BBC Approved Spoilers
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WhoHar 4 months ago.
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19 September 2015 at 12:34 #42920
This is a new topic for anything the BBC has officially sanctioned for release including trailers for upcoming episodes. It may be official, but it could still be considered a spoiler by those on the site who don’t want to know anything before they watch.
We used to do this in blogs, but a topic seems more appropriate now as we evolve.
I cannot stress enough, this is ONLY for information the BBC has released. Anything else should go in the full Spoilers topic.
To get us started, here is the trailer for the first episode of the new series. Enjoy.
20 September 2015 at 10:26 #43033And here are the two trailers that were released for the series.
20 September 2015 at 10:37 #43035And here is the official trailer for episode two, ‘The Witch’s Familiar’.
20 September 2015 at 15:38 #43055Ooh, trailer for the next episode!
But not really enough material to construct a bonkers theory. Perhaps more coffee required.
20 September 2015 at 15:42 #43056Hold on though, perhaps there is…the title of the show: “The Witches Familiar”, since a ‘familiar’ refers to an animal-shaped spirit or minor demon believed to serve a witch or magician as domestic servant, spy and companion, in addition to helping to bewitch enemies or to divine information (a definition I just got off the web, so it must be true!)
OK, how can we use that to theorize about what the episode holds? Hmm…definitely more coffee required.
20 September 2015 at 16:05 #43059So glad you’ve managed to access the series to watch in real time.
I’ve been pondering the episode titles too. The Magician’s Apprentice is obviously a reference to the Sorceror’s Apprentice and summoning powers or starting things which quickly get out of control. By the end of the episode I still don’t know who’s the Magician and who’s the apprentice. The obvious would be the Magician being the Doctor (or Missy) with the apprentice being Clara. But maybe the Doctor is the apprentice.
The Witch’s Familiar is intriguing. As you say the “familiar” is traditionally embodied as an animal – what about Missy’s line to Clara about her being the puppy. Maybe Missy is the witch and Clara the familiar… or the apprentice. Or maybe it’s a wee nudge to all us apostrophe geeks! An abbreviation of the Witch is familiar ie Missy is behind this all along!
There is incredibly little to work on in the trailer, but that doesn’t usually stop us round here!!
Have to say the scene of the Doctor brandishing a Dalek weapon and shouting “Exterminate” is especially chilling.
Bonkers theory #3295 – the Doctor IS Davros in some very odd timey wimey convoluted loop. After all Davros says in TMA that he “approves” of the Doctor’s new face – as it more closely resembles his own!! All these years he has been fighting his own (very) dark self!!!
😯 👿
20 September 2015 at 16:27 #43062@scaryb I see we are thinking along similar lines, although your slightly alarming idea that the Doctor might be Davros in some timey-wimey takes us to a place far too dark for me! (or the show I suspect)
So, my caffeine-enhanced thoughts are a slight variation on yours. On the basis of the show just watched I wonder if Clara is the the Magician’s Apprentice (the magician being the Doctor) and she certainly was standing in for the Doctor with UNIT (in fact, coming up with more ideas than Kate Lethbridge-Stewart). So, perhaps Clara is also the Witch’s Familiar (the witch being Missy). Missy refers to Clara explicitly as an animal, unlike her (Missy’s) perception of Time Lords, and as this episode established an uneasy alliance between Missy and Clara, so that alliance might be crucial to saving the Doctor in the next episode. Clara, was, after all, born to save the Doctor.
On the other hand, it is me saying all this so we can take it as read that this won’t happen…
20 September 2015 at 18:14 #43071@blenkinsopthebrave So from what will Clara (+ allies) save the Doctor now? Maybe from completely losing it and killing, or trying to kill, Boy Davros? Which he’s only even contemplating doing because his mind has been blown by the deaths of Missy, Clara, and the TARDIS in one fell swoop on Skarro. Normally, if we can use such a word, it would never occur to him to even seriously threaten a child; in that recent interview Capaldi said that his conception of the Doctor is that of a person who may get you into dangerous situations, but who will always protect you from ultimate harm at any cost.
