About a month ago, I bought the Big Finish episodes around the War Doctor in which the late John Hurt reprises his role. They're basically three episode storyarcs - "Only the Monstrous", "Infernal Devices", "Agents of Chaos" and "Casualties of War" - all set during the Time War. Now, because of the setting, the usual Doctor-Companion combinations are out, though the Doctor meets a likeable idealistic person in each of these three episode adventures (and can save some though not all). But the great charm of any Doctor Who tale are those relationships. So what did Big Finish do? It had the inspired idea of pairing up John Hurt with Jacqueline Pearce, playing, no, not Servalan, but a ruthless female politiician nonetheless, a member of the Gallifreyan War Council named Cardinal Ollista. She and the Doctor are the sole characters in all the four story arcs I've listened to, and the way their relationship develops was probably my favourite aspect in these stories.

Because this is the Time War, and this regeneration of the Doctor specifically is on a self loathing maximum while fighting it, Ollista is initially a good foil because she, who really does only prioritize Gallifrey and initially sees everyone not a Time Lord as expendable, shows that despite what he's telling himself, he is still the Doctor, he still has ethics and lines he won't cross and will fight for and have another way. But Ollista isn't simply an Evil McEvil megalomaniac, either, hence me saying "Gallifrey" and not "her personal power", and so the Doctor in the course of those stories develops a grudging respect for her while she while denying she does so finds herself defending, in the last story arc, precisely the kind of (non-Gallifreyan) people she in the first story arc would have dismissed as necessary casualties of war. Whether they argue or work together, all the Doctor-Ollista scenes are golden, and with both John Hurt and Jacqueline Pearce now gone, I am really glad they had the chance to work together near the end of their lives and create two more remarkable characters for us to appreciate.

Before I get to this week's episode: is an interview with Juno Dawson, who wrote last week's episode. In it, she makes a comment about the Doctor and the Spoiler which I found interesting in term's of this week's episode: ( which is spoilery. )

Now, on to The Wish World. Basically, classic pre finale set up episode, making things as desperate as possible, though this time the horror is of a very different type compared to other RTD pre finale episodes.

( Spoilers live in a Tory Utopia )

In which I get the (good) intention, but have mixed feelings about the result. I swear this has nothing to do with the fact I only discovered just when googling so I spell his name correctly - the writer of this episode, Pete McTighe, was responsible for the godawful Amazon Apologia episode "Kablam!" in the Chibnall era.

( Lucky Day is way better than KABLAM, but.... )

Daredevil Reborn: overall, good finale. I'm not shipping anyone on this show (or its predecessor), but I was amused, given that Luke Cage managed to make "coffee" a synonym for sex back in the Netflix day for all the Marvel shows, that Frank expressed the wish for coffee with both Matt and Karen. (Not at the same time.) On a more serious note, the finale evidently went for an Empire Strikes Back vibe in that ( spoilery stuff happens )

Wheel of Time S3 finale: speaking of Empire Strikes Back vibes... Though in this case just in one plot line. Okay, two, technically. (The second one being Team Elayne, Matt, Min and Nyneave not gaining what they wanted to, but what Nynayve did get was so important that I hesitate to equate this with the goings on at the White Tower.) This, too, is based on a book series written many years ago, and was shot way back when yours truly hoped the world would be less insane in 2025 than it actually is, but can't help but feel extremely on point with its ( spoiilery stuff )

Doctor Who ?.02: amusingly weird, technically impressive, everyone looks gorgeous in their costumes. But Fourth Wall Breaking stories are not really my thing, and so I can't say I loved it.

Candyhearts has gone live!

I reveived a lovely glimpse at Ahsoka and the droid Huyang (I have mixed feelings about the Ahsoka miniseries, but Huyang - first introduced in Clone Wars, voiced by David Tennant in both incarnations - and his dynamic with Ahsoka I genuinely adored): Purpose.

And here are some other stories I liked at first sight:


Doctor Who:

Meddling in the Affairs of Humans: in which Susan ships Barbara/Ian, as I'm sure she did, and decides to do something about it.

