Yoss

Yeah, there'd be little point in recalling him from a loan to sit him on the bench.

Anyhow, I've just been rewatching The Mind Robber and The Invasion over the past couple of days, and loving them. I know those stories were unrepresentatively good, and there was a lot of right old dross in the original series, but at its best it was better than the modern version. Sorry, I know it can seem a bit arsey and snobbish to say that, but there it is. (ETA: Troughton was peerless.)

I agree I don't think it was planned, but most of the history and lore of the show has been made up as we've gone along. The idea of regeneration itself, most obviously. I'm okay with that, by and large, as long as it stays more or less interntally consistent despite it. Empty Child has got to be one of the two, right? I thought Blink was excellent as well, so was Eleventh Hour and The Time of Angels. Girl in the Fireplace was a bit overrated, imho, and Silence in the Library let down a little by its second part, but both were nonetheless the pick of their respective series. Over the piece, there are a few things that rankle, and his era as showrunner hasn't been what I'd hoped. He's run out of ideas a bit, had too many balls in the air in the story arcs, and it's all generally got a bit messy. But I prefer to look at the positives - written (and then overseen) some terrific individual episodes; cast at least one, perhaps two, great doctors; and maintained the popularity of the show and secured its future. Interesting idea, and a very plausible one. If I ever get round to watching those episodes again I'll see how it fits.

I agree that all of that serves as perfectly adequate retrospective explanation, and that there's no inconsistencies involved. But the fact that it's possible to explain it all away in hindsight is not the same as to say those explanations were known and intended at the time. I highly doubt they'd have done things the way they did earlier on if they'd always known and intended that Smith's incarnation would be the 13th. (I'm glad they've done it this way, though. Having introduced Hurt's incarnation, that would have made Capaldi number 13, and could have led to his whole tenure being dominated or overshadowed by what was going to happen at the end of it. The thing with Tennant's hand gave them a handy little cheat to take that out the equation, so Capaldi can just get on with being a doctor.) I'm curious to know whether the crack was always intended to be the Timelords, though.

tombola?

Agreed there, I thought it worked much better on second viewing. Still not great - the specials are never the best - but if you can overlook the Pond cameo it wasn't too bad in the end. Smith has been great, overall, shame he's not staying longer but I'm looking forward to seeing Capaldi nonetheless. As for Moffat, he's been very good for the programme as well, despite some missteps and some big disappointments, but I'm thinking he's probably done his bit now and it's about time to let someone else have a go.

"garbage" is harsh, but I wouldn't imagine he's doing anything more than just training with us anyhow.

Didn't Rangers use trialists at the start of the season before their transfer ban expired?

Not violent as such, but he hasn't been immune to the odd fit of temper has he? Even if he's grown up a bit from the days when he was twatting his teammates. I haven't seen the footage, but at the time it looked to me like he had an attack of red mist after being floored during a spot of pushing a few seconds earlier.

Cheers for that, I'd been vaguely wondering what had become of some of those. More than a few of us were quite hopeful about Bryce when he first appeared - I daresay the early days of this very thread would provide a few such quotes. There was a stage when McGlynn clearly had hopes for Wedderburn as well, up until that debacle at Morton which he didn't recover from. But as noted, it's only now that the players he started are coming through - should be mentioned also that Laidlaw, Callaghan and Donaldson were all given their debuts by McGlynn.

http://www.pieandbovril.com/forum/index.php/topic/208479-mark-campbell/

I'm out of step again, thought the van Gogh one was the worst of the series (especially the last few minutes). Eleventh Hour, Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone, Amy's Choice and one or two others were all very good though. Yeah. McCoy and Ace were okay when they had good material to work with.

I strongly suspect that Smith isn't as good or as versatile an actor as either Ecclestone or Tennant, but he's nonetheless a better doctor, for me. Not that I'm knocking the other two, it's a shame we didn't see more of Ecclestone, and Tennant was a better doctor then I first thought he was going to be. But, whether it was the way it was played or the way it was written, Tennant's doc especially was much too human. Smith is more believably otherworldly.

Agreed. Best since at least T Baker, imho. Maybe even the best since Troughton. It just made me bowk. The last twenty minutes of Tennant's final episode were the worst twenty minutes of Who, ever. But I can forgive RTD because he did a mostly very good job of bringing the programme back.

Yeah, it was Murray, and it was the quarter-final at Dens. Murray was man of the match, even if that was mostly for the comedic value of booting Darren Smith up the arse.

Ah fine, if that Twitter thing that says they'd be incorrectly labelled on the published list is right enough then we're in the clear. Be nice to have the SFA confirm that though, just to set my mind at rest.

I don't particularly like the sound of this player suspensions thing, over in the cup forum.

Lots of positive talk over the past page or two, which is nice to see. I was thinking of starting a thread - 'There's a good feeling down Stark's Park Way'.

Can't really claim to have been a part of things that season, I was still living in Leeds (until I moved back up later that year) and mostly following Man City. But luckily I was up visiting my parents that weekend and went to that Dumbarton game. Great day, even if the hoped-for goal avalanche in the second half didn't materialise. I remeber the noise from the terracing telling us Clydebank had scored, and the half-hearted attempts to stop the pitch invass=ion at the end. Eventually even me and my dad climbed over the wall and joined in.

That's the problem with Scottish football. Glasgow is full of bloody Raith fans who won't support their local team.

There's not going to be a way that's going to catch everyon, bound to be a few people for whom any system won't work, but we need to do something like this given the significant demand there's going to be from Rangers fans. So yeah, try contacting the club if need be. (If push comes to shove, I'm probably not going to be going to the game but can get a ticket through my season ticket, which I'll be happy to do as long as I'm sure it's going to a Raith fan.)

It might have that additional benefit, but primarily it'll be an attempt to make sure as many of our tickets as possible are sold to Raith fans.

That seems fair.

Can't speak for everyone else but I was just born that way.

I hadn't noticed that but will be looking out for it in all his interviews from now on.