I try not to look too deeply into the implied politics of Doctor Who, because morality of the show is simpler and has fewer consequences than real life: Killing is bad, the end. Episodes that set up seeming kill or be killed situations always work out to a third option more or less magically, because the show is more…

"Kill the Moon" gets a bad rap in my opinion. Yes you could drive a truck through the gaps in logic / scientific understanding, but it had some great character moments. It came right in the middle of the episodes where the show was really figuring out who Twelve was, and set some really crucial stones in the Clara /…

This episode definitely left me cold, probably for the first time since "In the Forest of the Night." Having this as the first single episode story after four really good two-parters really highlighted just how rushed and messy it is. I don't really take issue with the fact they're being attacked by eye boogers or the…

I don't disagree, there's a lot to salvage from the prequels. I imagine a prequel trilogy where Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones are combined with a ton of fat trimmed into Episode I, and Revenge of the Sith exists almost unaltered as the middle chapter. Then we get an Episode III where Anakin is serving the…

I considered omitting it actually… but I'm assuming a slight softening of perception of Jedi both due to nostalgia, and in comparison with I - III

True, but they don't yet have an VIII or IX to discount.

So basically, in fifteen years Star Wars snobs will only consider Episodes IV - VII the "real" Star Wars movies.

While I stand by "Listen" as the episode where Capaldi most clicked into the role of the Doctor (in a way that felt unique to him) he's been knocking it out of the park all year in a way he didn't last season. This week's monologue might be the best Doctor speech of New Who.

Much more resistance to a James Bond of color in the comments than I expected. I mean Bond *has* to be British. I even think his being a straight male is pretty crucial to his character, though his inherent sexism is becoming increasingly dated. But it's not like if you saw Daniel Craig and Pierce Brosnan side-by-side…

The idea was bring back Sean Connery who is 30 years older than he was when he last played James Bond to reprise the character. We've only really ever seen James Bond in his prime, that story could explore the toll being a secret agent took on him as he got older.

Why does making Bond Indian, black, or Asian force the audience to accept that "James Bond" is an identity of a bunch of different people? We as an audience have already accepted that James Bond can be Scottish or English, dark haired / eyed or light, and have entirely different personalities from iteration to…

Hard to say, considering that Doctor Who isn't terribly serialized, but so far this two parter and "Under the Lake / Before the Flood" seem to be the least crucial to the overall season's themes and story. The hybrid thread especially seemed more tenuous here than it did in either "The Witch's Familiar" or "The Girl…

I literally just discovered this website earlier today and was reading through it… It's a pretty compelling argument, and even ties a more-powerful-than-he-seems Jar Jar to some of George Lucas' storytelling quirks, specifically that he would be prequel parallel to Yoda (seemingly goofy and unimportant at first…

"The Overlook is just not as menacing here as it is in cinematic version, and while that's to be expected—again, budget constraints, shooting to tape rather than celluloid, …"

Haha point taken. Truth is, I might have understated my complicated feelings about TWoRS in order to phrase my own joke closer to your own wording. I actually agree that it's an enjoyable and fun episode of Doctor Who, but I just cannot get behind the basic premise. Overall the show has handled the complicated nature…

The pedantic nerd in me feels the need to point out that he had two appearances in two so-so 11th Doctor episodes.

I guess that one wasn't as far looking ahead, but more paying off what we had already seen. It tied into the larger season-long arc though, the Doctor only went to check out the flesh because he suspected Amy was a flesh avatar. That reveal then set up A Good Man Goes To War, in which the flesh avatar idea was brought…

A reply from Alasdair himself, I'm so pleased! I agree that the reference was a little odd, but it seemed odd to me in the exact same way the Harold Saxon line in Before the Flood was, sort of oddly inserted. PS, big fan of the Debating Doctor Who podcast and am very excited to hear your and Caroline's take on the…

My gut instinct, more than any of the other episodes so far this season, this two-parter is laying the groundwork for Heaven Sent / Hell Bent. There's a decent precedence for a two-parter around this time in a season paying off down the line: We had Aliens of London / World War Three (episodes 4 and 5) Rise of the…

I can't speak to your experience, but to me it seems to be the curse of popularity… the show exploded in the US during Matt Smith's tenure and built a massive base of fairweather fans who considered Eleven to be THE Doctor. My brother is thirteen years old, and Doctor Who was massively popular with the kids in his…