S33 (7) 10 – Hide

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@juniperfish – yes re “paradoxes resolve themselves”  very much signposted. Did @haveyoufedthefish not post something about this recently re the stronger the paradox the more energy it has to resolve itself (if that doesn’t sound too paradoxical)

[Juniperfish @juniperfish]

@scaryb – Hmmn nice blue crystal/ eye-stalk spot and @bluesqueakpip continues to ace it on the numerology.

There were a lot of ticking clocks about – that and the Doctor’s reference to the bubble-universe having a “three minute” life-span leads me to further support my time-was-over-rewritten theory… not saving the monster the first time vs saving the monster the second time, which is probably an echo for the big arc.

[feralcat @feralcat]

As noted by other here, we have blue and red balloons representing the two universes. The doctor blows up the blue one first to represent ‘our’ universe, the red second as the pocket universe.

He draws them together as he tells Emma she is the ‘lantern’ connecting the two, and makes her smile by letting the air out of one of the balloons. Except it’s our (blue) universe he lets down, not the pocket universe!

So, bow-tie theorists, which is the real doctor / real universe?

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@juniperfish Also re time being relative – for the time traveller 3 minutes, for the humans several centuries.  I loved all the relative timey wimey bits in this episode. Underlines the idea that time travellers have a bit more time, and maybe many more shots, to work on things than the rest of us. (What if the Doctor’s split into many versions of himself because he keeps trying to put things right (with benefit of hindsight (or would that be foresight?)) and keeps getting it wrong so has to keep going to tweak it again back till the universe fractures from overload of Doctors…?

[Juniperfish @juniperfish]

@feralcat

As noted by other here, we have blue and red balloons representing the two universes. The doctor blows up the blue one first to represent ‘our’ universe, the red second as the pocket universe… it’s our (blue) universe he lets down, not the pocket universe!

So, bow-tie theorists, which is the real doctor / real universe?

Really good question. I’m so happy about the red/ blue balloon spot by @rema

If Moff really has been playing the long game and I’m sure he has, then it comes back to Amy’s Choice, which is where we first see the red and blue bow-ties in an episode together. Both versions of the Doctor in that episode were equally valid/ invalid fictional universes created by the Dreamlord…

The red/ blue bow-ties are probably metaphors for different versions of the Doctor rather than a literal fit, unless it really does all come down to rogue ganger Doctor running around since The Almost People in the end (which it still might!).

I do recall that there is a scene on a beach at the end of that two-parter with a red balloon, I think were two or three of them… and we wondered at the time if that was a hint that ganger Doc survived.

Probably the two universes (red/ blue) are equally possible. In one, the sliver of ice in the Doctor’s hearts takes him over and in one he is saved from that (by love, as we can all bet on with some pretty favourable odds!)

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

If we’re doing redshift/blueshift, he lets down the universe which contains his future. Which would mean Clara – who generally has something red in her costume/personal props – is something from his past.

Gosh, at the moment I could do with a metaphor for different versions of me – I keep swinging between ‘she’s the bloody Doctor!’, ‘no, she’s a descendent’ and it’s still possible to go for ‘she’s like the Doctor because she’s storing his memories as a retrieval program’. 😀

Good old Moffat. He’ll probably come up with an entirely different option.

But I am beginning to like Clara very much; Moffat’s gone for a keynote of ’empathy’ and it’s showing. She always cuts to the ‘heart’ of things. She’s shocked by death when the Doctor analyses it intellectually, she calls him out on not being affected by having seen the birth and death of an entire world. Very powerful mind (the black hole appears when Clara arrives, not before) and yet extremely young and her reactions are probably closer to the way the average viewer would really feel, faced with all this.

Perhaps the red is because she’s the ‘heart’ that the Doctor has lost.

[wolfweed @wolfweed]

Ha! ‘Jumping into the TARDIS’ is the new ‘finger-clicking the door open’…

Also the crane lifting the TARDIS next week seems to be a nod to ‘Robots of Death’, as JTTCOTT will be the ‘4th Dr style story’.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

Hmmm. Jessica Raine.

Sorry. Mind wandered.

So a grandaughter(^n) reaches back through time with a cry for help to her grandfolk(^n). And Doc and Clara are there.

I thought the way the Doctor put his arm around Clara near the end- and the self conscious way he took it way – was quite interesting. Unexpectedly familiar.

(Oh, liked it. A lot).

