Below are posts associated with the “❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤” rating.
📚 bookblog: The Cost of Discipleship (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
I first tried reading this in 2024 and kind of stalled out after a while. It’s Dietrich Bonhoeffer, though! The guy who was executed for resisting Nazis! I felt like I really needed to give this another go, and so I did.
I like what the book is going for: The idea of radical devotion to Christ is something that speaks to me on a deep level. However, for me to be fully comfortable with that, I need “devotion to Christ” to be defined (and mapped onto other values) in a clear, specific way, and I don’t know that this book does that.
📚 bookblog: Exploring Community of Christ Basic Beliefs: A Commentary (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
Like the last Tony-authored book I reviewed, I want to concede that there’s a bit of unfairness coming into my review. In some ways, I think it’s an important work that just isn’t what I’m looking for right now. What’s more, it’s kind of a reference work that I tried to read cover to cover, and that affects my thinking, too. However, I also have some grumps about it that I think are valid.
📚 bookblog: selfcare (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
I like blending the mundane and the fantastical (Jedi should absolutely be sent to negotiate trade disputes), so I ought to like this story about the fae and influencers (especially since it has some pro-co-op vibes), but it just didn’t land as well as I’d have liked.
📚 bookblog: Old Media (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
Eh, it felt like this was a continuation of some of my least favorite parts of Autonomous. I am also struggling to enjoy “robots’ rights” stories in our LLM era, which is dumb, but that’s how it is.
🍿 movieblog: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
I’ve now reviewed the original (audio)book as well as radio, tv, and film adaptations! Wondering if there are more adaptations worth looking at.
This movie isn’t bad, but I found myself disappointed with it. I don’t know if you can trim the story down to two hours (though now I’m wondering what the radio play comes out to), and while I try not to grump about adaptations, I’ve got a list of decisions I didn’t agree with here.
🎙️ radioblog: The Sontarans (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
I enjoyed listening to the “making of” track, and I wish that didn’t sound so dismissive of the actual story as it does. I’m not a huge First Doctor fan, I guess? I also felt like this story had abrupt developments that I either missed or weren’t described well. Dan Starkey was a delight, and there were bits I liked, but overall? Meh.
🎙️ radioblog: Prisoners of the Lake (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
It’s recognizable as a Doctor Who story, and there are some parts that are fun and interesting, but it just didn’t land with me.
🎙️ radioblog: The Black Hole (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
It wasn’t bad, but I wasn’t very engaged and kept waiting for it to be over.
🍿 movieblog: Zootopia 2 (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
I like what this movie is trying to be, but it’s so committed to gags, a breakneck pace, and a certain amount of self-defeating essentialism that I don’t think it ever gets there.
🎙️ radioblog: The Light Keepers (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
Meh. I really don’t like the narration in this series, and even though I was a bit distracted while listening to this one, I’m not convinced I would have liked it much more if I had been giving it my full attention.
🎙️ radioblog: The Calendar Man (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
I gripe a lot about audio plays being dumb sometimes, but this “narrated story” approach is a lot less interesting than an audio play, and that annoyed me. Jacob Dudman does an excellent Eleventh Doctor, though, so it wasn’t terrible.
📚 bookblog: Chrononauts, Volume 1 (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
The art is good, and there are elements of a rollicking time travel romp hidden in here, but the story ultimately comes down to tech bros doing what they want because they have the power to, and we’re lucky that they decided to have a conscience at the end. That is not the kind of story I want to read in 2026.
🎙️ radioblog: Their Finest Hour (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
Battle of Britain Doctor Who would really have appealed to me at some point, but it’s the sort of thing now where I find myself wondering if the story is uncritically pedestalizing an important moment of history that is actually much more complicated.
📺 tvblog: The Diplomat Season 3 (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
Enjoying this series less and less the more that it goes on. I think I’d still watch a Season 4, but what began as a smart series with interesting drama has felt with each season that it’s leaning more into the drama and willing to set aside the smarts. Some fun moments in this series but also some headscratchers.
🎙️ radioblog: Quantum Heresy (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
Maybe I shouldn’t have listened to this while trying to find parking on campus at a very inconvenient time, but even though there’s an interesting time travel bit at the center of the story, it just didn’t pay off for me.
🎙️ radioblog: Penny Wise, Pound Foolish (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
There’s an interesting, even Ellulian, moral to this story about falling in love with the means and not thinking about the ends, but I think the story surrounding that moral could have been better done.
🎙️ radioblog: Murmurs of Earth (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
The Voyager record as inspiration for a Doctor Who story really ought to work for me, but it didn’t land. Maybe I’m tired of this series, or maybe I should have paid more attention instead of listening while cleaning.
🎙️ radioblog: Wet Walls (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
I can’t say this one worked for me. I can kind of see the vibe that the author was going for, but I wasn’t a fan.
🎙️ radioblog: Pop Up (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
The idea behind this one is fun—not least a BASIC interface on the TARDIS—but it doesn’t really deliver.
🎙️ radioblog: Critical Mass (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
Yet another story that doesn’t really land with me because I don’t know Classic Who that well.
🎙️ radioblog: Walls of Confinement (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
Some fun gags, but this is another case where I think not knowing the classic series prevents me from appreciating this. Or maybe it’s just not that interesting?
🎙️ radioblog: Running Out of Time (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
Wondering if I should be reviewing these a volume at a time instead of a story at a time, but it’s too late now. This one felt like a Doctor Who story—if a bit darker than what we might see on TV—but that’s not entirely complimentary. Not bad, but nothing impressive in my book.
🎙️ radioblog: The Deep (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
Meh. The TARDIS turning into a whale is a fun idea, but not enough of one to really intrigue me.
🎙️ radioblog: The Death Dealer (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
I wonder if I’d feel stronger about this if I knew Classic Who better. As is, it’s an interesting scifi concept that isn’t bad but doesn’t capture my attention as much as some of these other stories.
🎙️ radioblog: Rise and Fall (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
Interesting idea in here, but it just didn’t grab me enough to earn more than this rating.