So I think he’s going to exterminate the handmines (would the gun-thing have enough charge to get them all? There were *lots*) and rescue Boy Davros from the battlefield (well, that’s the whole planet after so much war), and —
What then? Take back the sonic, keep Boy Davros with him and protect him from the other timeline in which Davros is crippled and crazified? Drop him off on Karn for safekeeping? Something designed to change the way the Daleks are, so that there’s no longer a huge army of bloodthirsty Daleks waiting to bash Gallifrey to smithereens as soon as it pops back out of the pocket universe, I’d guess (but the Doctor still has to locate it first).
20 September 2015 at 19:03 #43072@scaryb <waves> The Doctor as Davros IS dark – I like it! But agree with @blenkinsopthebrave – too dark for the kiddies.
Re the titles – a tussle for Clara? Is she the Doctor’s apprentice (the Magician) or the Master/ Missy’s familiar (the Witch). Who will she listen to and which way of doing things will she follow when the chips are down? We still don’t know why Missy introduced Clara to the Doctor after all (as the woman on the phone).
As for Maisie Williams’ appearance – it would be fab is she were being lined up as a new companion, but that would be too much ontop of a Game of Thrones schedule, probably – so maybe in the future.
21 September 2015 at 03:47 #43095Regarding MW as a new companion – I believe Game of Thrones is in its last season?
Also Clara is the Doctors apprentice but she is Missy’s familiar. I think Missy
chose her because she has been in the Doctor’s time stream and so that makes
her more ‘familiar’ with many of the various Doctors. Plus if she also has some Tardis
in her now from taking the trip in the time stream that might also mean from
Missy’s point of view that Clara has special access to the Tardis that Missy doesn’t.
Also, the previous trailer from the BBC for these 2 episodes showed Missy inside what
looked a lot like a cave staring down a Dalek. So that has to mean she and Clara are
definitely not dead because that scene hasn’t happened yet.26 September 2015 at 23:08 #43483I believe Game of Thrones is in its last season?
I doubt that very much. They are barely a third of the way through Arya’s arc (MW’s character) and there’s a whole load of shaggy dragon story to tell even before GRRM writes the next book.
If the shooting schedules don’t conflict it isn’t inconceivable fo rMW to board the Tardis full time, but I think it more likely that she will be recurring. (This of course pre-supposes that she isn’t a one-shot about whom we are being led a dance)
26 September 2015 at 23:25 #43486@IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan HBO says it will last until season 8 – my bad! 🙁
26 September 2015 at 23:28 #43487@IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan Are you also Pedant? Asking because of your @
27 September 2015 at 09:23 #43524Posting here because this speculation relies on a casting spoiler (I haven’t read the last page of TWF yet, so someone else may already have come up with it).
The Doctor’s already fulfilled the prophecy. River’s the warrior hybrid. Remember those charts in the hospital, in Let’s Kill Hitler, which seemed to show two hearts?
That’s why River’s back at Christmas.
27 September 2015 at 09:23 #43525Yes, @lisa , @pedant is also the one who is not a fish 🙂
On your point @pedant, about the meaning of Maisie’ William’s line (first trailer for the series above) “What took you so long, old man?” to which he replied “You?” She could, of course, be anyone from his past at all. I did wonder, other Time Lord/ Lady of long acquaintance, teasing him with her young regenerated self. But of course “old man” could also suggest a familial relationship, as we’ve been discussing on the Witch’s Familiar thread with respect to Clara.
Family is a recurring theme in Moffat’s work, so I will eat a jellied eel if the Clara story doesn’t involve the Doctor’s old family from Gallifrey days before it’s over. I really hope I’m right – eels don’t sound very tasty!
27 September 2015 at 09:35 #43526@bluesqueakpip I can’t wait for River’s return!
Kingston will be on fire with Capaldi. I can imagine this Doctor being both deeply snippy with her and actually very tender and overwhelmed to see her again.