 

 

[Juniperfish @juniperfish]

@bluesqueakpip Gah also 🙂

I so wanted the red shift/ blue shift to work with the bow-ties and it very nearly did (in terms of forward or back from our viewer-time) but not quite. Of course it could be that it was always tied to whether we were seeing older or younger versions of the Doctor himself…

Yes, I enjoyed Clara telling the Doctor to shut up when he was insensitively going on about the loneliness of empaths. I like the red/ heart combo too.

Incidentally, no red setting on the sonic in evidence this week.

To be honest, I am only warming to this version of Clara’s character slowly. Perfectly fine actress, but she is rather fractured (in time). My favourite iteration of her was Oswin Dalek. Or maybe it’s more that the Doctor is so very wary of her that the Doctor-companion bond isn’t really there yet.

I did really feel for her in the “to you we’re just ghosts” speech however, because the Doctor’s responses were SO alien (and frankly off, even for him) and the burden of what she’s got herself into, travelling not just with an old Time Lord, but with a possibly unstable old Time Lord on the way to the dark side, was very apparent.

 

[Morbius @morbius]

I was confused about the time flow in the alternate universe. The time traveller had been there for millions of years in ‘real’ time, but to her it seemed only around 3 minutes. When the Doctor travelled through the wormhole both the alternate universe and real universes seemed to have the same rate of time flow, so shouldn’t the Doctor’s trip through the wormhole have been instantaneous to the perception of those in the real universe, not giving Clara the time to go to the Tardis?

[thedoctordude @thedoctordude]

@morbius I noticed that too. I didn’t seem to pan out quite right.

I don’t know if anybody else noticed it but there seemed to be another blackout moment right after the doctor asks to see the maps of the compound. Lightening strikes and then suddenly the doctor is at Clara’s side asking her to come with him. Might be nothing, but it seemed a little strange.

[HaveYouFedTheFish @haveyoufedthefish]

Well we definitely saw something impossible this week. The T-Box (I really am going to persist with that until it catches on) really doesn’t like Clara. And you know what that means?

I. Was. Wrong.

Like I say – impossible! 😀

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@morbius – I’d think all the stuff from the TARDIS (we saw lots of wires leading from the TARDIS to the equipment) was to synchronise the two universes to at least some degree. Otherwise 100,000 years would have passed in the ‘real’ universe before he took a single step in the pocket universe.

Given that they were in there a lot longer than three minutes, I don’t think it was synchronised exactly. 🙂

@thedoctordude – I thought the lightning flash was an indication that time had passed between the Doctor and the Professor looking at the map and the Doctor tapping Clara on the head.

[Craig @craig Emperor]

@morbius I didn’t think it mattered. The Doctor could have been there saving the time traveller for a billion of our years, 3 minutes of hers (and his). As long as he took her back to the right time, which he sort of did, then everything’s fine.

The TARDIS could find him at any point in those 3 minutes (or billion years).

[wolfweed @wolfweed]

Yes, & that’s obviously the new ‘Eye of Harmony Mini’ (Somewhere between a mobile one & the full size one).

I wonder what apps it’s got…

[Craig @craig Emperor]

@morbius Now you’ve made me think about it there is the problem of the house being created by the empath (Jessica Raine). She should have been long dead by then, thousands of years ago. So I go with @bluesqueakpip and some sort of time synchronisity created by all the wires from the TARDIS! But you’re right, doesn’t really make any sense.

[Mephistopheles @mephistopheles]

“That’s why the psychic link was so powerful; blood calling to blood out of time.” Certainly adds credence to the Susan/Clara theory. The device used to record the presence of the ‘ghost’ was clearly coloured with red and blue; the red remains steady and consistent, whilst the blue goes bonkers – much like our increasingly odd Doctor. The lingering shot of the Doctor drinking milk reminded me of him asking Oswin about her soufflés and “where did you get the milk?”

[thedoctordude @thedoctordude]

Just rewatched and noticed a few things…

If I heard it right, Clara says that whiskey is 11th most disgusting thing ever invented. I guess another eleventh doctor reference.

I think like others have mentioned there is a big comparison going on between the professor and the doctor. When they are talking in the development room he says that there “were thousands of others, millions of others, I was just lucky enough to come back.” He goes on to say that he has “killed and caused to have killed” and that “it haunts him, living, after so much [death].” He says he didn’t mind dying for that cause; it was a very fine cause, defeating the enemy.