Unwanted Memories: how Missy felt about what's happening with Bill in Bill's season finale, to put it as unspoilery as possible.



Hawkeye:

Fall in head first: in which Kate Bishop and Yelena Belova experience a delightful nursing-wounds/realising feelings kind of story, which captures their banter exactly and makes me want to rewatch Hawkeye.


Moon Knight:

Je te souris, tu me surprends: how Steven feels about kissing Layla. Adorable, and also a great look at Layla herself.

Now I've avoided both Doctor Who and ST related interviews because I didn't want to be spoiled, but the constant hate-on Fandomsecrets has for my beloved Discovery has inadvertendly informed me RTD had the good taste to like it, so I googled, and the passage invoking the Disco hating folks' ire from an article/interview pre DW season premiere some months ago goes thusly:

Speaking to Davies ahead of the two-episode premiere, I had to ask what motivated him to include that little quip. He explained that while he’d been a more casual viewer of the older shows like the original series and The Next Generation, it was the newer shows that really turned him into a proper Star Trek fan. “I'm coming to love Star Trek with an absolute passion,” said Davies. “I love the old show. I always watched the old show, but when Star Trek: Discovery came along, I kind of became a proper fan.” It’s always nice to see Discovery get the flowers it deserves. Responsible for kicking off the current era of Star Trek, the series gets an unreasonable amount of flack on the internet for its commitment to diversity and inclusion — two hallmarks of the entire franchise.

Davies went on to praise more of the recent Trek series, even gushing about his crush on Captain Pike — and honestly, who doesn’t have a crush on Captain Pike. “So now I'm devoted, with Picard and Strange New Worlds. Frankly, the fact that I'm not married to Captain Pike is a major problem in my life, and I look to you, Collider, to put this right, frankly. It’s a wrong that needs righting,” Davies laughed. “I love that man. Oh, god, he's beautiful, Anson Mount. What a great name.”

The entire article is here. Crushing on Pike is understandable, and if there is ever an on screen DW/ST canonical crossover, I shall no longer be surprised.

BTW: I still intend to write the big "Why I love ST: Discovery" manifesto, but right now I really do not have the time.

I only rarely bring up politics - this is supposed to be my fannish journal - but let's just say this week had started really badly in real life terms (not that it was unexpected, but the European Election results were really as terrible as feared), so I have to say it was oddly charming and relieving to be reminded of positive European interaction again when returning to Munich on Friday. Because: never have I ever seen and heard this many Scots outside of Scotland. Friday was the first game of the EM, Germany versus Scotland, which meant lots and lots of Scots. In t-shirts and kilts. And a punning headline: "Schotten rocken München" (Scots rock Munich, only the German word for "skirt" is "Rock", so it's a pun on the kilts as well.) The Scots were cheerful and fun, and seemed to be universally embraced, not that there also wasn't much joy when Germany won the football match. None of which makes up for the election results, obviously, but even for not football fans like myself, it caused smiles and cheer. Thank you, Scots!

On to Doctor Who. In several incarnations. Last weekend there was a reduced prices sale at Big Finish for historicals, so in honour of the late William Russell I went and bought a couple of First Doctor era historicals narrated (mostly) by William Russell/Ian Chesterton. There's were:

Transit of Venus: Set after The Sensorites. Team TARDIS gets split up, with the Doctor and Ian ending up with Captain James Cook on the Endeavour while Susan, Barbara and the TARDIS appear to have had a watery fate. (Obviously not.) Ian is increasingly convinced that the ship's scientist and botany fan extraordinary, Joseph Banks, is behaving weirdly and Up To No Good. This story (written by Jacqueline Raynor) went for a bit of an Edgar Allen Poe flair where the question is whether our narrator or everyone around him is bonkers, with the mystery resolved in a Whovian way. (Sidenote: given I knew Joseph Banks would have to go on and became the grand old man of expedition financing in his later years, I was a bit less inclined to believe that Ian had to be right than I otherwise would have been.) Cook, interestingly enough, is hardly in it (though Russell does a Yorkshire accent for him when he does appear), but there is a great and silent scene between Ian and the Doctor which captures this early stage of their relationship very well.

