Doctor Who.

[Nearly Sane]

I watched the latest episode having read lots of stuff about how awful it was and how it was a rip off of Midnight. In the end it seemed ok, far from great, a bit overly packed with stuff, and a rip off of almost too many things to count (which I quite like in science fantasy).

[Christine]

Geek alert - wasn't it an Aztec woman (Cameca) rather than a Roman one that Hartnell's Doctor dallied with?

  I wish I was a geek. I've not revisited the Hartnell historicals for about 25 years...

[Nearly Sane]

I wish I was a geek. I've not revisited the Hartnell historicals for about 25 years...

In most senses I wouldn't think I was. Just now and again

[Anchorman]

Some of the Hartnell scripts stand the test of time pretty well.

[SteveH]

I finally got round to watching part 2 of 'Spyfall' and the latest episode, set in the holiday resort, over the last two days, on iplayer. 'Spyfall' was great. I love them bringing historical characters into it, and here we got two: Ada Gordon, later Lovelace, and Noor Inayat Khan. I'd heard of Khan, but looked her up on Wikipedia afterwards for details. What a woman!
Didn't think much of the resort story: one of the weaker ones, I think.
I also discovered that every episode since the revival in 2005 is available on iplayer, so I'll be doing some catching up of ones I've heard about but not seen, especially the one with Churchill during the war, with Daleks on our side for their own purposes.

[Nearly Sane]

I finally got round to watching part 2 of 'Spyfall' and the latest episode, set in the holiday resort, over the last two days, on iplayer. 'Spyfall' was great. I love them bringing historical characters into it, and here we got two: Ada Gordon, later Lovelace, and Noor Inayat Khan. I'd heard of Khan, but looked her up on Wikipedia afterwards for details. What a woman!
Didn't think much of the resort story: one of the weaker ones, I think.
I also discovered that every episode since the revival in 2005 is available on iplayer, so I'll be doing some catching up of ones I've heard about but not seen, especially the one with Churchill during the war, with Daleks on our side for their own purposes.

The Churchill episode is pretty crap. Some good ideas and references but an atrocious simplistic deus ex machina solution.

[Anchorman]

The Churchill episode is pretty crap. Some good ideas and references but an atrocious simplistic deus ex machina solution.

   


Pluss jammy dodgers were not as cool as jelly babies.

[Aruntraveller]

I, like Oliphant, have just caught up with Spyfall (part 2). Thoroughly satisfying and enjoyable for me.

Only one other thing to add, Lenny Henry can act really well. It surprised me for some reason.

[Christine]

I watched the last two Billie Piper episodes at the weekend, having had them recommended not for the story, but for the entertaining exchanges between Dalek and Cyberman.  It's the start of the second episode and as far as I'm concerned there should have been a lot more of the sarcastic Dalek and a lot less of the Tylers.  And a LOT less romance.  And a lot less pointless shooting.  Why do soldiers in Doctor Who continue shooting after it's become entirely obvious the bullets don't work?  I know it's traditional but it's always bothered me.  Very dangerous.

  

[Anchorman]

       The dedicated genius of the Whovian mind knows no bounds. Or, alternatively....this guy had nothing better to do. A Hitchiker looks at the Daleks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWn_1yOFpfU&fbclid=IwAR1-YYELQuwMR3fdZtX_EPouXtyO2pUNSWInv6P_9h69oWVYdyNH652rZ_I

[SteveH]

Just watched 'Dr Who' on iplayer, and spotted two verbal anachronisms.It was set in 1900 New York, and featured Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison. At one point, Tesla says to his assistant "We need to get out of here", but that's a modern construction. In 1900, he'd've said "We must get out of here". Later, the Doctor refers to Aliens, and Edison immediately understands her to mean extra-terrestrials, but in 1900 "aliens" only meant "foreigners".
Apart from that, excellent - though Tesla scrawling furiously on his diagram and talking fast was a bit of a cinematic cliche - the dedicated, driven scientist. I googled Tesla and Edison later - both the actors looked remarkably like them.

