Vamp

The homeless character was Sladen's husband too, that was confirmed at the Q&A on Saturday.

Jeesh that was dark. I'm a bit surprised at exactly how dark that was. That's not a complaint, but wow. Strong episode after a disappointing Christmas special. There were plot holes to pick out if you're that way inclined but the lack of timey wimey stuff definately made everything feel much fresher. Edit: Also it definately feels like Moffat has been watching a lot if only fools and horses lately.

Yeah, like I say, I get that and thunk it's a sensible idea, but the classic series had companions that broke that mould and changed things up a bit and I've never been lost watching those episodes. If you did it when having three companions it might add an extra dynamic. Jack was that briefly.

The classic series had a few. I can sort of see the arguments that you need human focus points to identify with. I'd prefer a companion from a different time zone but you end up with much the same problem.

She was one of the better ones from the new series, the fact was not obsessed with wanting to sleep with the Doctor like Pond or trout face was a massive plus. Actually Clara does confess to fancying the Doctor in the Christmas special. I hope she gets a lot more room to grow this series. I think because she was the central mystery for much of the last season, and then after that was kind of an accessory to bigger Doctor centralised stories, she hasn't really had much of a chance to round herself out as a character.

While the career mode sounds exciting in principle I'd be wary that it'd end up like the one in 08 where you pick up injuries and fatigue and lose loads of fame when you need to rest and whatever else.

Definately watch La Dolce Vita, great film. Throne of Blood is pretty good too. They're the two that are must watch out of that list. There's fun movies in there two but those two are pretty much essential viewing. And if you put off the classics than you'll never get around to watching them. Take the opportunity now.

So do you have to preorder the game to get Sting or will he be unlockable in some other way?

The T-Rex in London was awesome.

It's nice symmetry with the leaking of Rose I suppose. That had the wrong music or something didn't it?

The Fourth Doctor hit people more often than people tend to think nowadays too. He's not really opposed to using a bit of violence. I'd be hugely surprised if they'd go that way now though. I reckon they'll get the Daleks out of the way quite quickly. Moffat doesn't like them does he? The Daleks have been used so strangely since he took over. They start of scheming and brilliant in Victory but then get rebooted into those big colourful things, then they kind of half arse the big colourful things because they realised they were a bit tacky and then there's Asylum which is good (well, the Dalek bits are good, the Amy/Rory thing is....yeah) but invovles a whole new "hive mind" thing (which I'm not sure makes that much sense) but mostly they just pop up in the background of things. It kind of feels like their a bit of a pain to have around at this point.

Five of the Doctor Who scripts for next series have been leaked so bear that in mind when trying to avoid spoilers.

How brilliant is Curse of Fenric? Mad as a box of spanners, has Nicholas Parsons in it, Vikings, vampires, monsters and war. Utterly brilliant.

I get where you're coming from. If I'm honest the Christmas special kinda put me off. I really didn't connect with that episode (except the last five minutes or so) at all. I'm also put off by the hype about Capaldi being "darker". I know that's probably just meaningless hype but I don't really want Doctor Who to be any darker than it has been. On the plus side they tied up most of the overlapping narratives so hopefully the show isn't baggaged by some of that anymore and they can just romp around in space and time for a bit. The last episode kind of jumbled a whole lot of unfinished plot points together as if to say "let's just get these nuisances out of the way" so that gives me hope.

As much as I loved Matt Smith as the Doctor he did have a tendency to wield the sonic screwdriver like it was a weapon and just point it at enemies. The end of the first Silence two parter was basically a light show with the Doctor waving the screwdriver for no apparent reason other than it added to the light show that was the massacre of the Silence.

That may be but I'd imagine most people are sure as hell going to be hyped more by Superman or Batman. That's what they, quite rightly, care about. I'm also not sure you can boil an ensemble movie with a talking raccoon getting made before a female led film down to "lol, dc, amirite?" There's wider forces at work there sadly. Plus Marvel didn't have any characters as big as Batman or Superman when they started this Avengers universe. Spiderman, sure, but they don't have the rights. It's easy to see why they took the strategy they did and why DC took the safer route of focusing on Batman and Superman. It's not exactly a silly business decision.

I'm reading The Sandman at the moment, it's fantastic. That said I can't imagine a movie being easy to do. Sandman is often at its best when he's kind of on the periphery, can't see that happening in a Sandman movie.

I'd say a lot of people who didn't watch The Avengers would still either know the name or recognise the image of her clad in leather. To the point that when she was in Doctor Who the other year another character wore something very similar to that famous costume. The cultural impact of that character somewhat transcends that show too really. She was considered one of the strong, sexy female character of the 60s. And The Avengers is a hugely iconic show while On Her Majesty's Secret Service is probably one of the lesser remembered Bond films. She arguably plays one of the more important female characters in the franchise but I wouldn't be surprised if more people recognise her as being in The Avengers. People mainly remember the Bond film she was in as "the one with the Australian bloke in it." I'm somewhat surprised they haven't brought The Avengers back really but that's probably because of the movie debacle which features another James Bond. Anyway this is probably incredibly boring for most people and completely off topic at this point.

Darn tooting!

No I got that... It's worth mentioning that she is also one of the more iconic Bond women and something of a cultural icon in Britain. And she was in a Muppet movie so...

You didn't know who Diana Rigg is? I bet the Avengers are superheroes to you too!

Maybe they're getting ready for the inclusion of heists...

I just finished Assassin's Creed Black Flag which was a Christmas present. I say finish, I'm done with the story, there's quite a few side things left to do but it's pretty unlikely I'll do them. It always takes me ages to finish those games. They're fun for the first few days but they're very formulaic. Plus I don't really have a clue what's going in story wise anyway so there's no real desire to get to the next revelation.

Odd that wasn't the impression I got from browsing the scores. Seemed like bar a few exceptions (Ireland and Malta) there either wasn't much difference between the fan and judge votes or the judge vote was considerably higher. I didn't really analyse it in any depth though.

I think Molly was at least partly hindered by the lame staging to be honest. I preface this by saying I really likes Molly's song as a song, but for next year I think it'd be a step in the right direction to get a songwriter in who knows about writing popular songs on the continent. When the UK tries to come up with something it thinks Europe will like it's normally miles off. So getting someone who knows a thing or two about making a song the rest of Europe likes would probably be pretty helpful...