Malin

I know I don't post on this forum a lot anymore, but I do still lurk, and in case anyone is interested, my review of The Girl with All the Gifts (which I really liked) can be found here.

Keanu Reeves as Arwen!

What have you been smoking? Obviously Benedict Cumberbatch as Arwen.

Just saw it for the second time this evening. It really is awesome. I also want to touch Benedict Cumberbatch in his pants, even if he sometimes looks a bit like a lizard. A very sexy lizard. That will be all.

Happy birthday, Sean (already got you once on Facebook). Your Christmas cards are always a highlight of the holiday season. Hope you had a great day!

Sophie Turner, who plays Sansa, is currently 17. She's just turned into a taller and more mature looking young lady than they could've predicted when they cast her at 14. Maisie Williams (Arya) is currently 15, so the girls aren't that much older than the characters they're supposed to be playing. I think they're implying that Margaery's in her early 20s, but they've not actually specified her age at any point. I doubt we're supposed to think she's Natalie Dormer's actual age. Dormer is excellent, she was very good as Anne Boleyn in The Tudors, as well, and I really liked her performance as Door in BBC4's radio adaptation of Neverwhere.

I liked the episode, although I also think they could've taken at least one of the Clara and the pop-obsessed professor (being a child of the 80s, I loved the Ultravox and Duran Duran shout outs) moments and given us some more insight into her character. I'm still holding out on actually liking her as a character, since I got burned so badly with Amy.

All the nods to the Alien films, with the Ice Warrior slinking through the vents at high speed and grabbing people's heads was also a nice touch. I think it's by far the best episode from Gatiss. Now I'm less wary about his upcoming one. Still think "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship" is the most enjoyable ep in this season, overall, though. After the Silurian two-parter abomination, I never thought I'd say that about a Chibnall-scripted episode, but there you go.

I really liked last week's episode, and quite a few bits of this one. I'm still wary about liking Clara too much, because really "Fool me once, Stephen Moffat...". I liked Amy after only a couple of episodes, and she was dreadfully ruined - so we'll see about Clara. But so far, she's likable, she's good with kids, she's not too annoyingly twee, and I actually like that she's actually a bit suspicious about the Doctor's motives. Her line last week about "Does this work?" about the Doctor swooping in with the Tardis and luring his companions away on amazing adventures, and into huge amounts of danger (at least in the adventures we get to see on screen) was ace - although I think you'd have to be crazy not to go with him. Of course you'd jump at the chance to travel through space and time in the Tardis. Heck, I'd even go with Colin Baker (although only the Big Finish one).

I agree with what Mark said about the sets and special effects this week. I loved the alien market, with all the different aliens. Why didn't the Tardis' translation circuit work for the barking alien? Still, nice gag. I wish that since so much of the plot hinged on singing, that the child doing a lot of it, and frankly, some of the other monks/priests/clerics/whatever they were supposed to be were better singers. Still, the girl was cute and personable in the other scenes she was in.

The Doctor's speech was excellent, Matt Smith has been excellent in both these episodes - but yeah, making Clara give up her dead mother's ring so he could keep Amy's reading glasses annoyed me.

Next week's episode looks good too. Mark isn't quite as excited about the return of the SPOILERS that may be in next weeks episode as he is about the SPOILERS that have been announced for the 50th Anniversary, although he did seem chuffed by the re-design. Having never seen them, I just hope they're better than the new Silurians. Which were RUBBISH, I don't care how awesome Madame Vastra is (and she's pretty darn awesome. I love her almost as much as I hate that two-parter. So much hate!) Seriously, he keeps a picture on his desktop and looks at it every time he needs cheering up. And then he squees. Like a little girl.

Edited to add - Mark just got a bit hysterical at my claims of not having seen the SPOILERS that may or may not be in next week's episode, because I totally have. In a Pertwee story I barely remember. The one with Cerebus. He also asked that I clarify that I have totally seen the story with the SPOILERS for the Anniversary Special, because Mark loves them. We even touched one at the Doctor Who experience in London. This may in fact be one of the contributing factors to them coming back this year. Such is the power of Mark's love for them.

I saw The Perks of Being a Wallflower in November, and I'm pretty sure it's one of my favourite films of last year. I saw it with a couple of friends, and we didn't really know much about it, except that it was based on a YA book, so it was a really delightful surprise. Especially because the last two films I saw Logan Lerman (the Wallflower, in this case) were Percy Jackson and that dreadful new version of The Three Musketeers, neither of which he was particularly good in. He was great in this, though, even though Ezra Miller was the stand-out, stealing every single scene he was in.

Red

Ms Red

Oh, Ane's coming too? Awesome.

 

I think Malin has said before how much she likes Georgette Heyer, if my memory isn't playing tricks, so I expect she will enjoy the stories at least.

