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Themes from Doctor Who (Season 1)

By Thinking, TV, Online Streaming & FilmsNo Comments

The time travelling two-hearted alien is back! Doctor Who returned to our screens at Christmas and has been fantastic.

Christmas Special: The Church on Ruby Road

  • The Doctor likes to dance.
  • A ‘Foundling’ is an abandoned baby.
  • Repeated accidents are a sign of Goblins.
  • Golbins are real, sing and have a King.

Episode 1 – Space Babies

  • The Doctor lives for days of adventure.
  • The law doesn’t always make sense.
  • Every person or creature is unique in the universe.
  • Nobody grows up wrong.
  • Sometimes technology takes things literally.
  • Good people sometimes do bad things whilst trying to protect others.

Episode 2 – The Devil’s Chord

  • Life without music would be awefully dull.
  • The impact The Beatles had was global and transformative.
  • Music can be wonderful or terrible.
  • According to The Doctor: “Music is the highest form of thought.”

Episode 3 – Boom

  • Dad’s should never let their children down.
  • The Doctor is enough annumition to destroy only half a planet. To be honest, I expected him to take out at least half a solar sytem.
  • War, business and an Artifical Intelligence make a bad combination.
  • The Doctor has excellent control of his adrenealine and other human involuntary processes.
  • Churches can become armies.

Episode 4 – 73 Yards

  • Saving the world can be done through fear, fright and flight.
  • The Doctor can disappear without a trace.
  • Sometimes it takes a lifetime to work out what’s going on.
  • Rejection is emotionally harmful and can be a devastating and heartbreaking experience.

Episode 5 – Dot and Bubble

  • Spending too much time in social media can lead you to missing what’s happening in the real world – including human eating monsters.
  • Sometimes The Doctor saves people who are not nice. Think when Lindy said to The Doctor: “You’re not like us, are you?”
  • Some people will do anything to save their selves. Including sacrificing others.
  • Some human eating monsters like to work through their list of prey alphabetically.

Episode 6 – Rogue

  • The Doctor could fall in love with a man. This makes The Doctor not only wonderfully complex, but gay, lesbian and bisexual depending on his/her current gender.
  • Some aliens come to Earth for entertainment.
  • Some aliens have faces inspired by birds.
  • Rogue gets lost in another dimension forever. This is emotionally painful for The Doctor, showing that he can experience love-like feelings.

Episode 7 – The Legend of Ruby Sunday

  • Susan is the name of The Doctor’s granddaughter.
  • Everyone loves Davina McCall.
  • An old enemy returns with the power to kill.
  • Kate Commander in Chief of UNIT cares about the lives of her staff.

Episode 8 – Empire of Death

  • Kate puts her hope in The Doctor.
  • The mysterious old white-haired woman (photo in episode 7) “had such plans.” But what where or are they? And who is she?
  • The Doctor is the one that brings death.
  • Sometimes a happy for now ending is more than satisfactory. In fact it’s wonderful and heart touching.

Blog soon,

Antony

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Caroline Aherne: Queen of Comedy – BBC Documentary

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Caroline Aherne was the comedy genius responsible for The Mrs Merton Show and The Royale Family. Caroline was from Manchester, the North West of England.

Caroline had a tragic life including being born with a rare form of eye cancer, being a victim of domestic violence & abuse in her marriage, suffering with depression/possibly bipolar, alcohol dependency, bladder cancer and died of lung cancer at just 52 years old.

Despite all this tragedy and suffering, she had the wonderful gift of being naturally funny. It is for this talent and skill that she is remembered by friends in the BBC’s Caroline Ahern: Queen of Comedy documentary.

This excellent documentary is well worth a watch. It showed Caroline’s love of life with TV clips and interviews with friends, her humour and the impact she had on individuals lucky enough to know her.

So go check it out. Until next time,

Antony

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Themes From Doctor Who’s 60th Anniversary & Christmas Specials

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The end of 2023 brought with it the highly anticipated Dr Who 60th Anniversary Specials and the Christmas Special. This blog post is about the themes from these specials, looking at each episode individually. I’ve done a themes type post for Series 11, Series 12 & Series 13 of Doctor Who.

At the end of Series 13, the Doctor regenerated back into an old face (played by the fantastic David Tennant). Prior to the ending of Series 13, the superb news came that Russell T Davies would be returning to Doctor Who as the lead Writer.

David Tennant returns to Doctor Who:

David Tennant is accompanied by the return of Donna Noble (played by the hilarious Catherine Tate):

A new cast member is Rose Noble (played exquisitely by Yasmin Finney). Yasmin’s character is particularly important to the Trans community, as both Rose and Yasmin identify as Trans. Rose Noble:

Episode 1 – The Star Beast

  • Cute & fluffy, doesn’t necessarily mean that a creature has good intentions.
  • Representation and visibility remain as important as ever for the LGBT+ community, but especially for Trans people who still suffer stigma, discrimination and sometimes hate crimes because of who they are. Some people think it’s okay to dead name Trans people, which is just cruel.
  • People with disabilities don’t want you to make them the problem.
  • Sometimes the best thing to do for your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health is to let go.
  • The TARDIS redesign is beautiful. There is no other word for it, just: beautiful.

