Turtle Wexler

Working my way through these episodes and am enjoying them; sad to hear that Doreen had a bad experience. This is a silly question, but does anyone know what Jonathan put in Alison’s hair? I always end up cutting off my (curly) hair because I can’t deal with it when it’s longer.

Weirdly, I had this same thought! 😂 I enjoyed this! It has always taken me a minute to adjust to a new Doctor, and I think spending so much time with 15 in the previous special helped. I love Gatwa’s energy; watching him get lost in the music as he was dancing was fun; that was a new facet of the Doctor that we’ve not seen. I’m curious about who Mrs. Flood is and what the explanation for her not-knowing-then-knowing what the TARDIS is will be.

I would also watch this. 😁 Ruth Madeley explained that RTD told her he’d gotten a letter from a fan who was a wheelchair user, and they said, “Even though I can’t get into the TARDIS because I’m a wheelchair user, I just love it,” and so RTD immediately made the change. Madeley said that she cried when RTD told her that.🥲 It starts at about 12:14 in the BTS video. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=X9WI4kZ7Ubk

Overall, I enjoyed this, and I’m glad we got a bit of time with 15. I can’t stand NPH, so I wasn’t thrilled when I heard that he was going to be in one of the specials, but the chewing-scenery aspect of the Toymaker’s personality worked with him in the role. I’m glad that 14 didn’t go, and instead gets to stay with Donna. Yes, it’s a cop out, but it means they get to be together, which isn’t terrible. I just started rewatching episodes with Donna, so the ending of this was a nice callback to The Runaway Bride, where she invites him for dinner and he accepts but then leaves. I don’t think they’ll keep bringing him back constantly. Or, I hope not. That wouldn’t be fair to Gatwa, and would get boring after a while, if viewers knew to expect it. I am very excited to see what Gatwa will do in the role. I’ve only previously seen him in Barbie, and enjoyed whenever he was on screen. Sidenote—I was watching with the closed captions and they kept referring to 14 as 10!

Really enjoyed this! As others have said, it seemed like David Tennant and Catherine Tate fell right back into their Doctor/Donna groove, and it was wonderful to see Jacqueline King again, too. I love the way Sylvia’s relationship with Donna has changed but is still familiar. I also love Yasmin Finney. I am trying to remember when it was announced that she was cast; I wasn’t familiar with her, and then I watched Heartstopper (on Netflix) and thought she was great, so when I remembered that she was cast as Rose, I got excited. I agree with Morrigan2575, though; YF is 20, so it dawned on me that she was not quite the right age to play Donna’s child—she definitely doesn’t seem to be 14—though I also freely admit, I’m happy to ignore the blip because I like her, but it’s annoying that TPTB didn’t pay attention to that while casting. I am so happy that Wilf is alive and well, and am so glad that Bernard Cribbins was able to film a role in the special(s). It’s going to be bittersweet to watch him. I had to pause the episode several times and regroup; one of my cousins who also loved DW passed away last year, and so I kept thinking of him while watching and watching I could text him. (And so Wilf still being here after BC passed away is a really lovely gift.) I also love Miriam Margolyes, and she clearly had fun with the role of The Meep. As DoctorAtomic said, I liked The Doctor very easily grasping the idea of using the definite article as one’s pronoun, acknowledging that and moving on. I also really like the character of Shaun and how he seems to just roll with whatever Donna says and does, and clearly adores her and Rose. Donna as protective-will-go-scorched-Earth-mom and also take a shot at her husband, “Thank you, Bob the Builder” was lovely and fun to see, too. I am glad that Russell T Davies is back. I still haven’t watched all of Jodie’s episodes, but that’s also down to not being able to afford another streaming service. Looking forward to next week!

So this is really unexpected and weird. I was just watching a video on a news site and had to sit through the obligatory ad. I was a bit disturbed and perplexed as to why Chase decided to parody Ted yelling at Jamie in S1 when Jamie says he can't play because he's hurt. Of all the conversations to parody from TL, why this one? The commercial doesn't even make sense.

