QuantumMechanic

While the new ring announcer isn't as good as Beiro, he's still pretty good. Glad New Show got a good one. I'm amazed that this incarnation appears to have even more filler than the Comedy Central version. Only 4 fights in a 60 min episode? In last night's show it took to the :22 mark to start the second fight. Yeesh!

Saw something interesting on the John/Harley thread -- they were asking passers-by to bring up a map or a picture of a destination on the passers-by's phones and then taking a picture of it with their selfie cam, and would then show those pictures to cabbies, etc. Very nice thinking! Too bad they got screwed by airport luck.

Wow. That was one of the most linear, boring legs in quite some time. I realize this season was going to be a come-down after last season, but yeesh! Very unimpressed by the race so far and this leg in particular. That said, loved Phil messing with the first place team.

I can live with Amy and Maya winning, but another big-time snoozefest finale :(. Hey Bertram, could you have filmed a more boring final task? It's not like you haven't had exciting, visually-interesting memory tasks in past finales, you know.

1) As a surfer, she may well read about water conditions around the world and in fact know that the water there is gross. 2) Given that the ocean adjacent to many US urban areas is gross as hell, it's quite reasonable to assume that's even more likely in the Phillipines.

I might have to switch to rooting for Brooke and Robbie after that. FINALLY a team that realizes the information they have is important and doesn't just hand it over just because the other team asked.

Horses for courses, of course. I don't find Davies episodes rewatchable in general at all, especially when they disintegrate into over the top emotional glurge like most of his finales. (And I've not liked it when Moffat's had glurgy finales either.). It also doesn't help that for me Rose was the worst companion ever (well except maybe for Peri). I loved Tennant at first but Davies writing and arc for him had me wishing he'd be gone by the end. And don't get me started on how he ruined the Master. Moffat definitely relies on his stock tropes too much, certainly. But on balance I'll easily take Moffat's tics over Davies's. But I will always be grateful to Davies for bringing the show back and doing some good stuff.

At the very end of "The Big Bang", when Eleven, Amy, and Rory are in the TARDIS, the TARDIS gets a phone call. Eleven answers and it's (allegedly) from the Queen (we only hear Eleven's side of the conversation), asking him to deal with a situation on "the Orient Express...in space!" Listen closely when he's talking to himself in his berth. The "A mummy no-one else can see" line as well as the next line in that "side" of the converation are a very close Tom Baker impression.

In addition to the cracking story I loved it when Twelve channeled Four's voice whilst talking to himself in his berth about what the mummy was. And the jelly babies in the cigar case, and the callback to the end of "The Big Bang."

A compass that reads like that is a standard nautical compass. Or at least was one no more than 20 years ago. I've been on vanilla 25' cabin cruisers in the past 20 years that have compasses like that. Hell, compasses like that were in cars less than 20 years ago, for crying out loud. Sure, not familiar to the racers, but they are definitely not some incredibly archaic thing that only a "maritime historian, or antiques expert" would know.

Given that the Doctor visited Gallifrey in "The Deadly Assassin", "Invasion of Time", etc., etc., it clearly is not inaccessible in time.

Also, is there anything to the "Promised Land" set at the end of the episode being virtually identical (though brightened up and greened up with more foliage) to where Amy found herself after leaving the room near the beginning of "The Girl Who Waited"?

Knowing that the Doctor regenerates isn't the same as coming to know one incarnation well and then personally witnessing a regeneration into one that's very different. Also, this is the first regeneration in a long time where the Doctor's form got significantly older, so it's not that crazy for Clara to think something went wrong.

My favorite Doctor was Four, followed very, very closely by Eleven, with Ten as a distant third. My favorite overall "team" is absolutely Eleven/Amy/Rory, probably with Ten/Donna in second place, and Four/Leela in third. Jack was my least favorite companion with Rose a very close second. She's only second because her time with Nine was at least somewhat bearable. She was quite horrid with Ten.

They didn't have to redo the task. And as soon as they saw the 2nd poster ("NEVER THINKS ABOUT") Jet immediately realized they had missed something and they went back to look for it.

James Clerk Maxwell?

I think that's exactly why the Cowboys decided to burn the express pass on the "assemble" side of the detour. That way if they did get U-turned they would be forced to do the "ride donkey" task which they probably figured they'd be pretty good at.

Hey John -- is it really a good idea to say "...the woman I am likely to spend my whole life with" when talking about your fiancee? I know nothing in life is guaranteed, but I don't know that it's good form to acknowledge that up front. :)

I found it very frustrating to have Tyson say something like "...and things look funny near the speed of light". And then...nothing! Maybe they don't need to spend the whole 4:30 that was spent on the relativistic Vespa in the original show, but would it have killed them to use a little of their SFX to show the audience some of those funny things. (And I'll point out that in that 4:30 in the original show they touched on red and blue shifts, Lorentz contraction, the relativistic aberration of light, time dilation, and the twin paradox -- though admittedly very few of them by name.) I understand the thrust of the show to be sciency and "science is cool". But it would be nice to have a little more actual science in it. (I will say Ep. 5 did a better job in that respect.)

Another TWoP refugee here. Hoping enough people will come over to keep the vibe alive.