Ceindreadh

I don’t care how realistic or plausible it was, it made me feel very manipulated emotionally speaking. I was sobbing so hard I could barely follow the story and then they turn around and go “look a happy ending, yay!” I felt like they’d cheated me out of the tears I’d shed and it just left a bad impression on me.

Yes. It all depends on where you are in the timeline. We don’t know how long Bill spent traveling with the alien before her testimony was taken. Yes, she looks exactly like she did when she left the Doctor, so it’s possible she died soon after that, but an alien that can recreate her after she was a cyberman could probably keep her looking the same even as she aged. Or just as likely, the glass aliens only downloaded enough of her memory so the Doctor would think she was ‘his’ Bill. It it does leave open the possibility of crossing paths with Bill again and the Doctor won’t need to worry about spoilers because they haven’t any future info about Bill, just that someday she will die.

I wish that Bill was staying on for another season, but I’m delighted that both she and the Doctor will have one last outing together. Hopefully this time they won’t both be left thinking the other one dead.

Anybody else think that something was going to happen to Ada during the fight? The other women left her alone in the toilets and we didn’t see her again until the caravan was being led down the street. I was sure she was going to end up dead or kidnapped while everybody was distracted by Arthur.

Whether it was a lie or not, I thought it a very sweet gesture on Philip’s part to say it. I also enjoyed the scene where he tells Elizabeth his two favourite things about and gets her to ‘pull a pint’. I was was pretty amused by all the references to Tony’s half brother as my father is from the same town and would know him.

I watched the first episode of A Bakers Life. Did anybody else think that Paul’s voice sounded a bit different when he was doing the voiceovers instead of talking to the camera? Nothing major, just a little more inflection on some words. (Maybe it’s just me)

I hadn’t realized until this episode that wasn’t always ‘Prince’ Philip, but merely a Duke who would have been outranked by any Prince or Princess or (former) Queen of the realm. In some ways, it was a bit unfair. A female consort (Queen Mary, the Queen Mother) if crowned alongside their husband would have the title of Queen and be second only to the King in order of precedence. But Philip wasn’t given that status when Elizabeth was crowned and in the interests of equality, that’s when he should have been made a Prince.

This is why Elizabeth would probably ha e been better off marrying her old friend from season 1. He had other interests (his stables and land) which it would have been acceptable for him to continue with after marriage. Whereas with Philip, his life centered around the navy and it would have been impossible for him to return to active duty after Elizabeth became Queen.

And this was the big problem with the Ross/Rachel “we were on a break” saga. Rachel, when she said they should take a break, clearly said it with the intention that both parties (but especially Ross) should take it as a period of reflection so they could sit back and think about how they’d been a bad boyfriend until she decided they were back on again Ross on the other hand assumed that they were effectively single people for the duration of the break and acted accordingly. The whole debacle would never had happened if they’d agreed on what they wanted from the break beforehand.

True. But effectively when they were stationed in Malta(?), they were just a young married couple, albeit a titled couple.

I think things would have been a lot different if they'd had more time to be Lieutenant and Mrs Mountbatten before having to become Queen Elizabeth and her consort. Yes, Philip knew going in that Elizabeth would one day be queen, but I don't think anybody could have expected that it would happen so soon. It was what, 5 years after their marriage? He probably expected that it would have been 20 to 25 years before he'd have had to give up his career and by then it might have been easier to deal with for both of them.

My only problem with Lucien/Jean is that it was just so predictable that they’d end up together, even back in the first season. Plus im not big on romance in general, although I will make an exception for which hopefully we’ll get to see next season. If if you’re on Facebook, the official Doctor Blake Mysteries page had a live Q&A session with George Adams immediately after the telemovie aired. As always he avoided giving too much information about what’s coming up, but he confirmed that they’ll be shooting round about March/April and making four telemovies. No word yet on when they’ll air, but they may be spread out through the rest of the year rather than on consecutive weeks. In terms of casting he said that Charlie won’t be back as the actor has moved on and as was onfirmed by Anna in an interview, she’ll be having a baby right around filming time, so she won’t be back next season - but hopes to return later. It’ll be interesting to see how they replace them. As the next season is supposed to happen two years later in 1963, they won’t be stuck in the same position as they were in S4, that is by the time the show starts any characters new to the audience won’t necessarily be new to the existing characters.