Brendan Hunt did an AMA on Reddit:

I didn’t love the finale, but I didn’t hate it, either. I didn’t like that Beard and Jane’s relationship being toxic was dropped. (I also thought it was weird that Ted wasn’t at the wedding.) I’m glad that Keeley and Barbara are working together. (I’m assuming that a women’s football team is the/a potential spinoff? I’d watch if it were well done.) I loved seeing Dr. Sharon again and that she’s working with the team. Seeing the Ussie guy again was fun, too.

I’m enjoying the dynamic between Sylvia and Will, but am not as Wowed by this as the critics’ reviews I’ve seen suggest I should be. In the third episode, when Sylvia and Charlie arrive, someone (I forget his name) comments that she’s from Australia, and later in the episode, when Sylvia and Will are at the diner, she says, “It’s your country; you explain it,” when Will asks why there’s a photo of Rosa Parks next to one of kids eating ice cream. Maybe Wil spent part of his childhood in Australia? Does anyone know the song (no lyrics) that was playing during the closing credits of ep. 2? It also played when Will and Sylvia were leaving Audrey’s. I’ve searched using Google and visited the first several hits with no luck.

I’m rewatching S3; I’m really disappointed that they don’t seem to be doing anything useful with Barbara’s character. Her mild clashing with Keeley works because she’s sensible and is trying to help Keeley not make a huge financial mess. I’d rather see scenes with her and Keeley than Keeley and Jack.

Yes. 😝

I’m honestly confused as to why a number of people think that Rebecca and the Dutch guy had sex. We clearly see him realize she’s fallen asleep; he puts the blanket over her and goes to his bedroom and slides the door closed. She asks the next morning without being direct, but he figures it out and says “No.” His later “we did,” is returning to his use/explanation of “gezellig,” and is in reference to, as others have pointed out, their emotional connection. Rebecca and he dumped water on her clothes so they’d have to dry even longer than the 2:49; while the long drying time initially annoyed Rebecca, she realized how much she was enjoying his company and didn’t want to leave. This show has never been shy about making it clear that people have had sex/are going to have sex. If the writers wanted Rebecca and the guy to have sex, they would have made it obvious. It strains credulity that they’d go for a plot line about nonconsensual sex. (Especially in an episode where Roy asks Jamie about being traumatized by his visit to the brothel at 14.) If they were to do that, more than 6 episodes would be needed to address the ramifications.

Don’t want to repeat too much of what others have said, but I loved that the team finally had a pillow fight, and I enjoyed all of the pairings, especially Roy and Jamie. While watching Ted’s triangle-filled inspired haze, I thought of this Donald Duck short; I’m not sure whether that was intentional. I also noticed that “God” was listed in the credits, and was played by “Herself.” I am assuming that’s just supposed to be another S1 callback.

Yes! Thank you! That’s been bugging me all day! I loved it, too.

I had the same thought: It was fun to watch (and I loved Roy’s headlamp and then Jamie’s), but I thought it was unrealistic that they wouldn’t get mobbed. I was glad that Ted was honest with Michelle, but similarly annoyed that she didn’t respond. The whole storyline bugs me, anyway. For a show that has made a concerted effort to deal with mental health issues in a fairly realistic way, it annoys the hell out of me that the storyline of Michelle dating Dr. Jacob exists. As people said last week, it is wildly unethical. I still remember going to a therapist whose introductory information packet included a list of statements about her interactions with clients, and one was, “I will not now nor ever have a sexual relationship with you.” I’ve never forgotten it because I remember thinking, “Well, obviously not…That doesn’t need to be said….right?” So this just feels like lazy, cliched writing. It shouldn’t even be happening, and so why is it? Purely for “shock value” and to upset Ted? He is (or was) heartbroken about their marriage ending. Michelle dating anyone would have upset him. Yeah. That was strange and off-putting. I also got the sense that Keeley and Jack might be interested in each other? Agreed. I also think Juno’s lost weight, too. I remember thinking last season, during the photo shoot at the house that she looked “harsh.” It’s made me a bit sad to watch her. I loved the callback to first season with Nate spitting back into his drink, though this time without a server picking it up to give to someone else. There was something else that was a callback that I appreciated, but it’s 4 a.m. ET, and my insomnia is making my brain foggy. I also loved the scene at the bar, and Baz turning on his friend who showed up after Mae blasted him made me laugh loudly. I’ve really enjoyed these last two episodes, but I am still not interested in a Nate redemption arc.