Welp, looks like “The war between the land and the sea” starts production in September?

That JJ who is part of the panel is going to become showrunner one day for sure.

Huh. There is a worrying lack of license information, yes. I didn’t even notice.

Yeah, but we’re not looking at the root cause here. Their purpose is to train energy glutton, error prone “AI” even if experience teaches us that those ML models fuck up more often than confirmation bias allows.

“AI” is a bourgeoise and Capitalist tool and, same as with cryptocurrency, we cannot dismantle the master’s house with the master’s tools. Fuck AI down the drain. Make things with your own minds, your own hands.

First, I’m fairly sure both the Beeb and the Mouse Corp are watching Doctor Who ratings on a much wider timescale than the armchair analysts, worrywarts and doomsayers out there.

I don’t know how long Disney secured distribution rights for but with their penchant for hoarding IPs they might even be in for a long game of securing international rights for the entire series back catalogue when they expire with other parties. Star Wars, the MCU — they know from experience what kind of synergy a 60 year franchise can build when it’s collected in one place.

Second, though, we’ll have to see if Disney’ll invest in the spinoffs right away. I’d love to see that “War between the land and the sea” thing materialise, whatever it is, and it sounds like Bad Wolf have been setting it up. As for the UNIT show, if that’s even separate from the other spinoff… at least the primary set is already built?

Aww! See, that’s how you cultivate a new audience! And while our hero Eric is hard to beat, Captain Popsicle was my MVP after the latest rewatch.

It’s also skewing the history lesson to peddle cryptocurrency. Not all information is equal.

This reads like a whole lot of research was boiled down to fit the “barely an article” constraints of a casual news outlet. The outline is all over the place but seems well-intended; it’s just not clear what information we’re supposed to take away from this.

Kudos for mentioning GNU Social, Zot and Diaspora, but I’m not really sure any of them are relevant anymore?

Having rewatched the series, I think Space babies actually stands up pretty well despite all the “for all you new viewers out there” lore dumps. The babies are adorable if slightly weird, the snot monster is … just the right amount of disgusting, and the fart joke is perfectly Doctor Who to me.

Does it have Mel, Kate or Morris Gibbons? No, but storywise I’ll rank it higher than Empire of death for now.

Yeah, in terms of seasons they’re sort of in between. My point is that Ruby Road was Ncuti’s first proper episode, our introduction to Ruby, and really is the beginning of the season’s story arc (unless you want to go back to Wild blue yonder for the salt and superstition seeding).

Different strokes, I guess. To me the discomfort of the unexplained in 73 yards is the source of (mild, child friendly) horror that drives the episode, and makes the story stick with you. 🤷

Rogue was a terrific throwback to fun, slightly bizarre period romps, but apart from introducing a new love interest for the Doctor I think it sits nicely in a third place? Now, if it had had full body holograms of all past Doctors gyrating to “Can’t get you out of my head” along with 15 I’d rank it higher…

I’m curious why The church on Ruby Road wasn’t included in the poll as it so clearly was a part of this season’s storyline — and I wonder where it would have landed in the ranking.

The result of the poll is fairly similar to my own personal ratings. OTOH I’d swap 2 and 4, as well as 7 and 8 — mind you, that’s as subjective as it is going to fluctuate with rewatches.

Edited to add:

You know what, here is my ranking of the moment. I added in the christmas special and rewatched a couple of episodes I was uncertain about.

1. 73 yards
2. Dot and bubble
3. Rogue
4. Boom
5. The church on Ruby Road
6. The devil’s chord
7. Space babies
8. The legend of Ruby Sunday
9. Empire of death

I guess it reflects my disappointment that one quarter of the season was pissed away on a story about a Bad Dog being taken for walkies during Avengers: Endgame. The more standalone episodes worked much better for me than the “arc” this year.

No, of course not. I thought the movie sharing was your primary concern, sorry if I misunderstood. Hope this solves at least part of your problem.

First I’ve heard of Virpus but thanks for the heads up. More than 50% packet loss does not sound like a working infrastructure, much less one that should be marketed to consumers.

I’ve never done this myself but if you want to keep it simple and be able to play all video formats, why not just stream from VLC?

I’m happy to be corrected on this, but it seems the simplest solution to a potentially complex problem. Everybody uses VLC, right?

Will death cancel death… on the Death Star?

You know, I’ve been rolling my eyes at people online who keep bringing Star wars nonsense into Doctor Who discourse and speculation. I guess the joke’s on me, RTD himself is using Who as a Star wars comment section.

I’m with you. 720p unless I can’t find lower than 1080 — for my setup there isn’t much point. The TRaSH guide parameters make my head ache thinking how much I’d be shelling out on bandwidth and storage for no discernible difference on my home theatre.

I think the scene in Empire of death where the Doctor and Ruby debate her reconnecting with her mum is a template for his inner dilemma re Susan.

He says straight out to Ruby that her birth mother never reached out for “7000 days” so maybe she’s not interested? That to me shows his own apprehension of not getting back in touch with Susan all those millennia (more than 7000 years in his timeline), but Ruby’s instinctive decision to go meet Louise could show him that there is still time for him, too.

I mean, that’s what I hope! And I completely agree, any reunion with Susan that doesn’t include Carole Ann Ford would just not ring true.

Can we just dwell on the subject line of “MISSING HAIR GOODS”? 🤣