proserpina65

I liked Amanda's jumpsuit, and I liked the idea of the dress over it although the execution left a lot to be desired, but no way in hell did it fit the challenge.

I have to say, although there were moments I liked, and I'm still totally on board with Capaldi's portrayal (me, I like a darker, more crotchety Doctor now and then), overall this episode left me going 'eh'. Too much Clara, not enough Doctor, Dolorous Edd got killed off too soon, and the only way I want to see more of Coal Hill School is if Ian Chesterton shows up, preferably with his SO Barbara in tow. (Yes, I totally pictured them ending up together after the First Doctor returned them to London.) I loved the season premiere and next week's episode looks promising, but I was totally underwhelmed with this ep.

I love that the Sue is still working! She was so screwed over in her season. These photos look pretty damned fierce to me. (Ack! Did I just use one of Tyrant's words?!?!?)

It's not Steven Moffat who thinks that - it was every damned reporter/columnist/blogger ( or so it seemed to me) who wrote something about Peter Capaldi's age after his casting was announced. The comments about the new Doctor's age were jabs at those various writers, not the viewers, imho. As for me, I think Capaldi is going to be a brilliant Doctor. I loved how his Doctor was so unsettled after the regeneration. Unformed, even, in a way. It struck me as a throwback (or homage, if you will) to the transition from Tom Baker to Peter Davison, with the Fifth Doctor actually taking more than one episode to settle in. I liked the use of the clockwork androids from Girl in the Fireplace, the new titles, the revamped theme, the Paternoster gang (although a little of them does tend to go a long way), and most especially, the firm nail in the coffin of the Doctor as Clara's boyfriend - which was exactly how she thought of Eleven, all her protests to the contrary. In fact, Clara was the only less the great aspect of the episode for me, and even she bugged less than she had over the last few episodes with Eleven. So I'm looking forward to seeing where Twelve takes us. (Is it too much to hope he bumps into Donna and makes her remember her time with the Doctor? Without burning up her brain, of course.)

It is quite the trick, isn't it? Of course, it helps that Aaron Ramsey is fricking magic. And totes adorbs, even with the facial hair.

My favorites: 9th Doctor: The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, hands down my favorite for Nine, even though I loathe Captain Jack. I'm also very, very fond of The Unquiet Dead (a bit surprising given my thing about zombies), Father's Day, and Dalek. I even manage to really like Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways, despite how those episodes mark the beginning of Rose as the most super-specialist companion evah. I wish Christopher Eccleston had been willing to do more than one season, because I liked his Doctor a lot. 10th Doctor: Although Tennant was easily my least favorite reboot Doctor, I did end up liking a lot of his episodes, either because of the storyline, the other characters or just the hot guys (that would be Tooth and Claw, thank you very much). My favorites of his run would be Blink, Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, Human Nature/Family of Blood, The Girl in the Fireplace, The Waters of Mars, Midnight (not just for introducing me to Lesley Sharp but that's one hell of a bonus) and the aforementioned Tooth and Claw (Hey, hot Scotsmen! And no, that doesn't include DT). 11th Doctor: Although I could do without the Amy/Clara super special snowflake aspects, I find I tend to rewatch more of Matt Smith's episodes. I particularly loved The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone, The Vampires of Venice, The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, The Crimson Horror, A Good Man Goes to War, The Name of the Doctor and The Day of the Doctor. Least favorites: 9 - I can't remember the name of it, but it was the first one with the Slitheen - never found the fart jokes funny, although the second part was better. And I didn't like The Long Game at all. 10 - Too many to really list, but Love and Monsters was a complete waste of time, Planet of the Dead was a good idea ruined by some horrible acting (Michelle Ryan), and I hated both parts of The End of Time. In fact, I hated any episode featuring the Master because I thought the actor was terrible in the role. (Not including the one with Derek Jacobi turning out to be the Master, obviously.) Basically I got so sick of the whole lovey-dovey Rose crap that I've tried to blank out most of her episodes after School Reunion. 11 - The Rings of Akhaten was dreadful, and The Beast Below was built on an intriguing idea but the execution was seriously lacking. Most of the rest of his episodes I liked enough of that I could overlook what I didn't like.

