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Gally Day 3- 2016
The last day 😦 of the con went much smoother with me just largely camped out in the main room for 6 hours.
I was able to get my Julian Glover photo back. Hurrah! 🙂
My old camera with its failing batteries only took it out on me for the first few minutes of Si John Hurt II then it was good the rest of the day.
The best weekend of the year is now over.
Oh well, there’s always 2017.
2016: Sir John Hurt! Michelle Gomez! Peter Davison & Colin Baker! Samuel Anderson! Ingrid Oliver! Over 70 amazing guests. 3,974 attendees, guests and staff. $11,347 raised during our marathon charity auction for the LUMOS Foundation. Parties, panels, meet-ups, podcasts, new friends – and so much more. We’d like to thank all of you who attended this year for making 2016 a convention to remember.
And now… prepare yourself… the zombie invasion is about to begin! We cordially (and very spookily) invite you to join us for GALLIFREY ONE: 28 YEARS LATER, 17-19 February 2017 at the Marriott Los Angeles Airport Hotel… the twenty-eighth incarnation of the world’s greatest annual Doctor Who family reunion. Tickets go on sale in mid-April (time and date to be announced soon, so watch our website and social media for details), with hotel reservations open in early May. The countdown resets, and begins once again…
Be there or be left out.
I will be posting pictures and stuff this week as they get processed.
So Stay Tuned.
STAY HYDRATED! DRINK WATER! 🙂
Gally Day 2 – 2016
Well, yesterday started off like the day before. I was in line for 2 hours to get the autograph of Sir John Hurt. I also got Ingrid Oliver, Claire Higgins (Ohica) while waiting in line.
Then I get his autograph and go and get Julian Glover’s. Everything seems to be going well.
I go to the main room to start taping. Yeah, well…
2 of my hour batteries (they are supposed to be longer but age has not been kind to them which is why this was my backup camera to begin with) decided that 1 hour meant 5 minutes!!
So I struggled all day with the batteries. Eventually I was unable to tape most of the Masquerade. Got most of “Just a Minute” (which turned into the How Nice is Ian McNeice to me because he was blowing the points on purpose for comedic effect) and the end of the Masquerade.
Just before that, at a private meet-and-greet for Samuel Anderson (that was rescheduled from the previous night because he was unable to be there until Saturday night) an unknown person asked me if I’d lost a Julian Glover autographed photo. I said I was not aware of it and would check later.
It was missing 😦
So I have to go today to Lost & Found. Distressing.
The “Adult” Match Game was bust (literally and figuratively) so I left.
Sir John does not disappoint.
Getting Ingrid Oliver and Michelle Gomez on the same panel is like wildfire in a bottle.
Colin Baker and Peter Davison had fun with each other and the audience at their unmoderated panel that was interrupted because a 5-year old (as it turned out) thought it would be ever so hilarious to pull the FIRE ALARM during this panel.
So another crazy day at Gally.
Gally Day 1 – 2016
Well, yesterday got off to rocky start.
I forgot my watch. But I still have my cell for a clock.
Then at 30,000 I remembered I packed the batteries for my Canon Camera, but NOT the camera itself! 😦
Then I get to LAX and the Shuttle is grossly late. It took me nearly 40 minutes to get to the Hotel. I could have walked that.
Then my room wasn’t ready so I’m packing light as I get to the Convention.
Then like all things Doctor Who, things got better.
I got all 4 of my Photo ops done yesterday. So today I have to chase down the autographs to go with them.
3 of them were the very first thing I did (that’s scheduling for you) so I missed Opening Ceremonies for the first, probably ever in the 22 of the 27 Gally’s I have attended.
I enjoyed panels from Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, Neve MacIntosh, Michelle Gomez, and Ingrid Oliver.
Then there was a reception (I paid for) with Michelle Gomez, Jamie Mathieson, Jami Reid-Quarrell, Matthew Doman, & Richard Dinnick. I got invited back for Samuel Anderson tonight as he was delayed getting to the convention by work.
I tried to watch the Live Commentary of “Face The Raven” with writer Sarah Pollard but my long caught up with me and I slept through the vast majority of it.
Went back to my hotel room and went to bed.
Gally is always good for me.
Time to be The Seventh Doctor for the day…
SQUEE!!!!
It’s time to be cruel.
Gallifrey One 2016 has been sold out since March.
But the guest list just gets better and better. 🙂
Review: Hell Bent…
Naturally, there are spoilers ahead…
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Before I get into my more reasoned reaction to the Season Finale, lets talk visceral.