[Udayana]

Just watched 'Dr Who' on iplayer, and spotted two verbal anachronisms.It was set in 1900 New York, and featured Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison. At one point, Tesla says to his assistant "We need to get out of here", but that's a modern construction. In 1900, he'd've said "We must get out of here". Later, the Doctor refers to Aliens, and Edison immediately understands her to mean extra-terrestrials, but in 1900 "aliens" only meant "foreigners".
Apart from that, excellent - though Tesla scrawling furiously on his diagram and talking fast was a bit of a cinematic cliche - the dedicated, driven scientist. I googled Tesla and Edison later - both the actors looked remarkably like them.

Oh dear The Tardis' translation circuits must have got set to "Modern" English instead of "Grandad's"  !

[SteveH]

Just watched 'Fugitive of the Judoon'. Apart from the fact that the Judoon (who have appeared before, of course) are blatant rip-offs of Douglas Adams's Vogons, I thought it was pretty good. I look forward to an explanation of the other doctor.

[Anchorman]

Just watched 'Fugitive of the Judoon'. Apart from the fact that the Judoon (who have appeared before, of course) are blatant rip-offs of Douglas Adams's Vogons, I thought it was pretty good. I look forward to an explanation of the other doctor.

     





Not goona spoil it, but I think a couple of clues came from last night's episode.

[SteveH]

The most obvious explanation - too obvious, really; it'd be disappointing if it was really this simple - is that the other Doctor is a furure incarnation, and doesn't remember the Doctor because her memory wasn't fully restored when she broke the glass.

[SteveH]

The inside of the other Doctor's Tardis looked like a very early version, and she addressed the Tardis as "old girl", which was a habit, if memory serves, of the third Doctor, Jon Pertwee. Could she be an alternative third Doctor, maybe from a different timeline in which he/she regenerated differently, and then slipped into our timeline without realising it?
Just watched 'Praxeus' on iplayer. Not bad, but not great. I'll watch the latest episode tomorrow, and watch out for the possible clues Anchorman mentions.

[Anchorman]

 Mentioning 'The Toymaker' (Hartnall0), 'celestial beings' (Baker), and the 'two guardians' (Baker/Davison) opens up all sorts of avenues for speculation regarding this 'alternate' Doctor. Another alternative is the 'Valeyard', a kind of doppleganger encapsulating the Doctor's dark side, which is due an airing again.

[SteveH]

Online speculation mentions "the Timeless Child". I'm afrad I'm not enough of a Whovian to keep up with all these overarching plots.

[Anchorman]

Online speculation mentions "the Timeless Child". I'm afrad I'm not enough of a Whovian to keep up with all these overarching plots.

   



That was a phrase thrown out by the Master in the second episode of the series this year.
The other speculation involves Whittaker's Doctor.
In the first two parter, she wheechs the TARDIS off to Gallifrey to verify whether or not the Master as destroyed it. She gets there as easily as going to Tesco.
However in 'the Day of the Doctor' - the 50th anniversary show which introduced John Hurt as the 'War Doctor', Gallifrey was supposed to have been locked away in a 'pocket universe' outside time to save it from destruction.
There's no explanation as to how Jodie's TARDIS made it so easy to get there; suggesting that the 'real' Doctor might actually be the alternative one!
Webs, eh?

[SteveH]

Enjoyed last night's episode, but Byron should have had a limp: he was lame due to a club foot. Shelley was too heroic and generally likeable: he was a great poet, but a selfish bar steward as a person. Hope the mystery of the alternative Doctor is solved soon.

[Walter]

Enjoyed last night's episode, but Byron should have had a limp: he was lame due to a club foot. Shelley was too heroic and generally likeable: he was a great poet, but a selfish bar steward as a person. Hope the mystery of the alternative Doctor is solved soon.

my granny had a club foot, she got all her shoes from Littlewoods catalogue

(recycling is all the rage now. That one is from the 1970s)

[SteveH]

If I've got this right, the Doctor is SPOILER ALERT!
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
the original Time Lord, the first to regenerate before the ability was given to the other time lords with a limit of 12, which is why s/he can regenerate any number of times; the first doctor wasn't in fact the first, but only the first she can remember, and the other doctor from the lighthouse is an earlier one. I think I've got that all correct, but I still don't understand where the Irish copper fits in, or how his father and the sergeant re-appear on his retirement day no older, or what the business with him being strapped into a chair was. Was he the doctor, having his earlier memory wiped, before regenerating into the "first" (Hartnell) Doctor? we did seem to be in the 60s, so that'd fit, and it explains the police box - assuming that Ireland had them as well. Were his father and the sergeant two other time lords? I'm not much good at keeping up with the over-arching story arcs.
An online review of the episode had a photo-csption asking "Will the Doctor escape from the Judoon prison cell?" Ooh - tough questions first, eh? Maybe the lighthouse Doctor will arrive in her Tardis and rescue her.