If we get Michelle Gomez at the same time, it will be a treat!
Yes, nice idea that she’s the warrior hybrid in question. Daleks fear her – we know that from the Big Bang two-parter. There’s the potential for a really wonderful story (which touches on immigrant discourses and “racial purity narratives below the surface) in which Gallifrey is back and some of the Time Lords are incandescent with fury at the Doctor for diluting the “purity” of Time Lord genetics.
But, it is the Christmas episode, so more likely to be a heart-warming tale of family reunion than quite the fable I’m envisioning!
27 September 2015 at 12:23 #43535Indeed – and to that uncertainty we should add Moffat’s at-a-stroke willingness to yank our collective chain!
27 September 2015 at 13:50 #43539But, it is the Christmas episode, so more likely to be a heart-warming tale of family reunion
I think that’s because, unlike RTD, Moffat has a young family. So he seems very conscious that the Who Christmas episode could potentially ruin some children’s Christmases – you don’t leave things on a downer. Explorations of grief and loneliness, fine, but remember that Christmas is celebrating that we’re ‘halfway out of the dark’.
End it with people coming out of the dark. Kazran and Abigail getting their Christmas, Maud and her kids rescuing Dad, the Doctor realising that this Clara has died, but she died before – and a final scene of modern Clara so the kids realise the story hasn’t ended, and somehow ‘Clara’ isn’t dead. Santa getting Clara and the Doctor back together again.
So if this Series is a dark one, the Christmas episode should be the turning point.
28 September 2015 at 06:30 #43676@bluesqueakpip I like the suggestion of River as the hybrid. Though not his offspring she was created through his intervention in the lives of her parents so it fits. The possibility that occurred to me was that the “hybrid” might be the offspring of Susan or Jenny.
I like the suggestion that the Christmas special might feature the Doctor’s family or maybe Missy’s family. I suspect that family is in some way connected to his reason for fleeing Gallifrey. It has been suggested before that the Doctor may have left in order to protect Susan, perhaps from an arranged marriage. We don’t know how these things work on Gallifrey. Certainly Missy’s mention of a daughter opens up so many interesting possibilities as does Davros’ reference to the prophecy. Moffat does like to keep us amused or in @pedant‘s works, “to yank our collective chain.”
@juniperfish Like you I am really excited at the prospect of CapDoc and River together.
Recently it occurred to me that there is a problem with M.W. playing either Jenny or Susan for whereas both can regenerate time travel is not in the Time Lord DNA. It requires some form of tech that neither has ready access too. Maybe Susan was behind Orson’s time travel attempt. I can see her trying to get back to the 1960s to find her grandfather when she gets tired of her tenure on earth.
Cheers
Janette
29 September 2015 at 19:29 #43789The trailer for next week’s episode, another two-parter, which is written by Toby Whithouse, writer of ‘School Reunion’, ‘Vampires of Venice’ and ‘A Town Called Mercy’. I think he likes horror and bitey things.
30 September 2015 at 01:05 #43810The trailer does not really excite me especially after the excitement of the previous two stories. I am not a fan of the Whithouse stories, still right now anything which CapDoc in it has to be worth watching. (Not that the Whithouse episodes weren’t worth watching, just far from being fav’s.)
Cheers
Janette
30 September 2015 at 01:17 #4381330 September 2015 at 01:55 #43814Toby Whithouse, writer of ‘School Reunion’, ‘Vampires of Venice’ and ‘A Town Called Mercy’
And also The God Complex. He likes to unsettle.
3 October 2015 at 01:45 #43948Anonymous @
is this the place where we speak about Abbey Road? The (you know) article?
@bluesqueakpip referred to how -under Who News 3 -one needs to be aware of the spoiler in the latest article…
5 October 2015 at 01:08 #44066Could this be a season of Scotland? This incarnation of the Doctor described himself as Scottish?
I confess I know almost nothing about Scotland, so forgive my errors.