This seems like a very close parallel between him and the doctors situation. They are both haunted after all the killing they have seen and caused. I think we see a little bit of the doctors feelings come through when he asks what he would say if he could talk to them. Perhaps this is something the doctor wishes he could do too.

They also both have “ghosts” that they are trying to figure out. The professor has the ghost in the house, the doctor has Clara and humans in general. For both, it is “the only mystery worth solving” and allows them to carry through the pain they feel.

I thought it was interesting how the last scene with Clara played out. The doctor talks about something that all lonely creatures do sharks, monsters, everything. They get a companion. He says its the oldest story in any universe. Then these companions get separated by something and they are yearning for each other across time and space. This seems to be a reference to the what he is feeling; quite possible with River or in a slightly different way with Susan.

Also some inconsistencies…
The main photograph shown in the development room scene shows the doctor and ‘the ghost” together in one photo, yet the doctor was the one who was taking all the photographs previously. I might be wrong but there doesn’t seem to be a scene where that photo could have been taken.

The “psychic link setup” is linked into the tardis, yet Clara is able to take the tardis and rescue the doctor in the echo universe. Maybe she goes in a different tardis??

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@mephistopheles (and I saw that production! Great, wasn’t it?) – there could well be a Susan/Clara link. Currently I’m zipping back and forth between ‘great to the nth granddaughter’ and ‘Nth Doctor’.

But a Susan/Clara link would work – one reading of ‘An Unearthly Child’ is that Susan saved the Doctor. She made Ian and Barbara curious enough to follow her home and that was the turning point that began the Doctor’s journey to ‘hero’ instead of ‘villain’.

So if blood is calling to blood out of time, perhaps all these ‘love saves the day’ ‘love is the one thing that never ends’ clues are hinting that Susan’s love for her Grandfather is strong enough to find a way to save him a second time. Even after her own death.

 

[Juniperfish @juniperfish]

@scaryb and @morbius

Time is definitely interesting.

Not only is three minutes mentioned (three minutes since the crash from the astronaut Hilaire’s perspective and millions from ours) but when Clara first screams at the TARDIS to take her to rescue the Doctor, the Clara interface says that in that bubble universe the TARDISes power would be drained in four seconds and she would be dead in ten (implying initially it’s impossible to rescue the Doc).

Not to mention all the ticking clocks.

There were so many call outs to previous Nu Who episodes as well as old Planet of the Spiders. I mentioned the Unquiet Dead (where Gwyneth the maid is a psychic bridge for the Gelth) before but there is also the shot of the “monster” moving across the window of the old stone house which calls back to the Krafayiss in Vincent and the Doctor. Then the orange space suit the Doctor wears, which looks like the one Ten wore in The Satan Pit. Evidence that the Doctor’s mind is fracturing and that it is adding visual ghost-touches from his past, rather like something one sees just at the corner of one’s eye but can’t quite remember?

The most frightening evidence that the “sliver of ice” in the Doctor’s hearts is getting wider is when Emma, with the Metebelis crystal head-set on, asks whether it will hurt or not. The Doctor initially reassures her, but then ends up saying something like “it might be agony actually, I’ll be interested to find out….” Yikes! Empathy fail…

In Asylum of the Daleks, talking about the proces of nano-gene dalekisation, Amy and the Doctor have the following exchange:

Amy – “Well what comes first? How does it start?
The Doctor – “With your mind. Your feelings, your memories, and I’m sorry but it’s started already…”

 

[davemorris316 @davemorris316]

thedoctordude When the Professor is preparing the photoboard for the Doctor to look at, The DOctor takes a photo of himself, which I imagine is the photo we see with the Ghast in it.

Good spot on the ’11th most disgusting thing ever invented’.

[chickenelly @chickenelly]

After second viewing and a night’s sleep…

The second half of the series seems to be shaping up nicely, next week also looks good.  Still thought the second episode was a bit ropey but I’ll forgive it as Cross wrote a corker this week.

It does appear that particular sci-fi concepts are being flagged up (I do like a list as you all know):

1) Multiple or parallel universes

2) Multiple incarnations of the same person

3) Love not ending/surviving across time [mentioned twice this week]

4) Family relations, mostly grandchildren & grandparents

5) Glass shards or shattering on the posters

Combining nos.1 & 5, puts me in mind of the imagery that the Doctor uses when describing the Cybermen trying to break into this universe in Army of Ghosts.  He demonstrates it on a plate glass window.