This is what I wrote right after watching the episode yesterday:
AARGHH!
Clara Lives…Moffat’s is the one who’s cruel and cowardly.
He ruined “Face The Raven”. Made it cheap, taudry and manipulative.
Series 9. A magnificent marathon destined to win the Triple Crown of Season Arc Storied Horse racing only to come up lame in the last 10 yards. Such a pity.
I am very angry with you Steven. Very angry indeed!
Another fake Clara Death.
F*ck The Raven….
I have calmed down quite a bit since then (about 12 hours later) and I have a much better opinion of this episode in the end once the emotions have calmed down.
It is actually a good episode. Series 9/35 is one of the best seasons in many years. It is a classic of its own.
But,it was a bit like watch the “Planet of The Apes” Tim Burton remake and you get to that idiotic last 5 minutes that ruined the movie. That was the visceral reaction I had to Time-Locked Undead Clara and Ashildr/Me running off into the universe together.
Fortunately, upon reflection I have a better consideration for this episode, and the last 5 minutes of “Planet of The Apes” STILL sucks. 🙂
The Doctor Clara and her companion, the immortal Me. Off to see the universe.
Is this what the Doctor and The Master would have been like if things had turned out differently? Hmmm…
That’s where the rumors of Me being a companion in The TARDIS obviously come from.
Doctor Clara gets the Hartnell TARDIS.
The visceral reaction is gone. I went too far… 🙂
But do the Time Lords REALLY want to risk having the Hybrid, aka Clara & The Doctor rekindle at some point in the future?
And what happens when Clara and Me meet Jenny?
The mind boggeleth.
Overall, the episode is very good. The Doctor literally broke all the rules and went literally to the end of time to save Clara.
But I still think it cheapened “Face The Raven” and gave us YET ANOTHER Fake Clara Death. I’m so sick of that. That visceral reaction hasn’t gone away. 🙂
The Doctor did break every rule he ever believed in. He was cruel. He was cowardly and he wasn’t The Doctor.
And Moffat got another Gender Change thrown in for sledgehammer effect. Sigh…Unnecessary.
The opening in the diner made me want to scream “MOFFAT!” but I kept it together because the story was actually very good- I just hated that one part- viscerally. 🙂
The Doctor drawing a line in the sand (Wish our President had that much resolution) at his childhood home, Lungbarrow.
The escalation of fear from Time Lords where you get one Chancellery Guard, to the Head of the Guard and several, to The High Council and finally Rassilon himself was very interesting to watch as the fear of the unknown was ratcheted up.
Too bad Rassilon forgot to take his own advice about “immortality is a curse not a blessing” and has gone mad himself and lead Gallifrey and The Universe to the brink of extinction in The Time War.
A Time Lord Victorious.
Now, he wants The Doctor. He “was a good man once” also but fear and death have overtaken him as well.
“Get off his Planet”. So does this mean The Doctor’s The President yet again, and he ran off in a TARDIS instead?
The Doctor is a “War Hero” He won the Time War. Yeah, he committed genocide of both sides and then undid it. 🙂
Rassilon fought it. The Doctor Won it.
Maybe they aren’t so dissimilar.
The Doctor was the one that beat The Death Zone, a playground for the Time Lords to torture other beings in.
They just tortured him for 4.5 billion years because they feared his incite into The Hybrid that would destroy Gallifrey, which the Time Lords naturally consider it to be a melding of the two great races of the universe- The Time Lords and The Daleks because they are the most powerful and most feared.
But it’s the deadly combo of a Time Lord, and a lowly Human who wants to be a Time Lord.
The Doctor & Clara, brought together by that ultimate lover of all things chaos, The Master/Missy. Also, he’s best friend. The Light and Dark in all of us.
Clara and Ashildr.
What does this say about the Cartmel MasterPlan that never finished because of the shows cancellation? The one where Ace was going to become a Time Lord on Gallifrey? 🙂
What does that say about the potentially deadly cocktail of Doctor and Companion for the future?
Peter Capaldi, over these last few episodes, has shown why he is magnificent actor and deserves to be one of the greatest. He oozes resolute menace like no Doctor ever has.
The episode itself is full of visceral reactions and elicits them also.
He “goes too far” and there is Clara, and Ashildr to stomp him back into being a Doctor.
The Time Lord Victorious, indeed. A wounded animal, acting on raw emotions and grief more like.
He’s willing to do literally anything to save her. He literally risks the fabric of time & space itself.
And The Time Lords let him because they are giving into their own fears.What could Clara actually tell them about the Hybrid? I mean really, what could she?
