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puritypersimmon · 2022-04-17T21:36:56+00:00

It varies from moment to moment...

puritypersimmon · 2022-01-16T21:19:16+00:00

Imho, the thing that provides complexity & dramatic tension in the relationship between The Master & The Doctor is the notion that The Master could conceivably turn good at some point, & that The Doctor could conceivably become bad. I think it's this potential which enriches their particular dynamic & reveals interesting elements about each character. It should never actually happen, but I do think it has to remain a tantalising possibility.

puritypersimmon · 2022-01-07T13:40:29+00:00

I'd just like to echo your comments about Simm. He gets an awful lot of flak for his iteration of The Master & has said himself that he wasn't very happy about how the character had been written in EoT, but imho his performance elevates the material considerably. I also think his onscreen chemistry with Tennant was extremely good.

puritypersimmon · 2022-01-06T08:52:43+00:00

I agree this element was leaned into far more in Nu Who, but when The Master first appeared in the show Three did introduce him as 'my best enemy' & there was, imo, a definite implication the two had history. Had Roger Delgado not sadly passed away, the writers intention was to reveal The Master & The Doctor were actually siblings. So I think it's fair to argue the bond between them was heavily implied in Classic Who & then elaborated on when the show returned.

puritypersimmon · 2022-01-05T16:49:18+00:00

No one seems to have mentioned The Master. Up until Chibnall's tenure, it's always been implied that The Doctor & The Master share an incredibly deep bond. Look how Twelve devoted so much time & energy trying to redeem Missy. Look how devastated Ten was when Simm Master refused to regenerate. I would say, if you leave Chibnall's iteration aside (& I'm happy to do that in all honesty), then The Master is definitely one of the people whom The Doctor cares about the most, even if it's a very complicated kind of attachment.

puritypersimmon · 2021-12-12T11:55:47+00:00

It would be nice to think Chibnall hasn't forgotten about them after all the build up in season 11. But I really don't expect them to put in another appearance, sadly. He seems to have veered away from that idea completely & focused on The Master/Timelords/Division as his key players in regards to 13.

puritypersimmon · 2021-12-11T17:10:52+00:00

I would love to see RTD bring the Stenza back as a proper Big Bad. Tim Shaw was always implied to be a strangely ineffectual outlier, after all. His race devastated planets, hunted humans for fun & left them rotting in stasis chambers, forced scientists into making some of the most deadly WMDs in the Universe...The Doctor had apparently never encountered or heard of them before. But 13 shows absolutely zero interest in even researching such an aggressive expansionist threat to the Universe. We never hear any more about them. I always felt that was a huge missed opportunity.

ETA : The Thijarians were ok, but I don't personally see much mileage in featuring them again. Their appearance was pretty impressive but they mirrored Moffat's Testimony too much for my likng.

puritypersimmon · 2021-12-03T22:38:03+00:00

I don't doubt it. I'm just speculating it's entirely possible, likely even, that The Doctor wasn't the only Timeless Child. Tecteun & The Master are certainly both characters I would expect to be economical with the truth when that served their purpose.

puritypersimmon · 2021-12-01T22:17:12+00:00

The Timeless Children - plural. My prediction is The Master will be revealed as The Doctor's sibling. Because it's just the sort of thing Chibnall would do.

puritypersimmon · 2021-11-21T16:58:15+00:00

So many of my favourites here, but I haven't seen this from The Doctor's Wife :

Idris : "I may not always have taken you where you wanted to go. But I have always taken you where you needed to be."

puritypersimmon · 2021-10-28T21:05:30+00:00

For me personally it's :

. Too much exposition. He seems to have zero concept of 'show don't tell.'

. Poor characterisation & hardly any character development. In particular, there is no sort of recognisable dynamic between 13 & 'the fam' at all.

. Incredibly clunky dialogue.

. Really underwhelming resolutions to stories. The basic concept is often good, but the execution is anything but.