The underwater base the Drum is located in Caithness. This area at the northern tip was settled / invaded by the Norse. Hmmm.
There are also a tremendous number of Scottish scientists, engineers, and philosophers who contributed to the Industrial Revolution and subsequent discoveries such as evolution. I do not think it is impossible that it will be shown that extraterrestrial influence may have aided these people, especially with the popularity of theories such that Scotland is the hiding place of either the Holy Grail or the Ark of the Covenant.
5 October 2015 at 18:27 #44119In the clips of “Next Week”, at the end of “Under the Lake” we get a brief glimpse of the village prior to it’s being flooded. The spacecraft is there, standing next to the church, but…the church looks to be Russian orthodox, and on the side of an adjacent building is a Soviet era political poster featuring Lenin. This doesn’t look much like Scotland to me. So, at the beginning of the episode we are told that the flooded village is in Scotland, but in the brief preview clip it seems that the village before it is flooded seems to be somewhere in Soviet-era eastern Europe.
There is a clear connection to the 1981 miniseries “The Nightmare Man”, but unfortunately, I cannot give away too many details, for fear of spoilers for anyone who has not seen it (but must!) I will say that the Scottish/Soviet/spaceship/Vodyanoi connection is all there in both shows, but they play out differently.
I also think we should remember the way Moran does not want to accept that the spaceship is a spaceship, and that it may have been an abandoned military craft from the 1980s.
Anyway, if this episode encourages anyone to seek out “The Nightmare Man” for the first time, if will have done good!
5 October 2015 at 18:53 #44121@jphamlore The underwater base the Drum is located in Caithness. This area at the northern tip was settled / invaded by the Norse. Hmmm.
Indeed — and we do seem to have a “Viking village” episode up ahead . . . and dang it, that holy grail thing — how weird! I’m reading Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant right now (his latest book, very Arthurian), which has a grail-image on the cover to help us poor mortals get some kind of a handle on the dreamy, murky story to be found therein. I didn’t connect the Lenin poster in the trailer with the Viking-shields-and-“dragon” ep, though — and thought that whole medieval setting was from a completely different two-parter, the one with Maisie Williams in a sort of medieval vest garment, and then as a highway-person with a flintlock?
Am now very (and officially) confused . . . lovely!
5 October 2015 at 19:45 #44124@Bleninsopthebrave
The Nightmare Man
I will watch it tonight and thanks for sharing this series with us !5 October 2015 at 19:47 #44125@blenkinsopthebrave that post was @ you
5 October 2015 at 19:52 #44126I hope you enjoy it!
5 October 2015 at 20:31 #44130The “Next time” trailer, and the official trailer for next week’s episode.
I like that, almost in response to some comments seen elsewhere that The Doctor never goes back and changes events in the current story, he says “I can’t change what happened”.
EDIT: I posted the wrong ‘next time’ – it was for last time! Is now fixed.
5 October 2015 at 20:37 #44131Well spotted! I hadn’t paid much attention to the trailer, but have now had another and closer look and yes, it is definitely a Russian Orthodox church, as is obvious from the style of the crosses as well as the onion cupolas – and furthermore not something you would expect to see in juxtaposition with the Soviet era type poster
If this is really Caithness, are we looking at an alternative timeline – drastically alternative, even for the Whoniverse, or is this supposed to be the result of some major geopolitical upheavals within the next century?
5 October 2015 at 21:31 #44135It’s very possibly a Cold War era simulated Russian village in Caithness, or some such. The army tries to simulate current conflicts (or potential conflicts) as accurately as they can, and will go to the extent of building a complete simulated urban area in the appropriate style. It’s not too much of a stretch that there might be an old simulated-Russian-town hanging around on MOD land.
Okay, so we’ve had Battlefield references. Are we now getting Curse of Fenric references? I don’t particularly want a reprise of Fenric as a villain, but I’m reminded that the Doctor’s Companion Ace turned out to be one of Fenric’s pawns.