“Why would you even do that?” she asks him, crying, when she learns just how long it’s been since they last met, a heartbeat ago. “I was dead and gone. Why would you even do that to yourself?”
“I had a duty of care,” he says, repeating a phrase he’s uttered before.
It’s sweet and alarming. How far and how bad can things get if you “care” too much? Actually, given his knowledge of time, fixed points and the fallout of violations, it’s mostly alarming how far he’s gone and seems willing to go.
He has literally risked the Universe for her.
But she can talk him off his Time Lord Victorious Ledge and tell him to “Be a Doctor” before he effectively wipes his own memory.
It’s the reverse Donna. He forgets her, instead of her forgetting him OR DYING for real.
When did we become immune to seeing people die, for real?
But I did a fangasm when He steals a TARDIS and runs! Only this time, he takes Clara with him. And it’s an overlit (as it was back in the day) mockup of the First Doctor’s TARDIS with the original Hartnell console from An Adventure in Space & Time standing in for the original.
The Doctor has come full circle.
He’s running away from Gallifrey, afraid and scared, in a TARDIS but it’s not his grand daughter this time.
And via the Mind Clara in the Diner he become the Doctor Reborn with a new Sonic Screwdriver.
And the adventure continues. A new Companion. A New Direction.
Run you Clever Girl, and Remember.
She is now more Impossible that ever. She was born to save The Doctor, after all, even from himself.
Run you clever Doctor, and forget.
He doesn’t like endings, after all.
“stories are where memories go when they’re forgotten.”
A Man is the sum of his memories, you know, a Time Lord Even more so…:)
TEGAN: It’ll soon be goodbye, then.
DOCTOR 5: Will it?
TURLOUGH: Well, you’re off to Gallifrey to be President. I suppose your Time Lord subjects will find a Tardis that really works and get us both home?
DOCTOR 5: Who said anything about Gallifrey?
TURLOUGH: You told Chancellor Flavia
DOCTOR 5: I told her she had full deputy powers until I returned.
TEGAN: You’re not going back?
DOCTOR 5: You know, sometimes, Tegan, you take my breath away.
TURLOUGH: Er, won’t the Time Lords be very angry?
DOCTOR 5: Furious.
TEGAN: You mean you’re deliberately choosing to go on the run from your own people in a rackety old Tardis?
DOCTOR 5: Why not? After all, that’s how it all started.
But first, he has to meet his wife again…
19 Days Until Christmas. Then we are in for a long winters nap.
Michelle Gomez
We’ve all done crazy things for our love of a show but Doctor Who’s Michelle Gomez definitely took her fan antics to a higher level when she went off script and snogged Peter Capaldi’s nose within the first five minutes of arriving on set.
And while she insists that Missy would rather snog a Dalek than the Doctor, the actress tells BBC America that fellow Glaswegian Capaldi was quite simply “asking for it”.
“Well, he wasn’t, but his nose was. It sort of sits so proud,” she explains. “It had to be done.”
Taking part in the “3 Questions, 2 Biscuits, and 1 Cuppa Tea” challenge, Gomez, who last appeared on our screens as Missy in The Witch’s Familiar, also revealed how she takes her tea.
“Hot, strong and weak – a bit like The Doctor.”
Review: Witch’s Familiar
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Well, what can I say, but that was not what I was expecting.
I guessed well enough that the Missy and Clara were teleported, rather than exterminated.
But the Evil Laurel & Hardy doubt act was fascinating.
Michelle Gomez is full on bonkers. She has no shame whatsoever. She plays it to the hilt and beyond.
They come to pit…
Clara: “throw a rock down there” to see how far it is.
Missy just pushes her off the edge and there’s an abort startle and a thump.
Missy: “20 feet”.
HILARIOUS!
And these are one set of Sewers the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles never want to visit. 🙂
‘Between us and him is everything the deadliest race in all of history can throw at us. We, on the other hand, have a pointy stick.’– Missy
Last week Clara was a “puppy”. This week “every miner needs a canary”.
Just in case in between the laughs you forgot Missy is beyond insane.
The conundrum at the cliffhanger: The resolution was predictable. But it was well played as the last scene in the episode (which I figured would be the case) after all that had gone on. It had to happen that way, for everything to work itself out in the end.
The Doctor did not create Davros. He merely influenced him. But he influenced him in a good way. It will never be enough to out way the sheer evil of the man, but it gives him some humanity/Skaro-manity. It’s an infinitesimally small bit of good in a universe of bad.