[Anchorman]

If I've got this right, the Doctor is SPOILER ALERT!
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
the original Time Lord, the first to regenerate before the ability was given to the other time lords with a limit of 12, which is why s/he can regenerate any number of times; the first doctor wasn't in fact the first, but only the first she can remember, and the other doctor from the lighthouse is an earlier one. I think I've got that all correct, but I still don't understand where the Irish copper fits in, or how his father and the sergeant re-appear on his retirement day no older, or what the business with him being strapped into a chair was. Was he the doctor, having his earlier memory wiped, before regenerating into the "first" (Hartnell) Doctor? we did seem to be in the 60s, so that'd fit, and it explains the police box - assuming that Ireland had them as well. Were his father and the sergeant two other time lords? I'm not much good at keeping up with the over-arching story arcs.
An online review of the episode had a photo-csption asking "Will the Doctor escape from the Judoon prison cell?" Ooh - tough questions first, eh? Maybe the lighthouse Doctor will arrive in her Tardis and rescue her.

   


I know the 'canon' of classic Who is flexible; but last night's story stretched it to breaking point.
In 'the Three Doctors', Omega is stated to be the first Time Lord, whose experiments led to a black hole, creating the first TARDIS.
In "Invasion of Time", Rassilon is stated to be the founder of the Matrix and first President of the Time Lords, and in 'The Five Doctors', he is seen to be still 'alive' in a way we don't understand.
Even under Capaldi's time, Clara is shown listening in as a young child Doctor is told firmly by his parents that he was destined for the
Academy....and in 'Demon's run', the Doctor shows Amy his cradle.
Unless he has regenerated umpteen times as a baby, then last night was nonsense.
Oh, and making the Master look and feel like the Joker wasn't a great move either.
The Cybermen were good, though.

[Nearly Sane]

If I've got this right, the Doctor is SPOILER ALERT!
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
the original Time Lord, the first to regenerate before the ability was given to the other time lords with a limit of 12, which is why s/he can regenerate any number of times; the first doctor wasn't in fact the first, but only the first she can remember, and the other doctor from the lighthouse is an earlier one. I think I've got that all correct, but I still don't understand where the Irish copper fits in, or how his father and the sergeant re-appear on his retirement day no older, or what the business with him being strapped into a chair was. Was he the doctor, having his earlier memory wiped, before regenerating into the "first" (Hartnell) Doctor? we did seem to be in the 60s, so that'd fit, and it explains the police box - assuming that Ireland had them as well. Were his father and the sergeant two other time lords? I'm not much good at keeping up with the over-arching story arcs.
An online review of the episode had a photo-csption asking "Will the Doctor escape from the Judoon prison cell?" Ooh - tough questions first, eh? Maybe the lighthouse Doctor will arrive in her Tardis and rescue her.

On the Irish policeman from elsewhere 'However, Tecteun hid some of the truth in the Matrix in the form of the story of Brendan, an immortal Irish policeman. The Master suggested that this was an attempt by Tecteun to apologize or possibly a gift meant to help her child one day decode the truth of their existence'

[Nearly Sane]

   


I know the 'canon' of classic Who is flexible; but last night's story stretched it to breaking point.
In 'the Three Doctors', Omega is stated to be the first Time Lord, whose experiments led to a black hole, creating the first TARDIS.
In "Invasion of Time", Rassilon is stated to be the founder of the Matrix and first President of the Time Lords, and in 'The Five Doctors', he is seen to be still 'alive' in a way we don't understand.
Even under Capaldi's time, Clara is shown listening in as a young child Doctor is told firmly by his parents that he was destined for the
Academy....and in 'Demon's run', the Doctor shows Amy his cradle.
Unless he has regenerated umpteen times as a baby, then last night was nonsense.
Oh, and making the Master look and feel like the Joker wasn't a great move either.
The Cybermen were good, though.

TBH canon has never been something  that I'm that  bothered by but aren't we dealing with The Other here

https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/The_Other