5 October 2015 at 21:52 #44138Yes, I was forgetting that they said it had been a military base. A simulated Cold War era village would definitely be in keeping with that background.
I hadn’t picked up any Fenric references – the Fisher King is from a different mythological tradition as I understand it, though a mash-up wouldn’t be beyond the bounds of possibility in the universe of Doctor Who. Clara as a pawn, on the other hand? Hmmm.
6 October 2015 at 05:01 #44154From the 17th century such churches were evident in Bohemia as well. But the Soviet-era posters do suggest a kind of pretence/confusion or simulation as @bluesqueakpip suggested
Thank you for adding that! Great story, it really is.
6 October 2015 at 05:08 #441566 October 2015 at 05:16 #44157please ignore that ridiculous attempt above of a lovely church I worked at in Prague which has similar cupolas and crosses. The other one I had was distinguished by the same rusty colours and parallelogram shapes and are all the way thru Hungary, Poland and Romania. Recently in Dubrovnik, actually. For some reason it aint pasting despite location attempts etc.
Anyway, it’s all available on the innernet, innit?
6 October 2015 at 05:25 #44158@blenkinsopthebrave That was good! I see what you were trying to imply about
both stories. Russian soldiers infiltrating the Scottish coast. Could it be a fringe
settlement of some kind that is seen in the trailer for “Before the Flood’? Also the
alien-ish spaceship and some other interesting parallels.
I also saw some good parallels between ‘Under the Lake’ and the TenDoc episode of ’42’.6 October 2015 at 06:33 #44160@blenkinsopthebrave. You have good eyes. (Trust Dr Who to make an innocuous phrase sound ominous.) I had not spotted either the poster all the church. After much use of the pause button I must say the church does look more like a military building a hanger or something with the standard Russian Orthodox copulas on top, either something adapted to the purpose or as @bluesqueakpip suggests a military base adapted to resemble a Russian town for training purposes. Whichever it does have echoes of Curse of Fenric, especially as it is evident that there will be some form of Viking encounter in upcoming episodes. Curse of Fenric is the only former Dr Who story to have touched upon Viking mythology. (to my knowledge.) Monsters in lakes also occur in Viking lore. I suspect that what we might have is a mish mash of mythologies.
I don’t know much about the geography of Caithness not having travelled beyond Dunrobbin Castle in Sutherlandshire, but from what I have read it is mostly flat and marshy. Is the valley below the reservoir wall a likely Caithness location?
Cheers
Janette
6 October 2015 at 07:53 #44165@blenkinsopthebrave: Well-spotted about the poster of Lenin and the Russian Orthodox church.
@bluesqueakpip: Another option is right after World War I. Another poster @kharis has noted the name Sinclair having various connections. It so happens that there was a famous British naval officer Edwyn Alexander-Sinclair who among other exploits led a taskforce that began the British campaign to preserve Baltic state independence.
6 October 2015 at 10:43 #44171@purofilion I know that churches with onion domes and cupolas are by no means confined to Russia, but it has always been my understanding that those distinctive crosses, with the diagonal bar across the upright are specifically Russian Orthodox.
The building itself has the aisled basilica plan more typical of Western Christianity, in contrast to the centrally focussed lay-out usual for Eastern Orthodoxy, and the cupolas and crosses look very much out of place and as if they have been added on at a later date. Which suggests that if it really was a church to begin with, it was adapted at a later stage
All the other buildings and incidental features look very much as one would expect on an abandoned military base,* and as a whole it doesn’t look anything like the kind of specially constructed village or street used in military training. On the other hand, about 30 miles from where I live, there is a very large training area which was requisitioned by the M.O.D in World War II; the people living within it were evacuated, and the deserted villages are, I believe, still used for battle training. In various shots I spotted target boards with stencilled images of charging soldiers, and drums labelled ‘toxic waste’.
