policies and legislation that undermine competitiveness, delay project development and disproportionately harm specific provinces and territories without any quantifiable benefits to the natural environment

What.

Faint praise, but this one’s a lot better than the first part of the story. The “farting” aspect of the farting aliens is significantly downplayed in favour of things that are actually interesting.

The emotional core of the story is the Doctor and Rose each coming to terms with how dangerous life with the Doctor is, and the effects it can have. I’d forgotten that Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North comments on how flippant Rose is about death, even at this early stage (too early?) of the series.

There are plot contrivances all over the place - the UK’s nuclear codes are controlled by the UN! You can hack the Royal Navy’s submarines and launch missiles from your home PC! But I’m pretty forgiving of stuff like that, as long as the emotional core of the episode is solid.

“I basically pitched the Doctor too quick but I did it in my very first episode and I’ve regretted it ever since!”

I…don’t disagree. Even by Doctor Who standards, Thirteen’s dialogue tended to fly by pretty quickly.

The writing really gets the era right here - mid 00s, 24hr news, a few years after 9/11, after a major event this is exactly what people would be doing.

Good point, and shame on me for not giving Trinity Wells the acknowledgement she deserves!

Throughout the spring federal election campaign, Mark Carney as Liberal leader repeatedly vowed to “eliminate” interprovincial trade barriers and create “free trade by Canada Day.”

But Canada’s internal trade barriers won’t all be eliminated by then — not even all the federal ones.

Canada’s supply management system for dairy products, which sets provincial production quotas, will remain. Quebec also has language requirements that will stay in place.

It’s geographically impossible for Canada to completely eliminate trade with the US.

I absolutely agree that it should be minimized, though.

Agreed. If there’s a greater purpose here, keeping it from Canadians is a pretty big blunder.

Even if we reach a deal, it’s not like Trump is stable or trustworthy enough to honour it.

I don’t think this is entirely true - Trump is obviously not trustworthy, but the government has been able to leverage CUSMA to lessen the impact of the attempted tariffs. There seems to be some benefit to having a formal deal in place.

But I’m definitely not comfortable with this capitulation at all.

Despite the move, Canada is still in active discussions with G7 allies to introduce an international tax, with Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne leading that work, the PMO said.

If this ends up happening, it’s important context to this decision.

If it ends up not happening…pretty weak shit.

That quote is…really something. RTD has a habit of overexplaining things to the point of incomprehensibility, but that takes it to a new level.

I do think the basics of what he’s getting at ring true - they certainly struggled a bit with “how much sexism should the Thirteenth Doctor encounter,” and “how much racism should the Fifteenth Doctor encounter?” They both probably should have encountered more than they did, but if the story isn’t about that, you run the risk of derailing the entire story. But if you include it “casually,” as just a fact of the world, as they did in this case…that’s not necessarily better. But maybe it’s still worthwhile?

I don’t think there’s a right answer, but RTD sure managed to find a wrong one.

On this topic, I was certainly laughing right along with the show’s depiction of Mickey-as-a-murder-suspect, but that has unsettling racial implications on its own, if you really interrogate the idea.

Elbows way, way down.

Oh boy, it’s the one with the farting aliens.

I don’t care for this one at all. It’s a very pure expression of RTD’s “kid-friendly” vision of Doctor Who, but…it makes it kid-friendly by featuring farting aliens. No thanks.

But there’s still good stuff! Pretty much everything about Rose’s return is pretty great. Jackie’s anger and relief after Rose has been missing for a year, Mickey’s status as a suspected murderer, all good stuff. We get to meet Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North, who’s always a delight. We get to see UNIT, still with “United Nations” in their name. We also get to meet Toshiko Sato.

The broad strokes of the plot are interesting. A crashed UFO, faked by aliens not as a diversion, but as a trap for the council of Big Brains that would immediately convene. I like that a lot. I also liked the way the Doctor immediately drops his dismissiveness of Ricky Mickey as soon as he says something intelligent.

But at the end of the day, those farting aliens are always going to be there.

They’ve already passed it unamended.

Yeah, every analysis of the RCMP I’ve ever seen seems to agree that the elimination of their local policing responsibilities has got to be the first priority.

the story sacrifices all its complexity by making the Gelth generic evil monsters.

Oh, good call!

I didn’t really like the cgi, even considering it’s a couple decades old.

I was originally going to comment on how much I liked it…but then the humanoid Gelth showed up, and looked pretty awful.

But I did like the earlier, wispy stuff, which reminded me of old-school hand-drawn animation.

This one is pretty average. Not great, not bad?

It serves to establish the time travel rules for new viewers - the past can be changed! Just because you know what 2005 looks like, you shouldn’t assume it will look like that next time you visit.

The Doctor’s edginess continues, turning on a dime to snap at Charles Dickens (and eventually turning back to apologize), and making it clear that he’s perfectly willing to let the Gelth inhabit dead humans - it’s like recycling!

I don’t think the Gelth themselves hold together very well. They’re stated to be gaseous, but they act more like stereotypical “non-corporeal” life forms for the most part. But the climax hinges on them being “drawn out” by the gas from the gaslights, so I guess they’re attuned to that specific mixture, rather than a standard nitrogen/oxygen mix? Not really the sort of thing we should dwell on.

Of course, this episode also establishes the Cardiff rifts, and introduces us to Eve Myles, which will be important soon-ish.

It’s modern fandom, so…probably.

I’d like to know more about the ruling than what’s presented in the article. And I guess I’d need to know more about Canadian defamation law.

Not reading the book is unfortunate (sort of)…but it seems like a person could form a sincerely-held beliefs about a book without reading the thing cover to cover.

I didn’t have any problem with Omega’s appearance - his whole deal was that he could reshape his universe at will, so…sure, giant bone monster, why not?

How easily he was dispatched is another matter. It’s sort of what I expected from the episode, but still not exactly satisfying.

“There was plenty of fuss made about Winston Churchill being in Doctor Who, when there’s plenty of history to suggest he wasn’t such a good guy. And that’s always the way.”

He added: "Our history of slavery, our way of walking through the world is constantly being re-analysed. So I like to think it’s the same on Gallifrey… Omega has been re-contextualised, and the story gets bolder and changes over time.

“We don’t want to repeat the past, we want to push it forward.”

This seems like a very odd train of thought, though.