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Mary Ellen Trainor Jan de Bont Jay Benedict

The Haunting of Villa Diodati - I completely agree with you. This is a brilliant episode and one of the strongest of the Chibnall era. Oh to have more of this standard. Maxine Alderton proves herself to be an accomplished writer. This is a fantastic ghost story with a good mix of horror and historical. The pacing and production are spot on. The main cast are given the chance to shine especially Jodie. For me this is the most Doctor like she has managed to be. It's interesting to see her Doctor with a true dilemma. The support cast are all given good material to work with. Special mention to Patrick O'Kane who gives a creepy performance as Ashad. As a big fan of the story of Frankenstein this does the origins justice. Overall 9/10

The Haunting Of Villa Diodati- This is my favourite episode of the Chibnall era so far. The acting is excellent across the board. Jodie finally gets some great stuff to work with, and in my eyes she proves she could be a good Doctor if the writing was always this good. The pacing is excellent, the set design is fantastic, and the editing is good. Maxine Alderton did a brilliant job with the script. On a technical level, I have no issues with this one. This episode's greatest strength is Ashad, played fantastically by Patrick O'Kane. This is the most chilling a Cyberman has been since the original Mondasian Cybermen in my opinion. I was captivated by him every second he was on screen. The most interesting Cyberman in recent years was one which still had emotion, which is somewhat ironic. This episode introduces something completely new for the Cybermen, and that's probably why it is so much more effective than the boring robots we've had over their last few appearances. The last 15 minutes of this episode are some of the best Doctor Who content that this era has given us. I love seeing a Doctor who is scared and aggressive, unsure of what to do. It's a great contrast to 13's usually hugely optimistic self. I also love to see The Doctor lose, and this episode provides an interesting moral dilemma for The Doctor- let one person die or save them and risk millions more lives. It brings depth which is missing from a lot of episodes in this series. Overall- 10/10. This is something I wasn't expecting from Chibnall's era. My first 10 rating. I do think this episode deserves it though. Every aspect works fantastically, it was one of the few I was looking forward to rewatching and it was even better this time around. The characterisation of Byron lets it down ever so slightly, but not enough to lose it a point.

I got this one the other day, With no SM events had to buy from the Internet. John Dugan "Grandpa from Texas Chainsaw Massacre' Met him few years ago at a SM Event. Nice guy.

We're so close to finishing this now. Only three more episodes to go. As this is effectively a three-parter I'll probably watch it all today, so it's gonna be a long review post as I'll most likely be doing all three in one.

Can You Hear Me? - A vast improvement on the previous episode. This does get off to a slow start but improves through the episode. This does affect the overall pacing of the episode which is a bit up and down. The production is excellent. The writing on the whole is very good. The main issue I have is the same scene as you highlighted. I'll cover that later. I do wonder if this episode suffers from the Chibnall effect. I guess we'll never know how much is the original by Charlene James. The main cast all perform well. It's great to see some character development with a back story for Yaz and Ryan. And it's great to actually see the companions querying the impact of traveling with the Doctor. Of the support cast the stand out performances are Ian Gelder as Zellin and Aruhan Galieva as Tahira. The Eternals are well utilised. An enjoyable throw back to Classic Who with the mention of The Celestial Toymaker and The Guardians. This is always nice to see. The mental health issues are certainly dealt with in a responsible way. This is always a difficult area to cover in a dramatic way but still be respectful and give your message in a subtle way. This episode did very well in this. It's fantastic to know that for someone like yourself who has had to deal with your own mental health issues that you felt this episode spoke to you in a positive way. If people are taking away even an improved understanding then that can only be a good thing. And so to 'that' scene between The Doctor and Graham. I can see where this was supposed to be going. But for me this again demonstrates a lack of understanding of the character of The Doctor by Chibnall and Whittaker. The response to Graham's fears is almost too human - not knowing quite what to say. Now The Doctor may be an alien and may get things wrong when understanding humans (sometimes with comedic effect) but (s)he is never at a loss for words. Here was a perfect (missed) opportunity to give Jodie's Doctor a memorable speech regarding fear, friendship and mortality. But instead she comes across as dismissive. Never be cruel....... didn't work here! Overall 8/10

Can You Hear Me?- After the hideously poor Praxeus, my expectations for this one were low. I am happy to report that this is one of my favourite episodes of the Chibnall era. The first third of this episode isn't the best. The Aleppo sequences are dull, and the pacing as a whole is slow. Zellin's first appearances aren't as intimidating as they should be (the ear thing immediately diminished any initial credibility he had in my eyes). Once the story gets to the spaceship, that's where it improves considerably. The prison adds some nice mystery, and I liked seeing the Doctor make a mistake in unlocking the prison, something 13 rarely does. This is how a classic villain should be reintroduced. I loved the fact that this episode brought back The Eternals, a race I've always thought have been poorly utilised in the show itself. They're great when they do show up, but they've had far too few appearances. The expanded universe does a lot with the Eternals, but it's nice to see more exploration of in the television episodes. Ian Gelder and Aruhan Galieva are great as the villains. I love when the show tries to be unique, and that animated sequence was a great example of that. It's something the show hasn't done before, and delivered exposition in an engaging way, something a lot of Chibnall era episodes fail to do. The Doctor defeats the Eternals a bit too easily for my liking, but it's not too much of an issue. The acting is surprisingly excellent all around. All of the leads give good performances, and the supporting cast are effectively utilised. The writing is far superior to most episodes of this era, it made a nice change to have a script which wasn't annoyingly weak or pandering. That brings me onto the theme of the week- mental health. This episode treats it's messages properly. This is handled with far more respect and subtlety than the environmental messages given in Praxeus etc. Yaz finally gets an effective story, and I loved it. As someone who has struggled with mental health issues myself in the past, this episode definitely spoke to me. The only issue I have is the scene in which The Doctor interacts with Graham. Cancer is not a joke, but the way the Doctor shrugs off Graham's concerns seems like it was played as a comedic moment to me. It was way off character in my eyes. It started as a heartfelt moment, with Graham admitting his fears and looking for support. The Doctor always tries to help, even if it doesn't work exactly as they intended. I don't see any other incarnation reacting like this, and completely disregarding it, thus ruining the scene and any emotion it was evoking. The contrast between the excellent Yaz arc and this scene is quite sad to see. If it wasn't for this one scene, this portion of the episode would be flawless. Overall- 8/10. This is a flawed episode. The pacing is off at times, and the villains are defeated too easily. However, for me, the pros far outweigh the cons with this episode. The script is good, the acting is great and the Eternals are effectively utilised. The theme of mental health is explored with care (for the most part), and that's something Doctor Who has been missing for a while. The stories have always had messages like these, the difference comes from how effectively they were crafted into the story at hand. This episodes succeeds in my eyes where many other Chibnall era episodes fail. This was my first tie watching this episode since it aired, and I'm happy that it still works for me as well as it did on that first watch.

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That has nothing to do with it. I will say it again, they and almost every other event organiser cannot cancel without incurring financial penalties if it's not government mandated if there is a cancellation penalty clause in the contract with venue/guests. Whilst each organiser is unique in their agreements with venues for example I'd be surprised if a venue like Olympia doesn't have something like that in place, Also to give you an example, an other organiser, with an event far smaller than LFCC (maybe 1000 people at the most) was threatened with a penalty of £20,000 when they tried to postpone before we officially had to lock down.