S33 (7) 12 – The Crimson Horror
Home › Forums › Episodes › The Eleventh Doctor › S33 (7) 12 – The Crimson Horror
This topic contains 475 replies, has 47 voices, and was last updated by 
-
AuthorPosts
-
6 May 2013 at 22:36 #8047
@bluesqueakpip and @zaphod and @IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan and @haveyoufedthefish– Whoever else has been in that cot will be a huge revelation. That’s why Alex Kingston teased us about it in the AGMGTW Confidential. It might not be official yet but I stake my life that this loose end is not a bluff!
6 May 2013 at 22:40 #8048Anonymous @
@wolfweed – reminder please! What did A Kingston say in that Confidential?
(btw, I really miss Confidential. Not just for the wonderful backstage look at each episode, but also for their version of the Proclaimers. Those two drivers crack me up every time – and a dancing Ood!)
6 May 2013 at 22:48 #8049From ‘The Born Identity’:
”It’s the Dr’s cot, but is it only the Dr’s cot? Um… Yes, that’s all I can say. How many babies have been in that cot, basically?” (Looks @ viewer & raises eyebrows)
6 May 2013 at 22:53 #8050If it looks like an heirloom, is treated like an heirloom and is handed on with some show to the next geeration, then it is safe to say that it is an heirloom.
The reason it seems obvious is because it is – awaiting verification is simply futile – falsification is the thing and I don’t expect there to be any.
6 May 2013 at 22:56 #8051@bluesqueakpip – totally agree that theres a family shaped hole thats being heavily foregrounded. I’m not necessarily persuaded that implies that Susan must be the peg to fill it, or even that it should be filled at all. It’s a characteristic that defines the doctor now.
Losing his infallibility is probably necessary, but to lose his loneliness would probably diminish his character too much IMHO. Leads need to be tortured characters these days! If anything, they’re just going to keep piling on the tragedy (goodbye, River … Hello Clara guilt etc)
After all, if the doc was content, why would he go out their for us?
6 May 2013 at 22:57 #8052
6 May 2013 at 23:04 #8053”Oh my stars!” That cot pic comes from here: http://doctorwhocrafts.com/post/34797382374
6 May 2013 at 23:05 #8054@haveyoufedthefish – that’s why I wonder if one solution is that the Doctor’s descendants are going to turn out to be … us. You don’t need to be tortured to be fighting for your (possibly adopted) family.
After all, in the meta – and @htpbdet and @phaseshift and @PhineasF have been wonderful on the meta-meanings of S5, 6 & 7 – this generation of showrunners and directors and writers are the Doctor’s descendants. His ‘children’ are now telling his story.
It’s doable in-story; it’s already canon that a chameleon arched Time Lord can have human children. Which might be why there’s been so much emphasis on establishing that Clara is currently human, definitely human, couldn’t be more human. 🙂 Or she might be the Doctor, who (sorry!) having grown up and lived as a human for over twenty-six years – with human adoptive parents – would probably see us as being as much her people as the Time Lords were.
Possibly the Eighth Doctor was unconsciously telling the truth when he lied about his mother being human. He just didn’t realise he meant his future mother 🙂
6 May 2013 at 23:11 #8055@bluesqueakpip – Nice theory. Does that mean the Dr’s name is Adam?
6 May 2013 at 23:14 #8056@shazzbot – I kind of assumed the episode was originally called “Hide and Seek” and got shortened to make it more snappy like Blink. There are a least 2 people hiding in the house, after all (attune time traveller unwittingly) and 4 people seeking, after all…
There’s a ghost story by A M Burrage about a game of hide and seek set in a creepy house http://www.scaryforkids.com/smee/ – could have been inspiration, perhaps (don’t really see it myself though)?
6 May 2013 at 23:18 #8058@juniperfish. Done!
6 May 2013 at 23:21 #8060@pedant – Im still open to the idea that it might actually be a duck.
That’s what you were implying, right? 😉
6 May 2013 at 23:26 #8061@bluesqueakpip – oh noes! Does that mean CBBC is cooking up
KevinDoctor Who – the Annoying Teenager Years?Is there a “horrified” emoticon?
6 May 2013 at 23:27 #80636 May 2013 at 23:30 #8064OK, since when does albeit autocorrect to attune? It’s not even a word!
I think i’m auto writing a horror story where the spirit world is trying to communicate with this plane via the medium of auto-correct. Ouiji is so passé!
6 May 2013 at 23:38 #8066“@htpbdet – 100% agree with your precis of Season Six! But this season is different – if there has been an equivalent of Rivers bald “imprisoned for murdering the best man in the Universe” statement that semaphores the resolution, so far I’d say we’ve yet to agree we’ve spotted it, even if it is in plain sight.”
