I agree, but I think she means comforting morally. As crazy and sinister as he can be (which I think makes it fun), he’s always doing his best to be good and do the right thing. (Except that time someone did something wicked to Colin Baker, which made him mean, and he didn’t like his companion anymore – I feel like that happened one time and can’t remember why.)

I am actually in love with the hallucination idea. My sister finds the Doctor a very comforting figure and does not want to have him be crazy. I think it would be interesting – exactly, a guilty conscience. He’s clearly got one, bless him.

I think the Ood are going to be very significant in the last story (unless of course that’s just a red herring in the trailer). I think if the fixed point in time thing is real and not just a theory then he may have caused some sort of rift or wobble or something, and that’s how the Ood came through. But I like the hallucination idea – guilty conscience perhaps?

I thought since he was explaining everything anyway, to a woman who was about to die, he was being unusually honest with her about his ideas and the laws of time. I may have to watch it again to decide one way or the other.

I thought that by saying it was just a theory, he was trying to avoid a full explanation of who he was and how he knew about it. I loved that whole speech, ending with “As consolation.” David Tennant is so incredibly effective when he tones down the ADD a little. I wonder if the fixed point thing is something that the Doctor is intellectually aware of but everyone else is emotionally aware of. So that the Doctor knows he shouldn’t break the laws of Time, but he can do it if he decides to, while everyone else acts instinctively to keep the laws intact. Hence the captain’s split-second decision at the end – the Doctor is helping her out by being super-scary, but she doesn’t really have to think things out because she knows instinctively what she has to do.

The first season of Slings & Arrows does have Rachel McAdams, and she’s great. They do a different play each season – Hamlet, then Macbeth, then Lear. On the subject of TV therapists, there’s a therapist character in the third season whom I absolutely love. He has one of the most reassuring voices I’ve ever heard.

I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s noticed this TV therapist thing! I wish they would stop – mental illness is already stigmatized enough without TV making everyone think that it won’t do any good to see a therapist. I think it’s all of a piece with TV’s insistence on portraying all social workers as heartless bastards. Especially child protection workers, which I think is very strange. On the other hand, I’ve heard enough real-life horror stories to know that there are a lot of fantastically useless therapists out there.

Hi! Thanks for stopping by. And hooray, another person who’s read The Ordinary Princess!! I’ve never read Jasper Fforde – someone read The Eyre Affair and told me it wasn’t worked out well, and I’ve just never bothered to try it. But okay, I will read them both and see. I’ve heard so many wonderful things about him!

My sister and I were talking about whether he was hallucinating the Ood. The other thing that occurs to me is the Ood might be coming through from another dimension, because it appeared and disappeared just like Rose did that time. Though I don’t know what that portends!

I loved it that he said it was just a theory – he’d insisted on it so firmly to all his companions in the past, and I thought it was so interesting that he was admitting that the laws of time to which he’s always so firmly adhered may not be exactly right.

Thanks for the recommendation! I’ll see if I can get it from my library. Wasn’t Rachel McAdams in that? I feel like I have heard of it…