It also brings to mind the scene in which a Doctor begs River for mercy…
I wonder where they learned that from? 🙂
When Davros asked The Doctor, “Am I a Good Man?” that was chilling. It brings to light that Davros may be an evil genius and a mass murderer like no other, but ultimately he thinks he’s a good man because he help protect his “children”.
But Davros, yet again, missed a critical part of his plan.
Where is the Doctor?
Right Behind you, and 1 Step ahead! 🙂
Julian Bleach is to be commended for a Bravuro performance the likes have not been seen in 40 years. Michael Wisher done proud today.
The Doctor And Davros, share a laugh together!
WOW!
Oh, and Clara Oswald, was a Dalek Again!
HILARIOUS!
But this one doesn’t dream of Souffle’s.
And the psychology of a Dalek, not that was truly enlightening.
“I love you” = “exterminate”. Most emotions end in “exterminate”.
“I am a Dalek!” (when she tries to have an individual identity).
And Missy, rather mischievously, tried to get The Doctor to kill his own companion. When he figured that out all he said to Missy was “Run!”. Not to get away from the Daleks, but get away from him before he kills her. At least that’s how I saw it.
Missy though has no grand scheme in this two parter, it’s largely seat of the pantsuit. She proves why she is sooo dangerous.
Also The Sonic Screwdriver has bit the big one. Not at the hands of a Terileptil‘s weapon though.
Sun Glasses are cool!
And finally, they used a Classic Who solution to the TARDIS being “destroyed”. It gave my fan boy geeky heart a good turn.
The HADS makes it’s reappearance.
I Love a Classical solution. Take that NuWho’ers!!
Fascinating episode overall, and it did delve into may psychological aspects and was a cracker of a story.
Well, played Moff. Well Played.
But I have a question for Maisie Williams– The Master’s Daughter?? 🙂
Time will tell, it always does.
Repeat Performance
BBC One have made a late change to their schedules on Sunday afternoon by adding a special feature-length broadcast of The Magician’s Apprentice and The Witch’s Familiar. The 90 minute omnibus is to be broadcast from 3:15pm, replacing the previously scheduled repeats of Eat Well For Less? and The Great British Bake-Off, with an episode of Escape To The Country following afterwards to plug the gap before Points Of View at 5:15pm.
No reason has currently been given for the repeat of Doctor Who‘s opening story, but it is possible that this is to enable viewers to catch up on the Doctor’s adventure who might have missed Saturday’s episode owing to the England vs Wales Rugby World Cup game, broadcast live on ITV from 7:15pm.
It isn’t often that Doctor Who receives an unexpected broadcast – the previous time this occured was back in 1974, when a compilation of The Sea Devils was shown in the morning of Monday 27th May instead of the scheduled cricket match coverage, which was lost owing to one of the regular BBC union industrial actions of the era.
This itself wasn’t a precedent, though – owing to the tragic events that occured in the United States the day before the very first episode, An Unearthly Child, was broadcast, the BBC decided to repeat it a week later at 5:06pm, leading to a slightly truncated Grandstand and the scheduled Doctor Who episode The Cave Of Skulls pushed back from 5:15pm to 5:30pm instead.
The Doctor & Missy
Missy: I’m a little crazy.
Doctor: And I’m a little bit rock ‘n roll
I’m a little bit odd from The Sound of Drums
With a Little bit of Rebel in my soul
I don’t know if it’s good or bad
But I Know I Love It So
I’m a little bit crazy, I’m a little bit rock ‘n roll
He’s a little bit moralistic, he’s a little bit runnin’ wild
She’s a little bit a full-grown insane, she’s a little bit of a child
Don’t know if I’m happy or sad
My music makes me whole
I’m a little bit crazy
And I’m a little bit rock ‘n roll
I like that peaceful easy feeling of a laid-back Rube Goldberg plot
And when I sing my rock ‘n roll, I can sing it all night long
I love my crazy plans with all my heart and my soul
I go out on Saturday night for a little bit of rock ‘n roll
I know I’m goin’ to feel all right
No matter where I go or when
With a little bit of crazy
And a little bit of rock ‘n roll
I love my TARDIS with all my heart and my soul
I go out on Saturday night for a little bit of rock ‘n roll
I know I’m goin’ to feel all right
No matter where I go or when
With a little bit of crazy
And a little bit of rock ‘n roll
We’re a little bit crazy
We’re a little bit rock ‘n roll
Review: The Magician Apprentice
If you missed it or don’t get BBC America: http://www.bbcamerica.com/doctor-who/extras/season-9-premiere-full-episode-the-magicians-apprentice/
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Ok, you have been warned…
MY Doctor Who 