Llywela

Here's a fun fact about this episode: The Sandringham is a real hotel in Cardiff city centre. They didn't just use it as a shooting location, but also kept the name of the hotel and incorporated it into the story!

There have been chairs in the TARDIS at various points in the past. They come and go depending on the Doctor, writer and set designer. Eight's cosy reading chair in the TV Movie was my favourite.

Various Doctors have spent considerable time staying in one place, living one day after another, yet every time it happens (in New Who) it is written as if it is the first time it has ever happened to him and a terrible ordeal that he has no idea how to handle. Because the idea of the Doctor as someone incapable of standing still is more important - to the writers, at least - than the actual history and lived experience of the character. He could so easily have gone back for Anita, but there is no rhyme or reason, really, why one person he befriends becomes a companion and another doesn't. Or rather, there is, but those reasons are always external rather than internal to the show's universe. I had lots of nitpicks, watching. Overall, an entertaining but forgettable episode, for me.

Yes, I'd heard that season 24 was finally reaching PBS at last. Of course, we still haven't seen it (outside of streaming services) in the UK yet - in fact, we only just got season 23 here!

He's way past the age where detectives of Barnaby's rank would usually retire - I used to work with a former detective who retired with a golden handshake at 50 and then had a whole second career in the charity sector - but we're just going to ignore that fact like we did with John Nettles. We'll hang onto our Barnaby for as long as possible! (If only there weren't such huge gaps between seasons, we could have had a lot more content with him in his prime, but they don't make a new season every year, for whatever reason, and haven't done for a while now, and the seasons are also shorter than they used to be.)

Midsomer Murders official Facebook page just announed that season 25 is finally in the works - they start filming sometime next year. Which means it won't be on screen for ages after that! But better late than never, I guess.

Before the show, they'd have been living in London and probably had fairly low-level, not terribly well-paid jobs there. Button House is way out in the countryside, so commuting to the jobs previously held wouldn't be practical, which I think is why we see them taking on other random odd jobs locally when they need money after the move. But the kind of random odd jobs they are mostly likely qualified for and can easily commute to locally would not pay nearly enough to cover the maintenance of a house like Button House. Hence their constant ongoing dilemma.

The All Creatures instagram page posted the other day that Cleo Sylvestre, who played farmer's wife Anne Chapman in the show, has passed away aged 79. https://www.instagram.com/p/DAZQq8LqoW5/?hl=en&img_index=1

I really love the Third Doctor era. 😊 Liz Shaw is the character I point at whenever the Doctor claims to have been UNIT's first ever scientific advisor. He was not! Liz was specifically recruited into the post before he arrived for his exile on Earth! She was the first. He just kind of tagged onto her role.

Yeah. I could see it coming all through that confrontation around the table, but desperately hoped they wouldn't go there. I should have known they would - it's that kind of show! The combination of Greek mythology and Netflix, I guess. I binged the whole series this week. I'm not sure what I was expecting, since I watched mostly for Rakie Ayola (Persephone), who grew up near me. I love seeing her in anything, and in this particularly loved hearing our not-very-well-known local accent on a Netflix show! Overall, I thought the show was fun. Brutal at times, it is Greek mythology, after all, but once you've accepted that premise it's entertaining to watch and I enjoyed seeing how the various mythological strands were handled and woven into the world the show had created. I'm intrigued to see where they take the story next. I want to know what's going on with Canaeus, what will happen to Riddy and Ari, what Dionysus will do next, etc. So I hope there will be a season two! (I have no faith in any network or streaming service to actually finish the stories they start.)

For the record, the new season starts 19 September in the UK, so there may be posts about new episodes popping up after that date for overseas viewers to be wary of. I've seen posters all over the place, Channel 4 are really pushing their upcoming new seasons for a few shows, this one included.

...I hadn't seen the airdate publicised anywhere... *checks* Hmm. Apparently, international airdates have been announced, but ITVX have not confirmed when the show will be on air for the home market. They have been so rubbish lately! This happens with so many ITV shows - they start off on ITV, then slowly but surely the distribution rights get sold off so they end up airing overseas before we get to see them here in the UK. Very annoying.

I thought this was a one-off limited series based on a book - I was not expecting the cliffhanger ending! Then as the episode went on and seemed to be winding up with so many loose threads left dangling, I realised they were setting up a second season, so I really hope they get to actually make it - it's been almost 2 years already since they filmed this one! I assumed Montse was pregnant, especially given Amat's reaction. We've seen that photo of him with a little boy and still don't know the backstory there, so there are loads of unanswered questions. I hope they get a second season to answer a few of them, they've certainly left themselves plenty of material for it, but if another season isn't commissioned, all those unanswered questions will be left hanging.

Yeah, Britbox would have to skips the serials that are missing, I guess. The recons are too amateur and they may not have the distribution rights for the animations that have been released on DVD. For those who don't know, there are 97 episodes of 1960s Who that are officially classed as missing, as they are no longer known to exist other than as audio recordings (made by avid fans), telesnap still images, and a handful of clips that, ironically, survived because they were censored - i.e. physically cut out of the reel. Two has more missing episodes than One, but both were hit. All of the missing episodes are available to experience as reconstructions, though, available in various places online. Some are better than others. Marco Polo was my favourite, I was so sucked in I almost forgot there were no moving images! The Daleks' Master Plan is really good, too, despite being so long. I hope you enjoy your Classic viewing experience! It is a bit of an adjustment, but absolutely fascinating to go back to the beginning and watch the show build itself from the ground up. It is also a bit like watching the development of TV itself, in many ways. The special effects, especially, you get to watch the technology develop and grow over the years. The First Doctor era always feels really fresh and exciting to me, despite also being so primitive. There was no baggage at all, so every episode was new and experimental. Have fun with it!

There is a limit to how much meds can help someone with dementia, and enough of my family members have had dementia that Julia rings true to me. Present one minute, in another time entirely the next. Capable of dwelling in two entirely different times simultaneously. My great-aunt, who was the oldest daughter in a family of 10, used to get really anxious about having to be home in time to meet her little brothers from school. She was in a nursing home, at the very end of her life, but that was her biggest concern, that was the reality she lived in. Yet if you asked her how old she was, she would look at you gone off and say, "I'm 95, of course." That was her reality. She was both 95 years old and a teenager responsible for her little brothers, simultaneously. Julia in this episode reminded me of her a lot. Speaking of meds, though, I wondered in this episode if Kate has managed to turn her prescription into hormones yet. She was running out, last we heard, but Hank and Kevin arrived just as she got home with her prescription. Agreed that Kate needs to move on from Maggie. With that nice mechanic, perhaps... I'm trying to figure out where the show is going with the Gala-Amat-Montse thing. Amat seems really lovely (I always enjoy Santiago Cabrera) but I'm not entirely comfortable seeing him get so close to Gala while still involved with Montse, no matter how much they claim to be nothing more than friends with benefits. And I couldn't figure out what he was doing at the end there, with the torch, deliberately shining it at Gala and setting it up to create a silhouette of them (about to kiss?) on the wall behind for no apparent reason. I understand Gala's desperation to save her family's lives, but promising Tony all the money the wine can make when she doesn't actually own any of it is not going to improve her popularity with the townsfolk! And now Fred has arrived for the final complication. Only one episode left. How are they going to wrap up all these loose ends? Can't wait to find out.