I was wondering where Ada’s kid was. Did she leave him in the USA?

In College, if we were sharing pizza, we’d order a ‘deluxe’ (with everything on it) and then just take off the bits we didn’t like, because it was cheaper than asking for specific toppings to go on. But that was always a mutual decision.

I've liked them both in other things before this, but I never would have thought of pairing them up. And I have to say it has worked really well, IMO. On paper, they're complete opposites, but they complement each other so well. Bravo to whoever suggested them in the first place.

Agreed.

Irish law actually, the original entailment would have been set up in the mid 1800s.

I read the first book in the series The Clifton Chronicles by Jeffrey Archer. I was so pissed off that it ended on a cliffhanger that I refused to buy/read any future books in the series until they were all published. (and then I went and binge-read them all over about a week...which wasn't great either)

Braking an entailment can be done. How complex would depend on what sort of titles were attached and whether they could be separated. My family had an entailed property (a small farm/house) for 4 generations. My father had the entailment broken when he wanted to sell up and none of us kids were interested in farming. I don’t recall it being all that difficult, but it was a relatively ‘new’ one and no title involved, so possibly that simplified matters.

Is that the one where he says something like "I have not seen the movie, but I understand that it is terrible. I have on the other hand seen the house that I bought with my fees and it is terrific!"

The problems in Pride and Prejudice and Downtown Abbey I'm guessing were that the estate (land and buildings) were entailed, as in they were specifically directed to go to the eldest male heir. Presumably the Penvenen estates/inheritances weren't entailed and as such could be left to whichever member of the family the testator wanted to leave them to when drawing up the will. There's no specific bar on women inheriting but of course upon marriage it would all devolve to their husband. In the book, I believe that Caroline is the heiress to her parents monies because she's an only child, and as there's no title to deal with there's no need to seek out other heirs.

Some excellent news from Australia. Channel 7 have picked up The Doctor Blake Mysteries for another season. https://www.nowtolove.com.au/celebrity/tv/doctor-blake-is-being-picked-up-by-channel-7-42233 It’s going to be for a series of telemovies rather than the usual 8 to 10 episodes. Which is good, because Channel 7 is a commercial station and an ‘hour’ long ep would have about 10 to 15 minutes of ad breaks whereas with a movie length ep it’ll likely be 90 mins of air time in a 2 hour slot. Well this has definitely brightened me up for the weekend!

Slightly off topic but if you ever get a chance to go to a convention where she and her husband Peter Morwood are guests at, grab it with both hands because they are most entertaining and hilarious panellists.

When they said about looking back over previous weeks, I was fairly certain that Steven would be saved because he’d got three star bakers to Stacey’s one and I don’t think he’d ever been in the danger zone before whereas Stacey had. I’m afraid that I was hoping Kate would have another bad week and this time there wouldn’t be anybody for her to hide behind but it wasn’t to be. I honestly thought her rainbow colours were a bit bland and couldn’t see why Prue was so impressed I’d like Steven to win it but I think Sophie has the skills and Kate has the luck.

I really liked Malucci but I was so pissed that TPTB never gave him any character development and hardly any plot lines. And don’t talk to me about the crappy way they wrote him out in S8. After that I hate watched the show for a few seasons, mainly so I could snark on it on the newsgroups. The last episode I watched was the one where Abby was having a premature baby. It was airing a few months after the USA air date so I knew how it was going to turn out. At one point, Abby is on the operating table and is told that they’re going to have to perform a hysterectomy. And she just looked so bored and disinterested, as if she’d just been told, I don’t know, that there was no milk for her coffee. And my first thought was that that was probably the same expression she had when she was getting knocked up in the first place. That’s when I figured I was better off not watching anymore. ?