The Fires of Cadiz (by Marc Platt): This time, our foursome have ended up in pre-Armada launching Spain, and William Russell shares narrator duties with Carol Ann Ford as Susan. I was a bit disappointed by the first half beause the opening monologue by Ian looking back seemed to foreshadow that would go for something more complicated than Evil Catholic Spaniards versus Heroic Protestant Brits, and then we promptly went into a story that seemed to tick all the cliché boxes - Spanish Inquisition, going from accusation to instant torture and execution (this is not how these trials worked!), fanatic population, with Ian's "I had to remind myself that in England, Catholics were persecuted in this era" as the sole nod outside the cliché. True, there were non-evil Spaniards included, too - the Morisco Esteban whom Ian befriended and defended, and the couple where Barbara, Susan and the Doctor found shelter with, Catalina and Miguel -, but still, I was somewhat discontent.... and then we had the grand rescue-from-the-autodafé already mid story, with the second half indeed devoted to making things more complicated, not solely but also by showing the attack of Ian's hero Sir Francis Drake from the pov of the terrified Spanish population of Cadiz. Plus this story also checked (in the most agreeable way) a lot of First Doctor era boxes: Ian is heroic and compassionate, Barbara and the Doctor clash and she gives him a What's What speech, the Doctor pulls off a fun impersonation and a madcap rescue, and it's a historical without any alien involvement, and unlike alas too many early serials gives Susan lots to do instead of letting her twist her ankle again. Oh, and if you haven't figured out who Don Miguel is by the time he makes the Doctor ride on a mule named Sancho, you really don't know anything about the era. ;)

The Library of Alexandria: My favourite of the three! (Written by Simon Guerrier, whom I knew from the Cromwell + Seventh Doctor, Hex and Ace story The Settlement): Narrated by Russell again, and by Susan Franklyn as Hypatia. For verily, our heroes decide to take a break from adventuring and stay for a weeks when the TARDIS arrives in late antiquity Alexandria. Though I have to say, given Hypatia's terrible (historical) ending, I was wondering how the story would work around that, and the answer is, it's not a question because Hypatia doesn't die in this story, which is set years before her death and shows her in her prime. (It does, however, feature the burning of the Library of Alexandria.) One thing I very much appreciated in all three serials was that the fact Ian was originally a science teacher is a constant part of his characterisation, and here he happily geeks out at the chance to chat with Hypatia of Alexandria, while Barbara is in history teacher bliss at the chance to be in the famous library. Guerrier's story also does a great job of showing Hypatia's brilliance by the way she deduces various things about the Doctor and the menaces du jour, and by the end I was sad continuity and history didn't allow for her to join Team TARDIS and escape her gruesome fate a few years later. (I mean, given that Big Finish gave the Fifth Doctor lots and lots of adventures with Peri and Eminem between his last but one and his last tv adventure, I suppose she could have, but the First Doctor wasn't able to steer the TARDIS yet and couldn't have brought her back in time, not to mention that bringing a friend back to be torn apart by a mob is something I have a hard time seeing even the First Doctor doing...) Anyway, Russell again does a great job both narrating as old Ian looking back and speaking the younger Ian within the story, and it's a story I certainly will listen to again.

And now for this week's tv episode.

( Speaking of Ancient Egypt.... )

In which RTD, after having vented his whimsy in the season opener and his horror writer in "72 Yards", now reminds us he's also responsible for stuff like the COBRA meeting in Day 4 of Children of Earth. All disguised in what first comes across as a satire on social mediai, no less. Wow.

( Spoilers don't want to lower their bubble )

In conclusion: another superb episode. This is shaping up as an unforgettable season.

I say, watching Doctor Who before the British population gets to feels oddly privileged. ;) Anyway: Return of the Moffat. In more senses than one.

( Spoilers thought this was the best Moffatian effort as an episode scriptwriter since Heaven Sent in the Twelfth Doctor's Day )

What even, Rusty? *boggles* That was bonkers. Not boring, though!

( Spoilers were touched by the finders of the lost chord )