes, I think that the merging of the two timelines brought about a kind of recursion and that, on t…[Read more]

@thane16 Yes, Sian Phillips! For me, the indelible memory is her as Smiley’s wife in the 1970s version of “Tinker, Tailor…” Given a choice between watching space babies and Sian Phillips anytime, anywhere, Sian Phillips wins out hands down.

And while I thought the episode was excellent, I confess I did at one point (after Ruby has had no luck…[Read more]

@thane16

Also… the time energy “factory” in ‘Angels Take Manhattan.’

Nothing wrong with these reminders. Interesting we should both think of (different) Toby Whithouse stories though.

Susan Twist would seem to be a thing. Question is what? Mrs Flood is back.

No. No idea what Russ is up to.

@Craig a bottle episode, indeed, and this is something I have noticed in the new RTD Who. Bigger budgets, but yet, I don’t think it’s affected the contents. And this is a big example of it, it could easily have just been filmed in the BBC sci-fi quarry without making any real difference. And this I think is a good thing – the effects budget is…[Read more]

@thane16

Puro!!!!

Great to see you

@thane16 Hi. Nice to see you here..

@scaryB I wonder if RTD had that song in mind when he wrote the script. He might have looked into getting rights to it and as that wasn’t viable went with the twist song instead. Possibly the reference at the end, which is the basis of so much of our theorising, is simply a reference to this song.

Cheers

Janette

@blenkinsopthebrave *Waves back from across the pond!* Glad you enjoyed it, and great we’ll be able to discuss the new season in (almost!) real time.

@thane16 Hi Puro, I was thinking about you watching The Devil’s Chord – look forward to reading your thoughts on it which I’m sure will be a much deeper dive than mine 😀

@thane16

sorry about my user name…

the Silence, The Papal Mainframe, Madam Kovarian: was The Tardis exploding with River inside because the universe was collapsing, or the universe collapsing because it was disappearing up its own crack because of the exploding Tardis? Or did Kovarian’s bunch of crazy crazies (shomebody shtop me!) do it (ho…[Read more]

Ah, sorry so late to the discussion, had to be out of town on Sat, Sun and just caught up. Lots of interesting discussion above which I’ll get back to (and great to see everyone including @WhoHar @thane16 @miapatrick @phaseshift again)

The episode – WOW! I really loved it. But then I’ve loved weird Who since way back to Edge of Destruction! Not…[Read more]

@thane16 Hello Puro and son!

There’s just been a really good exhibition on the Pre-Raphaelites at Tate Britain in London – notable for exploring Christina Rossetti’s work and Elizabeth Siddal’s work, and for bringing the class dynamics of the so-called “brotherhood” to the fore in a way earlier exhibitions of this kind would not have done (middle…[Read more]

@robertcaligari it’s interesting that ‘what if a white man was cast to play Martin Luther King’ is the example so often used, because it’s a really, really bad example. Unless Newton was campaigning against racist laws and politics applied against white people by people of Indian heritage.

@jimthefish plus there is the largely under explored debt…[Read more]

@thane16 Puro? I don’t know enough of oldWho to make comparisons. So my comparison is of Thirteen with the rest of nuWho. Just for the record, I’m a leftie greenie pinko commie treehugger. (Well, maybe not commie, more like socialist – same thing to Americans 🙂 But I groaned at some of Thirteen’s episodes, the Message was so…[Read more]

@janetteb If I was forced to nominate the ‘local hero’ I might suggest Ben, but maybe that’s just me being subversive. But I tend to agree with you, there isn’t really a definite one.

@thane16 Puro – yes there could be messages sprinkled throughout the film, but they are so low-key they’re not obvious. If anything the film tends to…[Read more]

@blenkinsopthebrave @nerys @thane16 @dentarthurdent and @janetteb     Thank you all for your kind words. My stepfather used to annoy me by saying “life is life” as an answer to many things, but I was young and stupid then. Now I know he was right, loss is an unavoidable fact of life and we must carry on because what is the alternative. Life is ind…[Read more]