It’s the plain sight thing which makes me think that Clara is herself the secret. She is hidden in plain sight as the saviour of the Doctor. And she actually does save the Doctor, over and over, in plain sight.
I think we are meant to be used to it so we do not see her as the solution – we are expecting something else.
But I think she is the solution. In some timey-wimey self-making paradoxical way.
Clara is there to save the Doctor when he needs her. She is there when he falls, presumably at the hands of the GI, and she makes herself Impossible to save him. Voila paradox.
I think that is that.
But that does not mean she is not actually someone other than Clara – and the only express mention we have so far is to Susan even though, as everyone I think agrees, the arc has been about a family shaped hole in the Doctor’s life. As @bluesqueakpip says,mere has been much discussion of daughters and grand-daughters this arc.
The presence of the cot in the TARDIS seems to suggest that he had it when he left Gallifrey when he left originally. Of course, that might be because Susan was in it or because Susan wanted to take it. Or he did.
It may be, of course, that the Doctor left with Susan and her parents but something happened to them…who knows? We have nothing to go on in that department.
Hide – I thought it was called that because the Crooked Woman was hiding in the house?
“- Dark Doctor as the baddie – quite likely.
– red/blue differentials – most certainly.
– Clara as a Pond – computer says no.
– Clara as a future Doctor – 50/50.
– Susan in some form appears, to relate 50 years of Who with the new series – oh, definitely.”Hmmm
My view – not that you asked 🙂
No to Dark/Doctor
No to red/blue. ( sorry @juniperfish)
No to Clara as Pond child
No to Clara as future Dr
Yes to Susan appearing in some form, whether incidental or critical.On a different topic: do we think Neil Gamain’s Cybermen are Age of Steel ones or Classic Who ones? My vote is for the latter but interested in what you are all expecting.
My word, Sloe Gin and Endone go well together…
6 May 2013 at 23:40 #8067@bluesqueakpip – arguably the duck has already been fired!
I’m not sure Chekhov’s gun applies to plots replete with red herrings though, and even if it’s yet to be fired, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s importance is that his children slept in it. “Other plot devices are available”.
For instance, we’ve established that time lord locks open by evoking feelings (maybe that was a Chekhovs gun?), and the doctor needs the cot to remind him of a feeling he needs to evoke to open a certain lock…
Maybe it’s not the words of his name that are important, but the feelings he had as he was given them, in his cot, at his among ceremony?
6 May 2013 at 23:43 #8069You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Doctor and River end up not being married at all. In fact, Alex plants that seed herself in the Confidential interview re: TWoRS ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cFjb9oNFPM&feature=share&list=PLF40786DC5E8903E8 ), and I wouldn’t put it past SM, either.
I got on this kick because I was watching the DW Confidential where they discuss the cot–what a great scene that was–which naturally led to my re-watching ALL the RS confidentials. I also re-watched the prequel to AotD and found it VERY interesting that the Doctor was ‘caught’ in a dream scape, unable to wake. This rekindled my original theory that it’s all a dream–that all the new eps are dreams.
for those who haven’t seen the prequel to AotD: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xtm9ey_doctor-who-asylum-of-the-dalek-prequel-vostfr_shortfilms#.UYgx9Ct3iwJ
6 May 2013 at 23:50 #8070@wolfweed, @haveyoufedthefish, @bluesqueakpip, etc,
The cot. It seems to me that there are a number of scenarios:
1. The child of Doctor and River was also born in the cot (implied by both Alex Kingston’s cryptic remarks on Confidential and by holding the Doctor’s hands over the cot: “I am telling you.” If so, it is likely that Clara is said child (who, perhaps, for some reason we are yet to discover, the Doctor never knew).
2. Building on Clara’s Mary Poppins image, Clara is actually his Nanny, as he was an orphan. (There is some reference to him being the lonely boy.For the moment I have forgotten where.) As such, the cot was used by Clara to raise numerous babies.
3. Clara is his mother–the mother he never knew he had, because he assumed he was an orphan. On the one hand, it makes sense of the “Run you clever boy, run”, which spunds like the type of thing a mother might say. On the other hand, we know Clara will continue with the show next year, and I cannot really see the Doctor exploring the universe with his mother!
4. Clara is Susan, as seems to be popular on the board. Personally, I do not see it.
5. None of the above.
6 May 2013 at 23:53 #8071Well it hasn’t been positioned in this season as a Chekhov’s duck, and I suspect it was dropped in simply as a continuity reminder for the slow of learning (rather than mere fan porn like al lot of the classic series call-backs).