My pet theory this series is that the above refers to what will happen in the 50th anniversary episode, and most may indicate the use of multiple doctors in the episode – ie Eleven switching between universes to make it happen.  Admittedly we already know that there are at least two Doctors in the 50th, but just as the ‘eggs’ motif we were spotting in the first half meant Easter, I think that the Moff is playing the long game by adding more catnip for us fans to speculate ahead.

*lights pipe and strokes chin* Hmmmm

[feralcat @feralcat]

Around about 15:00 or so, Clara only has two candles in the candlestick, having run down the stairs; a few seconds later there are 3 again.

Continuity slip, for sure.

 

[davemorris316 @davemorris316]

Quick note on the bow ties – could be two explanations for the Doctor having the tie on and then not on in the same scene;

Either there are two doctors in the forest at the same time OR they have used footage from the end sequence, where the Doctor returns to bring the ‘monster’ back, and has his tie back in place, which means it’s simply a continuity error.

Obviously, we have previous of costume details being important to story arcs, so could be significant.

Question is, why would two Doctors be there?

Could this series be a contest between the true Doctor and the dark(?) Doctor to be seen as the real Doctor – so the second Doctor shows up in the pocket universe, and he’s the one who grabs the Tardis, therefore supplanting the one who had travelled there to save the time traveller? Why that Doctor would then go back to get ‘Romeo’ isn’t easily answered though.

Just another thought – Clara not being able to get into the Tardis – The First Doctor locked Susan out of the Tardis to force her to stay with David Campbell. Is her inability to get in it the Tardis recalling that directive?

Clara also flew (albeit rather badly) the Tardis – aren’t The Doctor or River supposed to be the only ones who can fly her?

[Juniperfish @juniperfish]

@davemorris316 Welcome to bow-tie theorising!

Over on The Guardian I had this to say about the bow-ties:

Two versions of events took place. In one (bow tie-less) the Doctor was afraid of the “monster” and tried to run away from it – “I am the Doctor and I am afraid”. In the other (with bow-tie) he ran towards the monster to embrace it and try to help it find love.

A parallel is drawn between the Doctor and the monster. He actually says “every lonely monster needs a companion”.

Very Jungian. Run away from your shadow-self and it will control you, embrace it and you will control (aka integrate) it.

So this little story is a mini reflection of the big arc, methinks.

Interesting question is, given all the time paradoxes between the pocket universe and ours – did those two versions happen sequentially, or concurrently, or was one, as we watched, in the process of over-writing the other?

I very much like your idea of the arc as a contest between “true” and “dark” Doctor – most certainly that contest is happening in his head I think, as the “sliver of ice” works its way further into his hearts.

Yes, agreed  I also thought only River and the Doctor could fly the TARDIS but maybe the TARDIS recognises Clara’s DNA as a blood relative of one or both of them (blood calls to blood).

 

 

 

 

[Wibbly @wibbly]

The only thing I can add at the moment which I don’t think has been said is in the conversation between Clara and Emma about (I am going to call it) hidden love when they decide to have tea instead of whiskey.  Clara says something about it being as obvious as a big chin (sorry can’t recall exact words).  Oswin called him this during AOTD (and Rory was big nose or something). Anyway tiny link – not important I suppose really in the big scheme of things  but it gave me something to post!!!!

Great episode, next week looks exciting!

[HaveYouFedTheFish @haveyoufedthefish]

Well less than 24 hours after I posted that I would like the idea that the eye of harmony resides in the tardis (instead of under the panopticon on gallifrey) expunged from history, the doc wheels out a “subset” of the eye, apparently on castors.

Apart from being hugely irritating that that must mean the execrable movie is being taken as canon, does that count as a bang on prediction (of sorts)?

The frustrating thing with this episode from the old theorising POV is that it’s firing clues and references pretty equally in every direction – its somehow managed to reinforce every possible conflicting theory (E.g. Familial love reaching across time and romantic love between universes), like one of those automatic tennis ball launchers, but loaded with fan service.

[janetteB @janetteb]

Haven’t had time to catch up on all the posts yets but wanted to post my thoughts while they are still fresh so apologies if most of what I say has already been said.

re’ Clara and the umbrella, wasn’t there an umbrella stand in Dr 1’s tardis?

The end it seemed to me that the obvious thing he was missing at the end was the DNA connection of Clara to him. I think odds just went up on the Clara as Susan or Susan descendant theory just spiked.