I do indeed enjoy Georgette Heyer's writing immensely. I've only read one book by Bujold, and that was fantasy, but several of the book bloggers I follow out there on the interwebs are full of praise for Bujold's sci-fi in general and her Vorkosigan saga in particular. I must confess that I'm not a huge fan of science fiction as a genre of speculative fiction at all. I read a LOT of romance, and historical fantasy, and urban fantasy, but set it in space, and suddenly it becomes a challenge for me to read. I don't know why, but it seems to be a thing. Hence I have never read any of Bujold's Vorkosigan books or any of David Weber's Honor Harrington books, that also come highly recommended.

Female young adult writers who might write well for a Doctor Who anthology, that I could suggest, would be Suzanne Collins (of Gregor the Underlander and The Hunger Games fame), Cassandra Clare or Catherynne M. Valente.

Awesome Christmas hair, Pooka. I love your phone cover. In the previous photos, I was actually wondering why you were holding an old cassette tape up to the mirror.

Glad to hear that your first birthday as a married lady was a satisfying one.

I assume you've put your man-card on temporary suspension after viewing those movies...

 

Dude, willingly sitting through four Twilight movies is damn manly, it takes a great deal of fortitude (and apparently a six-pack of beer) to manage. Twilightathon is an endurance test, frankly.

Wow, Rogan, having seen the size of the latest Rowling book, that's one hell of an achievement. You must be exhausted.

Because there's actually a long weekend where I have time off school in May, I absolutely vote for that one. I would be able to come with, and meet people from the forum, since I seem to always be the one who misses out when, on a rare occasion, someone visits Oslo.

The Princess Bride because it's my favourite.

Beauty and the Beast because it's my favourite Disney movie, and I pretty much watched it constantly during an impressionable age

Pride and Prejudice (the 2000 version with Kiera Knightley, because it takes less time to watch than the BBC series)

Howl's Moving Castle (with the English dub, because Christian Bale, that's why)

Love Actually, because it's delightful, and on TV on pretty much every channel every Christmas, and I (or a colleague) will probably show it to the kids in school around Christmas time

This is Spinal Tap, Withnail and I and The Wrath of Khan because I live with Mark, and have been with him for a very long time.

No, I doubt she is, because Mark doesn't look at all cute with a naked face. Boy has a weak chin and every time he makes the mistake of shaving his beard off, he remembers, a little bit too late. I don't even really approve of beards, and have accepted that Mark has to have one.

Happy belated birthday, Rogan. Hope your next one is so awesome it makes up for the depressingness of this one.

Charlie! Clearly I should post more too, I go away and when I return all sort of old familiar faces are back.

My first six months as a teacher, I worked with a lot of special needs kids, including one with autism. He too was very highly functioning, but I can literally count on one hand the times he actually spoke to me, and only once in 5 months did we actually have what might constitute a conversation. He was really very bright, though, as long as you didn't expect him to verbalize things. I'm sure Sammy will be fine, it sounds like you're doing the very best for him, and if he's surrounded by awesome Kondeks he has every opportunity in the world to thrive.

I fear change. Everything is different now. Not sure I approve.

I bit because it's Cronenberg...

I went and saw A Dangerous Method because A History of Violence and Eastern Promises were all kinds of awesome. Cronenberg, Viggo Mortensen, Kiera Knightley and Michael Fassbender (who I would cheerfully watch reading the phone book, I bet he'd be a smoldering sex god even then) - what could go wrong? Of course, I hadn't realised that it would be painfully slow and dull, and all the good acting performances were pretty much wasted. For a film called A Dangerous Method, (don't forget the spanking scene in the trailer), you'd think he'd make something a bit edgier and exciting. I've learned my lesson.

the God-awful Silurian two-parter

 

Until this exact moment, I had totally forgotten about that episode. Thanks a lot Malin. :)

You're welcome. Consider it a wedding present. :icon_wink:

I'm so glad to hear that you had a wonderful wedding day. You deserve it!

I didn't like that at all. I would rate last night's episode of Doctor Who as the fifth worst episode since the show was relaunched in 2005, after the God-awful Silurian two-parter, Fear Her (the David Tennant one with the little girl and the scribble monster and that absolutely atrocious Olympic Games bit at the end), and the most recent Christmas Special.

Interestingly, I've really liked the other three non-Moffat episodes this season, and in all three of them, I didn't even hate Amy and actually really liked her for the most part. It seems I just hate the way Moffat writes her, and her relationship with Rory. Not only did the episode not make me cry (as was clearly the intention), it made me actively dread any other episodes this season written by Moffat, and with each new episode, where he sadly rehashes ideas he's already used better elsewhere, I become more disillusioned and disappointed with his earlier episodes as well, some of which I used to love once.

It all makes me very upset, because I truly love the show. Yesterday's episode was a huge let-down, even with the extremely lowered expectations I had beforehand. At least my darling Rory won't have to be slapped or verbally abused for comic effect, or killed yet again to wring some more tears out of the audience anymore. I just really hope the new companion isn't as shrewish and annoying as Amy and River Song, or as completely bland and characterless as Renette in The Girl in the Fireplace or Abigail in A Christmas Carol. But as she's a female character written by Steven Moffat, I'm not getting my hopes up.