If I were running sweep on a ‘gun’, I’d look at TBoSJ and the idea of reverting to a previous form (including childhood). And I reckon that will require a trip to Totter’s Lane – or maybe the road to it .
6 May 2013 at 23:54 #8072@htpbdet – 99.9999% certain that these are not cybus cybermen (and nor were the ones in A Good Man…
I’m assuming they are the last dregs left from after revenge of the cybermen, post Glitter Wars (if they weren’t called that, they damn well should have been), skulking around the galaxy without even two ancient spaceships to rub together.
In a corner. Desperate. Deadly.
6 May 2013 at 23:55 #8073him being the lonely boy.For the moment I have forgotten where
The Girl in the Fireplace. (By S Moffat!)
6 May 2013 at 23:57 #8074Among. “AMONG” !!!!!!!!!
I typed frigging : “naming ceremony” !!!!!!!!!!
Well that was a brilliant idea truly sabotaged.
OK, that’s it, iPad is officially haunted. Or stupid beyond belief. Take your pick.
7 May 2013 at 00:00 #8075Maybe it’s not the words of his name that are important, but the feelings he had as he was given them, in his cot, at his naming ceremony?
Hmm. It occurs to me that the only time the Doc could give his name might not be at a wedding, but at the signing of a birth certificate…
7 May 2013 at 00:01 #8076@haveyoufedthefish – I was going to say turn off the auto-correct!
7 May 2013 at 00:11 #8077So…bonkers theory…
In the season finale does River turn up with a baby, they need the name of the doctor to name the baby. Then river dumps baby with dad to run off and do whatever she was doing when she turned up in the library. (Can’t remember how they described it) That would leave an opening for a nanny, then the next series turns into a crazy bringing up baby (not a leopard) caper.
Maybe not.
7 May 2013 at 00:16 #8078@bluesqueakpip – Lost … Control … Of ….. iPad … No … Manual ….. Override ….. Possible !
Tell …. My wife … I … Lubed her.
Flocking … Auto … Correct.
This is it …. I’m …… Going dow…..
++++++ TRANSMISSION ENDS +++++++
7 May 2013 at 00:22 #8079@bluesqueakpip – oh, actually that’s how you turn it off. Disaster averted!
Good idea, thanks!
7 May 2013 at 00:28 #8080@rema – only if the baby gets into lots of hilariously dangerous scrapes like Herman does in Who Framed Roger Rabbit …
7 May 2013 at 00:30 #8081@pedant – thank you for the corrected and accurate reprint!
7 May 2013 at 00:32 #8083@haveyoufedthefish -maybe they’ll save this for a cbeebies animated spinoff – minus the cigar!!
7 May 2013 at 00:35 #8084Actually, I revise that. Post Revenge of the Cybermen:
In a cornerIn flares. Deperate. Deadly.7 May 2013 at 00:37 #8085and the idea of reverting to a previous form (including childhood).
@pedant – well, to be fair, I have been saying that for a bit. It’s one possible explanation for Clara – the Doctor reverts to babyhood – and his/her cycle starts all over again. Clara’s the Doctor, but currently she has no memory of being the Doctor. She has no memory of being anyone but Clara Oswald.
Why is the Doctor wearing that fobwatch?
But there’s nothing to stop both that happening and River getting pregnant. She and the Doctor are married – and so far in the series ‘marriage’ has translated as ‘there will be babies’.
Riffing off the various meta-analyses of S5, S6 and S7:
In S5 Amy learnt to grow up – and got married. In S6 we have fathers-and-sons; Amy, meanwhile, loses (and regains) her daughter. In S7 we have mothers-and-daughters; Rory, meanwhile, narrates (a video extra) how he and Amy adopted a son. Parents and their children; the running theme. Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters.
Amy’s wedding was the S5 finale, her daughter River’s wedding was the S6 finale. So what’s the S7 finale? What comes after a wedding?
We know that Amy and Rory have an adopted son. We also know that final scene was cut from the episode – but then released on the web so that it’s pretty well official. They have an adopted son. It could be a red herring; but it occurs to me that if River goes to the Library and the Doctor loses all his memories – any child there might be is going to need to be looked after; and the best people would probably be his grandparents.
But it could be a red herring; a coda to Amy and Rory’s story to show that – while stuck – they ended up living a happy life.7 May 2013 at 00:43 #8086O.M.G.
Thats it, I’ve solved it. I know why the Doctor had to flee Gallifrey.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Who!!!!!!