I think the red herring of the night was the blue crystal. Lovely nod to past stories but I don’t see it as having any real significance.

The Tardis projecting the image of Clara rather than her mother suggests that she has no real memories or connections to anyone else.

Love the Snow Queen reference. That was always one of my favourite fairy tales when I was a child. Must re-read it now. That ties the Doctor back to the G.I and also might refer to his Dalekisation process.

Maybe Clara, (being either Susan or Susan’s daughter) has been found by someone such as River Song and scattered through time to save the Doctor from the de timelording process that he is currently undergoing.

 

Cheers

Janette

 

 

[janetteB @janetteb]

Also the story implies that humans in the future have time travel ability. Maybe that is due to Susan trying to get back to find her grandfather after the death of her human husband or her offspring.

Cheers

Janette

[Anonymous @]

OK, this is really bottom-barrel-scraping, but at the very beginning Dougray Scott’s character says ‘Nothing, just a stray FM broadcast’.

Stray FM is a Harrogate-based radio station (The Stray is a large green space surrounding the north and east of the city).  So I spent the entire episode thinking they were in Yorkshire.  Were they supposed to be in Dorset?  Or is this one of those ‘you pernickety detail-followers, suck on that dissonance’ moments?

[TheatreGuy @theatreguy]

Another Doctor Who cracker tonight… Although one thing occurred to me. The mansion seemed very similar to the one River Song is uploaded in front of at the end of forest of the dead (where she’s reunited with her colleagues).

Also interesting that the first three  initials of Caliban is CAL…

[Anonymous @]

<i>[Edit to previous post: ‘A stray FM broadcast, possibly’]</i>

The Doctor’s pounding on the door in the beginning went ‘doom-doom-doom [pause] dooom-dooom [pause] doom-doom-doom’.  Which in Morse code is:

. . .  [ S ]

_ _ [ M ]

. . . [ S ] (or, _ _ _ = ‘ O ‘)

Up path wrong the way, fear I?

More pernickety detail issues:

1) The sound-dish the Professor holds out in the beginning looks remarkably like the black hole which appears later.

2) Emma appears to inhale the ‘ghost’.

3) ‘You’re a talented watercolourist … and … a ghost-hunter!’  (shades of Vincent?)

4) The Doctor air-kisses Emma in a ostentaitiously off-the-mark way. [not touching, deliberately?]

5) Clara says ‘the moors’.  OK, could be Yorkshire, could be Dartmoor.

6)  ‘Is she real? Actually real?’ [oh, Clara]

7) ‘Her presence was accompanied by a dreadful knocking … as if the Devil Himself demanded entry.’

This could take ages, but there are very chewy bits already to ponder, and I’m only up to 7:11!

 

[Anonymous @]

The Doctor: ‘I’m giving you a face … yeah, can you see me?  I’m giving you a face.’   (Is this foreshadowing to the Tardis giving Clara a face she recognises?)

Clara: ‘Say we actually find her … what do we say?’

Doctor: ‘We ask her how she came to be … whatever she is.’

Clara: ‘Why?’

Doctor: ‘Because I don’t know.’

Damn you Whovians, I have been sucked into your world and am now looking for every arc-based nuance in every single bit of dialogue!

I’m going to continue re-watching this episode in excrutiating detail; but in anticipation of that upcoming particular moment, I wonder why Clara didn’t say what I would have said as a hapless companion: ’10 seconds? Then why are you wasting time, let’s save your Doctor!’

[Juniperfish @juniperfish]

@wibbly  Re “the chin”. I’m sure that’s the kind of thing River would tease the Doctor with (if she hasn’t specifically already?) if only to get back at him for the “Mrs. Robinson” crack. She did tease him about his resemblance to the Moai on Easter Island during their conversation about @jimthefish and they had very pronounced bone structures. More Clara/ River connections?

@Shazzbot I’m very impressed by the Morse code – keep going!

@theatreguy Caliban/ CAL – I like it. I’m not ready to give up on the Caliban connection either – too full of juicy references to dream-worlds and monsters and Moff does like to use his literature degree 🙂

Oooh – and the “jump cuts” in scenes we’ve been seeing (such as last week’s strange under water episode for Clara and then the jump cut to her not being drowned…)  doesn’t it put you in mind of the way time worked in the Library? And Doctor Moon’s phrase “and then you remembered”, as he re-writes life for Donna to make it seem “real” for her in there?