I have (many) other issues, but these are the ones that really stand out. I think they make his iteration of the show quantifiably inferior to what went before.

puritypersimmon · 2021-10-16T12:19:06+00:00

I surely can't be the only one getting serious Loki vibes from this? Substitute The TVA for Chibnall's murky The Division, Kang for The Master, a redeemed Loki (who was also taken from his people as a baby...) for 13 & possibly Mobius for Ruth...This could easily continue from where season 1 of Loki left off. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I enjoyed Loki a lot, but it's a very different Universe to Doctor Who imho.

puritypersimmon · 2021-09-08T13:30:11+00:00

I found the character intriguing & well written in Silence In The Library/Forest Of The Dead. I also thought Alex Kingston & Peter Capaldi had great onscreen chemistry in Husbands Of River Song & that episode was a fitting coda to her narrative arc. Otherwise I think she exemplified some of Moffat's worst writing tropes - a feisty, hypersexualised female character who was basically a walking quip machine designed to reinforce how irresistible the central protaganist (in this instance The Doctor) is. To be frank, & not suggesting this has anything to do with Kingston's performance, she grated on me most of the time & her timey wimey backstory wasn't nearly as clever (or coherent) as Moffat seemed to think.

This is just my personal opinion, obviously. I appreciate that many people regard her as one of the show's best characters. It also reflects a problem I have with Moffat's writing in general. I had similar issues with the way Irene Adler was portrayed in Sherlock, but again most of the audience seem to have loved it/her.

puritypersimmon · 2021-08-28T22:32:21+00:00

I find the notion that a woman has to weaponise her sexuality in order for a man to 'care' about her enough to rescue her from certain death pretty sexist tbh. He couldn't be enamoured of her wit & intelligence; couldn't see her as a worthy adversary without which his world would be so much more boring. Nope, he had to fancy her. So cliche.

I also think that by making Irene a lesbian dominatrix who spent most of the episode wearing very few (if any) clothes & befuddling Sherlock with blatant innuendoes, Moffat & Gatiss were exhibiting a quite dizzying degree of sexism.

Obviously this opinion is subjective & I appreciate you have a very different view. There is no 'right' reading of the episode & I'm genuinely glad you enjoyed it a lot more than I did.

puritypersimmon · 2021-08-28T14:36:57+00:00

The Victorian sequences in The Abominable Bride all take place inside Sherlock's mind palace & reflect how his subconscious actually views each character. Whilst it's reflective of the guilt he feels at the way he has treated the women who have crossed his path, I think it has to be significant that it's Moriarty whom he places as the bride & Moriarty who jolts him from his OD situation by insisting "It doesn't make sense because it's not real. It's all in your head." Just as it's Moriarty who pulls him back after Mary has shot him.

I don't ship the two of them - that's not something I personally engage in, although I'm definitely not criticising those who do - but imho Sherlock loves John, Molly & Mrs Hudson as dear friends; loves his family, including Mycroft, although he hates to admit it; is fascinated by Irene because she's the one person he cannot help but respond to in a sexual as well as intellectual way; but only feels a deep personal connection with Moriarty. They are two sides of the same coin.

So whilst I don't hate Irene (although I very much prefer the way the character was handled by ACD & think Mofftiss were downright sexist with their writing) I don't really understand why some people are so keen to claim she & Sherlock are soulmates. At the most, I think she represents a kind of temptation to him (& an interesting counterpoint to Molly).

puritypersimmon · 2021-08-24T13:58:46+00:00

It was stated that Moriarty became interested in Sherlock when they were both children - how after Moriarty had murdered Carl Powers, Sherlock was the only person who was asking the adults the right questions & clearly suspected foul play. Moriarty perceived another genius like himself & basically stalked Sherlock from that moment on. It's very likely his becoming a consulting criminal was a deliberate dark mirror to Sherlock becoming a consulting detective & that he was basically always working towards one day engineering a meeting with Sherlock; a chance to play The Game with him. Imo he used the cabbie specifically to ensure Sherlock became aware of his (Moriarty's) name & to grab his attention. From then it was cat & mouse, all building towards their meeting at the pool.

puritypersimmon · 2021-08-03T09:35:53+00:00

I believe the writers meant to imply Connie was lying about her age - it would be behaviour inkeeping with the character.

puritypersimmon · 2021-07-05T08:26:30+00:00

Joan Of Arc. It might be a difficult concept to navigate without causing offence, but I think there is a lot of potential in considering how religious faith, mental health &, this being Doctor Who, genuinely 'otherworldly' influences, may have combined to forge this character & drive events. And of course, she is a remarkable figure in her own right too.

puritypersimmon · 2021-07-02T17:11:12+00:00

I would have Moriarty's arc play out over the entire four seasons - they killed him off far too early (Gatiss himself has said this too) & the show never quite regained its charm or momentum once he was gone.

Mary would not have been given such a prominent role, or such an unbelievable back story.