Hidden in plain sight! It was staring right at us all along …
Thank you citizens, I think my work here is done … 😀
(@rema – thank you for inspiring this crime against comedy. Please, no reprisals)
7 May 2013 at 00:45 #8087By the way, I’m firmly convinced Cybus cybermen are now stuck in that alternate dimension forever. 10.5 has blasted every single one into oblivion.
I’m okay with the initial story, since they did need a quick way of reintroducing the Cybermen – and they also needed to find somewhere to pop Rose, since Billie Piper was leaving. But now we’ve done that, I’d like the Mondas Cybermen back, please.
7 May 2013 at 00:54 #8088This is very *spoilery* even though it’s official (I think!)! You have been warned!
It’s a series trail from CBBC from over a month ago (How did I miss this one?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jMNS2KNvGg
Rare glimpses of the future…
7 May 2013 at 01:10 #8089@ardaraith – thanks for the AotD prequel, I hadn’t seen that and it was a goodie. Also loved the French subtitles.
But how I hope that this series (half-series?) isn’t a dream, because that idea is so totally rubbish. Unless S Moffat makes it more interesting than Dallas-Bobby-in-the-shower. However, there are dream elements afoot …
7 May 2013 at 01:39 #8091Anyway, before I trot off to bed:
There’ve been a lot of characters mirroring the Doctor, this half of S7. In Bells of St John it might have been the GI; in fact it’s possible the GI absorbed more of Troughton’s Doctor than he thought. In Rings it was the Grandfather god. In Cold War it was the Professor. In Hide we had another Professor.
More mirrors here. A very dark mirror, Mrs Gillyflower; and probably considerably more unfeeling. But she’s the Doctor’s mirror – brilliant, inventive, and completely nuts. She also has a child; and she’s talking to a man who quite possibly also sacrificed his own child – or grandchild – to ‘the greater good’. Grandfather-Doctor, Curious-Scientist-Doctor, War-hero-and-Polymath-Doctor – and here is Dark Doctor, so detached from his own feelings that he’s able to take the decision to end the Time War by destroying his own world, his own children.
Mrs Gillyflower might even be able to argue that she was more moral than he was. At least she planned to save a remnant, to start again.
Perhaps the Doctor’s trying not to care not because he lacks empathy – but because he was born an empath in a society that valued detachment above everything else. And caring in a universe that doesn’t care hurts; it hurts unbearably. Better to have a sliver of ice in your heart.
But he has two. And as we see in this episode, once the plastic-doll shell of ‘The Doctor’ is stripped away, the real boy beneath it shows his other heart – which is warm, alive – and caring.
7 May 2013 at 01:49 #8092@ardaraith – i had not seen that, thank you.
i think the most interesting point about it is the location midway through the doctor doesnt recognise, with childrens voices in the background.
Is it his nursery? School room? His family home? How could the wraith possibly know about it to show it to the doctor? Why doesn’t he recognise it? Why show it to him (it seems to have no relevance to the message), doubly so if its a bluff or attempt to psyche him out by the wraith? Who the hell is the wraith anyway?
That looked like a pretty big clue to me…
7 May 2013 at 01:55 #8093Crimson Horror reminded me a little bit of ‘How To Get Ahead in Advertising’ – which starred : Richard E Grant!
7 May 2013 at 05:39 #8097A passing thought… Clara Oswin Oswald. COO. Chief Of Operations / Chief Operating Officer. ‘I’m the boss’.
7 May 2013 at 08:45 #8102He just took the cot from Demon’s Run didn’t he? Hmm, just saw otherwise. Mind you, how did they get it?
@blenkinsopthebrave (There is some reference to him being the lonely boy.For the moment I have forgotten where.)
Yes, it was The Girl in the Fireplace. A lonely boy and lonelier man whose name is more than just a secret.
7 May 2013 at 10:14 #8103@haveyoufedthefish and @Shazzbot – I think the video was a US / iTunes thing, so didnt get wide distribution. It appears to be full of information about series 7: a hooded monk, children, places the Doctor doesn’t want to remember. I noticed the openning sequence has a completely blue time vortex, save for the small red “destination” at the end of the tunnel. Contrast that with the completely red time vortex we see now, and there is significant indication that something is being brought into the present.
I am completely intrigued by the room with the children’s voices, and the Doctor’s reaction to being taken there. He was called to save someone’s daughter, but was not willing to help until compelled. This is contrasted with Clara’s reaction in RoA. When children are involved,Clara immediately jumps in to help (a scene fresh on my mind after re-watching last night).