That was a crappy way to determine the tournament champion. Not that I can come up with a better way to handle the tie-breaker. They really should just have had co-champions and give both young men $75,000. But at the very least, Alex could've had a minute or two to explain how it would actually work. (I freely admit that I found Jeff extremely annoying and might not feel the same way about the tie-breaker if a different contestant had won it.)

I'm glad to discover that I wasn't the only one. :-) Seriously, though, some of those episodes were really interesting and thought-provoking. Of course, I loved Peter Davison, who is my absolute favorite Doctor, so that helped. Patrick Troughton is my second-favorite, and Jamie is my all-time number one companion. Their chemistry together was fantastic. It's too bad that so few of their episodes still exist.

I know they're usually quite particular about getting titles of shows, movies, books, etc. correct, so normally I wouldn't have a problem with them dinging Sydney for changing a word EXCEPT that a few weeks ago they gave credit for a correct answer to someone who answered "what's the Monty Python show?" when the actual title was "Monty Python's Flying Circus"! The powers that be seemed to have gotten very erratic about this lately.

Plus it had Naveen Andrews making like the Indian MC Hammer! Give me Jason Statham hitting people and driving fast over anything starring Julia Roberts any day of the damn week.

While I was disappointed that Arsenal lost, I also wasn't too upset about it. Arsene tried out several young players and combinations of players in a match where there wasn't much of a downside to losing. It did highlight, though, that defense is still an issue. Yeah, I know, no Koscielny, Vermaelan or Mertesacker, but still, they can't play every match, and boy, do we ever need a solid replacement for Sagna. As for Alexi Lalas, he's pretty much a waste of space, although I was amused by his story about following Tony Adams up the steps at Highbury. Yes, Big Tone was a bit slow, but he made up for it by being extremely tough, willing to tackle hard, having a great sense of the right place to be at any given moment, and, with Martin Keown, running what was probably the best off-side trap in European football. Oh, and I hate to tell Lalas, but any Arsenal fans at that match who are within driving distance of the Red Bulls' stadium probably already attend RB matches because of Thierry Henry; those who came from farther might become more inclined to watch RB games on tv (although, again, Henry) but they're not likely to actually attend matches.

I can see Chris Hemsworth having a lengthy career if he keeps picking good roles like the one in 'Rush' and his upcoming part in 'Heart of the Sea', especially if he balances them with the occasional blockbuster like 'Thor'. Chris surprised the heck out of me with his performance in 'Rush' because I'd pegged him as just a pretty boy, but there's some serious talent behind the looks. Liam, eh, not so much.

If Keira Knightley is in a film, I'm pretty much guaranteed to miss it, no matter how much I might like the other actors or how interested I might be in the subject matter. I find her to be such a bad actor that she usually ruins an otherwise potentially good film. (The only possible exception to this rule is if a somewhat obscure actor whom I quite like is also in it, because I have extremely limited access to most of his work.) I only watched the P&P with her after reading scathing, yet hysterically funny reviews from two of my Austenite friends; for me it works solely as an MST3K-style object of ridicule. Yes, I am also a Jane Austen snob.

And she got an undeserved Oscar to boot. Viriginia Madsen was completely robbed that year. It's also inaccurate, or at least it was when I was in Paris in 1995. In the two French McDonald's I visited, one in Paris and one in Carcassone (I was a cheap college student - don't hate me), there was no such thing as a "royale" or "royale with cheese" on the menu - it was "le Quarterpounder" and "le Quarterpounder avec frommage".

I have no opinion of Keira Knightley one way or the other as a person, but I hate her as an actress because she simply cannot act. She has one set of mannerisms she uses in every role, and aside from Bend It Like Beckham, it almost never suits the character and is particularly out of place in period pieces. She was the utter antithesis of Lizzie Bennett, although everything about that movie (other than Judi Dench and Donald Sutherland) is the perfect definition of 'suck' - the writing, the directing, the set design, the costume and hair design, etc., were atrocious. (The members of Monty Python would've done a more authentic representation of the characters and the story with an all-male cast.) Plus, as Oakgoblinfly pointed out, Ms. Knightley seems absolutely incapable of properly opening her mouth; her jaw is always clenched like she's suffering from lockjaw. NO

I haven't seen Portman in enough things to have an opinion on her, but Keira Knightley has only ever been good in one thing, Bend It Like Beckham, and even in that, she was the least good performer in it. And yes, she bloody well looks like she has tetanus 24-7. Her performance in Pride and Prejudice was an abomination, although 99% of that film was an abomination, but she stood out as particularly awful.