The design of the alien space ship, if that is what it is, bears a distinct resemblance to a stealth bomber minus the wings. I had a sudden thought that it perhaps it might be the product of a secret project, using information carried in signals from an interstellar source, in the manner of ‘A For Andromeda’, but would the suspension ‘coffin’ and its occupant fit that scenario? Or was the coffins occupant already here, and he provided the instructions as the first stage in getting him/itself off-planet. But neither theory explains the presence of a ghostly native of Tivoli, so perhaps I had better stick to straightforward observation.
Talking of coffins, there is a shot of the ‘mole man’, and the costume he is wearing is definitely that of an old fashioned undertaker, right down to the black sash wound round the hat and hanging down the back. He is standing inside the ship, with the (?) control panel in the background, and he is carrying an open book. The title on the cover, as far as I could make out, is Celestial Almanac .
* I know whereof I write. At a late stage in my career, much to my disgruntlement, I was required to investigate derelict World War II installations, now regarded as archaeological sites.
6 October 2015 at 12:04 #44173glad you likedit. Not sure if you have only watched the first episode of The Nightmare Man, but the rest of it gets even better!
6 October 2015 at 16:16 #44190When we see the clip of the Doctor saying he has to die, he appears to be in the TARDIS, perhaps this is why we hear the Cloister Bell. I also thought that the Doctor has to be seen to be dead, perhaps by whatever/whoever is in the white box?
It’s only brief, but I thought the face of the alien that says to the Doctor ‘there’s nothing you can do’ looks like the face of the creature in the mural.
6 October 2015 at 19:40 #44198[Replying here, because I realised I was referencing the trailer]
The dragon of Revelation doesn’t really fit with the illustration. Too few heads. 😉
The masts, on the other hand, could well be three crosses in the Greek Orthodox style. And there are indeed three Greek Orthodox crosses in the story, on the top of that church (the ‘temple’).
6 October 2015 at 19:54 #44200I don’t think non-multiple heads is a deal-breaker. Christian art depicts the Leviathan as single-headed sometimes and the long description of Leviathan in Job seems to be about a one-headed sea-serpent.
The crosses definitely seem to link to the “temple” tho…
I’d love to think there is a serpent theme this season @craig – pointing us towards some form of betrayal – either Missy betrays the Doctor, or tries to manipulate Clara into doing so… Or, perhaps the Valeyard is coming, and the Great serpent/ Satan is actually the Doctor-as-Valeyard himself!
6 October 2015 at 20:55 #44205Sorry, I seem to have been less than clear. Leviathan isn’t the same as the dragon in Revelations. It’s the number of heads, you see. 🙂 The serpent in the illustration could definitely be Leviathan, but not the Revelations dragon.
They may both, of course, be representations of Satan. But while it’s pretty certain the ten headed dragon in Revelation is supposed to be Satan, opinion is divided on whether Leviathan was simply a really big sea-crocodile.
6 October 2015 at 21:08 #44206All this chat of snakes/serpents and snake/serpent colonies has reminded me that Michelle Gomez was busily chomping away on an apple in the pre-series teaser. Of course, in the Genesis story, it was Eve who ate the apple, not the serpent.
The other thing that keeps niggling about Missy is that she’s dropped her traditional black. She was wearing it initially, then moved to a Time Lord (sorry, Time Lady) purple with black edging.
6 October 2015 at 21:20 #44207@bluesqueakpip – Leviathan also works better because of the sword tie-in – so a big snake alien which burns out eyes and slithered it’s way into human religious texts…
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6 October 2015 at 21:21 #44208@bluesqueakpip Interesting what you just pointed out about Missy and the apple
because the color purple that she is now wearing can be used to symbolize poison
or toxicity when it comes to depicting evil. I guess you could include venom too?
Its always either the purple color or the weird green one.6 October 2015 at 21:50 #44209@Blueaqueakpip
Also when the Doctor was entertaining the medieval folks with his guitar and tank
he said something like ‘ are you a dragon slaying dude’ to the guy wearing the armor
and he also told everyone to hiss at Missy when she appeared.
So Missy as the dragon lady? -
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