Takes a puff on @chickenelly ‘s pipe

@haveyoufedthefish

The frustrating thing with this episode from the old theorising POV is that it’s firing clues and references pretty equally in every direction – its somehow managed to reinforce every possible conflicting theory

Chin up old chap! That’s the point innit? 🙂 How else will we have fun chasing the narrative ball of string about?

[Lula @lula]

I need a re-watch, but having just finished the episode, what immediately strikes me as key is the Doctor saying, “Blood calls to blood…” and the parallel between the monster and the Doctor being lonely and “needing a companion.”

 

[davemorris316 @davemorris316]

I also wonder abut the conversation the Doctor and Professor had in the dark room.

“What do you think she is?

“Not what I thought she’d be”

“What did you think she’d be?”

“Fun”

It was set up as if they were talking about the ghast, but I think the Doctor was alluding to Clara as well. This was just after her speech about being ghosts, and her reaction was probably different to how other companions react when shown the wonders of time travel.

Is this why another reason why the Doctor distrusts Clara? Or at least is struggling with how she is? She’s not yet impressed with the Doctor yet.

The TARDIS also selected an image of herself as the image of ‘someone she holds in esteem’ – is this normally the Doctor, but Clara doesn’t feel that way about him?

[janetteB @janetteb]

On a side note the story reminded me of late 70s series The Omega Factor which, incidentally, starred Louise Jameson.

Cheers

Janette

[PhaseShift @phaseshift Time Lord]

@juniperfish

Yes, the Chin reference. I thought of River as well, but more immediately to Oswin in AotD who refers to him a couple of times as “Chinboy”.

@janetteb

story reminded me of late 70s series The Omega Factor

A great call. In terms of tone it remimded me of Sapphire and Steel (which I’ve banged on about on the general TV thread) and to a certain extent “The Nightmare Man” which was great and starred, amongst others, a young Celia Imrie. Great series with lots of behind the scenes links to Who.

@shazzbot

Damn you Whovians, I have been sucked into your world and am now looking for every arc-based nuance in every single bit of dialogue!

Resistance is futile. “YOU _ WILL _ BECOME _ LIKE _ US”

[HaveYouFedTheFish @haveyoufedthefish]

@juniperfish – chin not only up … But unusually prominent! 😀

[HaveYouFedTheFish @haveyoufedthefish]

@shazzbot (cc @phaseshift) … “all your theory are belong to us” 😀

Mr Shift ( or can I call you Phase?) – good call on nightmare man, Bob Holmes at his best. Leaped on it when it came out on DVD. Had a profound influence on me as a kid and I reworked it as a 10 yr old as DW fanfic starring … GI and yeti, of all things.

[ardaraith @ardaraith]

What if Clara is not connected to River at all? Well, other than perhaps River knowing who Clara is because she was present at ‘the only time [the doctor]could’ say his name.  I am going to throw a completely different idea out.  What if Clara is someone from Gallifrey – but not Susan?  Is it conceivable that ‘love’ split itself through time and space to reach the Doctor – the ‘monster’ who needs a companion?

The TARDIS shows Clara her own image because it is the only one that Clara would ‘esteem.’ That is a great little slap – but also a sort of test.  Sexy then explains that she will die if she travels to the pocket universe, which means Clara would, too.  But Clara doesn’t hesitate – she is still following her Mother’s memory, and the promise to ‘always find’ her (which was said in Cross’ RoA).

So many delightful parallels.

All the mentions of love.  We know that so many love and have loved the Doctor, but who does the Doctor love?  Are his hearts capable of feeling that emotion anymore?  In each of these episodes where love has been discussed, what I see in the Doctor’s reaction is an intellectualization.  And the mention in this week’s ep to a sliver of ice…. his heart is ice – not easily touched.  It’s time for the Doctor to let himself feel again.

[ardaraith @ardaraith]

Oh!  When the Doctor drew the circle around the ‘cold spot’ and then soniced it…it began to smoke.  When the portal appeared, I immediately thought it was the circle the Doctor had drawn.  That he knew he was making a portal.