The Age of Innocence. Or as the friend with whom I saw it likes to call it: "The Age of Ennui". So boring it was physically painful to sit in the theater seat watching it, but neither one of us wanted to admit that we were bored and so we suffered through to the end. Stuart Wilson's character was the only one worth watching so naturally he was only in it for a few minutes here and there. Daniel Day Lewis wasn't portraying Victorian uprightness; he was just constipated. And the less said about Winona Ryder's dreadful performance, the better. I will, however, still look at the opera scenes when it shows up on tv because they were filmed at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia (being one of the few surviving opera houses of the correct period whose interior hasn't been irredeemably modernized) where I used to have season tickets to the opera. Preach on, brother/sister! The saga started with Star Wars and ended with Return of the Jedi - nothing else.

Yeah, sometimes knowing a lot about a subject makes me overthink it rather than concentrating on the clue. I get stuck on one bit of info and can't work my way past it to the actual answer.

West Brom has never really been one of the top clubs in England, even though they've managed to scrap and claw their way back up to the Premiership, so them playing a USL team isn't such a stretch. Rangers, on the other hand, is one of the two really big Scottish teams; they are the other half of the Old Firm (along with Celtic) which is one of the oldest rivalries in European football, and have actually won more league titles than any other team in Scotland - only Celtic has come close to the number of titles. They suffered some terrible financial mismanagement a few years ago, went into receivership, and were punished by the Scottish FA by being sent down to the lowest level of Scottish professional football; they've been rapidly climbing their way back up the various divisions, and I fully expect them to be back in the Scottish Premiership for the 2015/2016 season. Them playing Sacramento is more of a case of a shark playing against minnows - no disrespect intended to Sacramento.

I did what I assume Kat did: got stuck on 'reformation' and couldn't get past that to 'protestant' even though knew the date was wrong for the Reformation, or at least the beginning of it. (And I took a college class on the Reformation.)

My dream categories: Opera, Music (including Classical), Shakespeare, European and Military History, Art, Television and Movies. Nightmare ones: Math, Science, Politics/Government, Sports (except for Soccer and the Olympics) and, as I discovered during my Final Jeopardy, Inventors. Thanks a lot, F**king Alex - f**king Ander f**king Graham f**king Bell (as he will forever be known in my house) and your f**king ear! I hate those, mainly because, like you, I can't figure them out quickly enough. Although I am getting better at rhyme time. I wish I'd read up on the aforementioned inventor. And a little more on government. But mostly I wish I'd not answered stupidly on the very first question (The! The answer is "The"!), not guessed at a couple answers late in DJ (otherwise I might've had enough to win if I'd wagered nothing on the FJ because we all got it wrong), and been picked for the game right before mine, because I knew that FJ when none of those contestants did.

I'm a Madonna fan, but I couldn't pull the title of that one out of my head to save my life. I felt pretty stupid about it. But at least I got "Take A Bow". That or a lot of pop culture stuff that even my nephews are too old to be into. I came up with Mount Vernon - simply because it was all I could think of, and I had no idea when it had been designated a national landmark. When I saw the correct answer, I went "D'oh!" because obviously, given the year.

No, you're not imagining it. Last season we saw Alan tell Celia that Gillian admitted to finding Eddie before he was dead and not calling for help. Nothing about finishing him off. And that is the story she herself told John this season. The finishing him off bit is totally a retcon.

For me, Teyonna was the worst winner ever, hands down. She looked like a frickin' velociraptor. And not in a model-y way. Grandma Krista was bad, too, although at least she could pose. And Alison not winning the all-star season was the biggest travesty on this show.

I've started to wonder if the show's gotten all new writers since the first season, because the entire dynamic of this relationship, and a good bit of the backstory, has changed radically. It's like they've forgotten everything they told us about Gillian and her marriage in season one. Exactly.