Episode 2 – Wild Blue Yonder

  • Mavity replaces Gravity due to a misunderstanding by Sir Isaac Newton.
  • The Doctor finds Sir Isaac Newton as “hot” and notes “Oh, it’s like that now.” Suggesting he might be gay or bisexual.
  • The TARDIS can literally disappear if it senses danger. It has an Hostile Action Displacement System (HADS).
  • There are probably weird life forms out there that would cause us to redefine our definition of life. Some are likely to be good, but others, like the ones in this episode could be quite sinister.
  • The universe has an edge.
  • Wilfred Mott (Donna’s Grandfather, played by the brilliant Bernard Cribbins) waits in the alley for Donna & the Doctor to return.

Episode 3 – The Giggle

  • Old adverseries can return.
  • Bi-generation is a thing.
  • Even the Doctor needs a break from travelling and a family for a sense of belonging.
  • Ncuti Gatwa is the 15th Doctor.

Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor:

Christmas Special – The Church on Ruby Road

  • The character Ruby is introduced and her back story is given.
  • Goblins are real and have a knot language.
  • Who is the old woman that seems to know all about the Doctor and the TARDIS?

Write soon,

Antony

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Themes from Dr Who (Series 13)

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This Themes from Dr Who post is really late. I basically forgot a promise I made to myself, which was: Review each Dr Who episode, identify themes and write them up here. I did Series 11 here and Series 12 here.

Series 13 was always going to be special as both Jodie Whittaker (photo left as The Doctor) and Chris Chibnall (one of the lead Writers) had both announced that this would be their last series.

I was excited for the new series, but also a little sad, as Whittaker’s version of The Doctor had really grown on me. At first, I was a bit unsure about having a female Doctor. But Whittaker’s performance was exceptional, even at times when I felt the writing had let her down.

So here are the themes from each episode of Series 13:

Episode 1 – The Halloween Apocalypse

  • The Doctor is very good at escaping seemingly impossible situations.
  • The ‘Bad Guy’ (or in this case Karvanista) isn’t necessarily bad.
  • That Food Banks exist in one of the richest countries of the world.
  • You should notice and pay attention when the TARDIS gives you signs that something is wrong.
  • That this episode was really a set up for the rest of the series and generated a lot of questions to the watcher. But did not provide many answers.

Episode 2 – War of the Sontarans

  • The inspirational Nurse, Mary Seacole is introduced. Her story is partly told over the course of the episode.
  • Joseph Williamson is also introduced. However his characterisation is less than kind.
  • When leaders don’t listen, sometimes it can cost lives.
  • It is sometimes wise to ask yourself: What Would The Doctor Do?

Episode 3 – Once, Upon Time

  • The Doctor is good at weighing up situations and people fast.
  • In the future/forgotten past Doctor was marvellously a black woman.
  • Don’t overthink things, just move forward.
  • Weeping Angels are back and about to cause problems. Remember: Don’t Blink.
  • Love is a good life goal or life mission.

Episode 4 – Village of the Angels

  • A Weeping Angel gains access to and control of the TARDIS.
  • Weeping Angels are quantum beings that send people back into the past and feed off the energy of the people’s unlived future.
  • Any image of a Weeping Angel, becomes itself an Angel.
  • Weeping Angels have an odd sense of humour.

Episode 5 – Survivors of the Flux

  • The Doctor has fears, including the Weeping Angels.
  • No matter what happens, stay on task.
  • Don’t trust people who conveniently turn up and are all to happy to help you with a problem. Ask yourself: What are their motivations and intentions?
  • There is a theory of multiverses. Multiple universes, with ours just being one of a number of universes. I’m not sure on the proposed number of universes, potentially it could be infinite.
  • Morality is a strength.
  • The Doctor inspires and brings hope.
  • The Doctor was found near a wormhole as a child. Apparently lost and abandoned.

Episode 6 – The Vanquishers

  • Sontarans have a weakness for chocolate, sweets and fizzy drinks.
  • The Doctor fears the destruction of life. The Doctor feels that: Life should win.
  • That there is something to psychic skills.
  • “Ego Klaxon” – The Doctor, she calls out people with excessive egos.
  • There always seems to be a human who has to die in Doctor Who. It’s like the Doctor isn’t quite clever enough.

Eve of the Daleks

  • Sometimes people let us down, but other times they do not.
  • Never stay in a resetting TARDIS, as you would die.
  • Daleks are mean (like we didn’t know) and their favourite past time is to: exterminate! Described by the Doctor as “the most evil thing in the universe.”
  • Good hearted weirdos are the keepers.

Legend of the Sea Devils

  • Madam Ching, the most famous Chinese Sea Pirate is introduced.
  • Polar shifts would not be a good thing for us humans, fish and Sea Devils might like it though.
  • Nothing is forever.

The Power of the Doctor

  • The Doctor doesn’t like Goodbyes.
  • The Master is a Hypnotist.
  • The Doctor is thousands of years old.
  • Forced Regeneration can be done and undone.

Blog soon,

Antony

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