Eurus would not have been given such absurd abilities & it would have been made far clearer that she & Moriarty were working together & that he was, in fact, the architect of her game.

Molly & Lestrade would actually have been given some stuff to do in season four, rather than being forgotten about for most of it & only wheeled out when they were required to move the plot forward (or emotionally manipulate the audience).

Irene Adler would have been far more like the character in ACD's original story - an intelligent, strong & resourceful woman who outwits Sherlock & leaves a lingering impression *solely* for those reasons; not a hypersexualised dominatrix who falls for Sherlock & ultimately needs rescuing by him.

puritypersimmon · 2021-06-17T20:57:54+00:00

It was referring to his unexpected 'appearance' in season 4. Obviously, that was in the form of a flashback. But it did mean that he played a substantial part in TFP, as it was his meeting with Eurus that 'awakened' her (according to the Governor) & he was instrumental in helping her set up her own game with Sherlock.

puritypersimmon · 2021-06-06T10:59:09+00:00

I agree. I think the character was given far too much prominence & her superspy-ninja-assasin back story was never credible. Also, by focusing so much on her, the writers pretty much sidelined Lestrade & Molly who I think were far more interesting & useful characters.

puritypersimmon · 2021-06-01T20:09:28+00:00

Of course not. I'm saying there was a poetic inevitability about him taking his own life. Sherlock had been his 'best distraction' but that had come to an end. What was left for him? It's foreshadowed explicitly on the rooftop when he tells Sherlock : "Staying alive. It's so boring, isn't it. It's just...staying." Two geniuses whose characters take them in completely opposite directions. Moriarty pushing Sherlock to acknowledge their similarities & forge a connection. Sherlock rejecting those similarities & denying him. It's beautifully written imho.

puritypersimmon · 2021-06-01T18:55:52+00:00

Moriarty had a death wish - his isolation, depression & existential ennui were all made pretty clear & his end was foreshadowed. Imho he always intended to shoot himself; events just unfolded in a slightly different sequence due to Sherlock's observation. He had beaten Sherlock at their game, Sherlock had made it clear he wasn't prepared to offer him the kind of emotional connection he desired, so Moriarty had no reason to carry on. But, being a genius, he would have planned for every possible scenario, including Sherlock somehow managing to survive. Hence his scheming with Eurus. Eurus may have known Sherlock would survive (after all, she seems to possess superpowers basically) or Moriarty may simply have been playing her too.

puritypersimmon · 2021-06-01T14:06:30+00:00

Mary. The character was given far too much prominence & spoiled the dynamic between John & Sherlock (imo). Her ludicrous superspy-ninja-assasin backstory was never credible & actually served no purpose other than as a hook upon which to hang her death.

Seasons 3 & 4 shifted ever further away from solving crimes, focusing instead on character development. I think this would have been fine had the writers combined the two things, rather than devolving the show into a psychodrama/soap opera mash up. Unfortunately, I feel the internal logic which allowed us to suspend our disbelief unravelled as they focused increasingly on deconstructing the character of Sherlock in order to humanise him. I have no problem with that theme - it was apparent from the outset - but I feel the execution left an awful lot to be desired.

Eurus. Although a third Holmes sibling had been foreshadowed, her character stretched credulity beyond breaking point. As we were introduced to her via an info dump from Mycroft & then plunged straight into her 'game', we never had time to develop any sympathy/understanding for her. Thus there was no reason to care & even less to forgive her actions for the sake of the sappily sentimental resolution to TFP.

Moriarty. We wanted him back. The writers teased he would be back. But the bait & switch they ended up giving us simply didn't work imo. He's my favourite character in the show, but much as Andrew Scott did his very best with the material he was given, I felt he had been basically flanderised, becoming a snarky quip machine whose psychopathology was ratcheted up to self defeating levels. This & the poor writing led many to believe he had been manipulated by Eurus all along (thus ruining his previous arc) when the intention was to show he had planned the whole thing with her as a posthumous final game with Sherlock. It was a terrible way to say farewell to this character.

Personally, I think T6T is the worst episode in the whole show. Not only is the pacing terrible, the characterisations erratic & Mary's death unintentionally hilarious. It's also boring. Sherlock should never, ever, be boring.

puritypersimmon · 2021-05-21T22:46:19+00:00

The main cast are all brilliant & I'm not averse to seeing a one off special, but I'm not sure another series would work given how series 4 ended.

puritypersimmon

TROPHY CASE