 

[Anonymous @]

@ardaraith – I too noticed that smoking portal-circle-on-the-floor, and thought it got carelessly left on the cutting-room floor.  But ever since the jacket-missing moment which was wonderfully fulfilled in Amy’s series, we know we have to see every so-called ‘loose end’ / ‘continuity error’ as a deliberate plotpoint.  … Or, perhaps a meaningless dangling end to cause combustion in us theorisers. 🙂

Everybody here seems to know that this ep (‘Hide’) was the first filmed with Clara as companion.  As an enthusiastic watcher but not someone who learns those kinds of background details, I wonder, is this important in divining the story arc and sussing out The Big Bad for this series? [please, please, PLEASE don’t say “season”; that’s an Americanism too far and I speak as a birthright American who is far too happily ensconsed in Britonland.]

The Doctor’s awkward arm-around-the-shoulder-hastily-removed moment was interesting on so many levels.  I bet my meagre savings that this particular moment will be hugely meaningful in this series’ arc.

And I’m stubbornly stuck on Clara’s line about the ‘ghost’:  ‘Is she real? Actually real?’ Because it seemed a throwaway line but embodies every bonkers-or-otherwise theory on this site about who/what Clara is.

[HaveYouFedTheFish @haveyoufedthefish]

@phaseshift – going over next weeks clip, you can take swimming pool off the sweepstake as you can clearly see it (under an open sky!) through a doorway. It looks suspiciously lined with giant bookshelves…

[Lula @lula]

Oh! Professor Palmer gives the date at the beginning of the episode–November 25, 1974, 11:04 pm. Significance? (Other than that date being less than 2 weeks before I was born. Ahem.)

11:04 struck me as a reference to Eleventy (as I call him) and as a shout out to Pertwee. Or maybe I’m just reading too much into it…

[Anonymous @]

Oh, and for those wondering how Clara managed to fly the Tardis (not once, but twice) in this ep; I never got the impression that she was doing any piloting.  The Tardis seemed to move all on its own volition and the frantic editing didn’t show Clara moving any dials/controls at all.

But how interesting that, once faced with her own face outside, the Tardis doors then opened for Clara without hesitation.

I would be sorely disappointed if Clara turned out to be the future Doctor.  Since the re-boot, the Doctors have got younger and younger and regardless of her gender, JLC is even younger than Matt Smith.  Actually, since the original Who, the Doctors have generally got younger and younger (sigh).  Is this inevitable casting in a media world striving to cater for the younger audience; an audience which holds no respect and no attention for anyone over the dreaded 30?

[Charlie Cook @charlie-cook]

I thought the comment about the human race getting time travel was interesting – no one else seems to have picked up on it. What happened? Was it abandoned when ‘history said she never returned’. How did she know she never returned?

[PhaseShift @phaseshift Time Lord]

@haveyoufedthefish

Mr. Shift, Phase, P.S. or “get of this planet” (I watched the Doctor, Widow and Wardrobe again yesterday) will all do fine. 🙂

Yes – I saw the Swimming Pool as well, but I want to watch it again to see if anything else leaps out.

“Nightmare Man” was great. I bought the DVD when it came out as well. If I remember in the same week they also released the 80s version of “Day of the Triffids”. That was a splendid weekend.

@charlie-cook

Yes – I’ve think its been established for a while that humans do eventually get the tech to a limited extent to conduct time travel. It started with Talons with a throw away reference to “Time Agents” who Magnus Greel thought might be hunting him from his own period in the 51st century. This presumably became “The Time Agency” that Jack was supposed to belong to (he came from around that period). I wondered during series 6 if the Tesselecta and crew were associated as well?

[ardaraith @ardaraith]

Also of note, in reference to the colour red: the item used by the Doctor to tie the first, or outside door, of the house closed, when he and the time traveler were running from the Crooked Man, was a RED cord of some sort.  The camera stayed on it for a moment too long to be insignificant.

[ScaryB @scaryb]

Chalk circles – there was a “magic” 1 in Battlefield too (McCoy epi)

The Dr was def doing something when he drew the circe – it defined the area of extreme cold.

Who flew the Tardis? I think it was the Tardis herself rather than Clara (Clara has her back to the consul, and you don’t see her pushing buttons). It’s her appeal to the Tardis to save her Doctor that overrides her dislike/suspicion of Clara. The Tardis makes it back because she gets assistance from Emma’s wormhole, ie she doesn’t need to get back under her own steam.

The Tardis’ creation of the image of Clara as the person she’d most respect has to be significant. As others have pointed out you’d expect (esp after Rings of A (also scripted by Cross)) that it would be her mother.

Family love is being set up (blood calls to blood)

[Author]

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