Here is the video without French subtitles, and includes an English transcript. http://www.spoilertv.com/2012/09/doctor-who-episode-701-asylum-of-daleks_5058.html
7 May 2013 at 12:04 #8106Not sure if all the mentions of Lancashire have been resolved, but I was re-watching the start of the pond-era and there was a reference to Lancashire in The Beast Below. Taken by itself I thought it was just a funny comment, but now with more references in recent episodes it stood out a lot more (not sure it means anything though!).
7 May 2013 at 12:36 #8107@ardaraith. Thanks for the link. At one point in the beginning (at 0.19) you see a large square block of white paper attached to the window with letters on it. Then you see (at 0.25) a close up of part of the bottom row of letters close to the Doctor’s face.
The letters are in reverse, but spell out:
mpromisep
At first it seems meaningless, but when you divide it up it becomes
m-promise-p
Hmm…
Now, if I could get a close-up image of the whole sheet of letters might it reveal something? (Aside from the obvious fact that I am in need of some outside interests…)
7 May 2013 at 12:40 #8108@bluesqueakpip There’ve been a lot of characters mirroring the Doctor, this half of S7. In Bells of St John it might have been the GI; in fact it’s possible the GI absorbed more of Troughton’s Doctor than he thought. In Rings it was the Grandfather god. In Cold War it was the Professor. In Hide we had another Professor.
In Rings, could it have been both the Grandfather and the Queen of Years? She struck me as more of a mirror against the Lord of Time; one the last survivor of a race (with all the memories of them/their culture etc), the other being sacrificed (from learning all that history) so countless people would live. The old man and the young girl.
7 May 2013 at 12:49 #8109Thanks @ardaraith, I hadn’t seen that before. Very interesting. There are distinct Dream Lord undertones there, and of course it seems to support the theory that the whole season is taking place in the Doctor’s head.
At about 28s we see a man and a woman sitting across from each other. Could they be Harvey and Darla von Karlsen? It may not mean anything — perhaps it was just easy to use actors who were there already to make Asylum of the Daleks.
Would it be too sneaky to include vital clues in a prequel seen only by a few people on the internet? I hope so 🙂
7 May 2013 at 13:09 #8111@blenkinsopthebrave and @phileasf – My pleasure! I think very few people have seen this prequel, and it absolutely seems like something SM would do – hide clues in ‘plain sight’ where nobody sees them!
It seems certain that whatever the mystery is, it has something to do with children. I just re-watched TWoRS (having completed a deadline last week which leaves me free to obsess properly), and was struck by the child singing the little rhyme, “tick tock goes the clock.” No idea what strangeness SM has cooked up in his imagination, but I look forward to finding out!
Oh! One last thing regarding RS. In the final scene with Amy, River reminds Amy that she didn’t really kill Madame Kovarian, because it was an aborted time line that never happened. It was in that same aborted time line that River and the Doctor married one another. Using her own logic, she knows she and the Doctor aren’t ‘really’ married. As nice as it would be for the Doctor to have a wife and family, I agree with @bluesqueakpip (who I believe mentioned earlier) that doing so would reduce the Doctor’s motivation for being involved with humans in the first place, and the empathy we, as an audience, have for his character. Resolving the ‘RS is married to the Doctor’ idea would move the show forward in that area, I think. Which…is a real bummer, because I adore River!
7 May 2013 at 13:35 #8113@ardaraith – River does say it never happened to Amy: who promptly corrects her. It may have technically never happened, but she knows she left Madame Kovarian to die.
Similarly, while the wedding may technically have never happened, the Doctor has said ‘I’m married’ a few times now. Though it didn’t work with Nefertiti, whose response was ‘so am I, and he’s the human equivalent of a sleeping draught!’ 🙂
With regards to the Time Lords being restored disengaging the Doctor from the human race: probably an area where having grown up with the Classic Series is an advantage. The Time Lords were around throughout that – and the Doctor was still very engaged with humans.
@satsumajoe – I think the little Queen of Years is Clara’s ‘mirror’. Or rather, I think she’s what might have happened to Clara – but didn’t. I suspect Clara will turn out to be connected to the Time Lords in some way; but she’s the opposite to the Queen of Years – she was allowed to grow up without the burden of having to carry the entirety of her culture’s stories, songs and history. In fact, she “always hated history.”
Clara’s all about the present. When she has to, she can let the past go.
7 May 2013 at 13:56 #8115@bluesqueakpip Yes, I agree. Gaiman’s Cybermen are going to be the originals I think. I am expecting some homage to Moonbase, Tomb, Wheel, Earthshock and, possibly, Attack. Not to mention the things that Moffat set up in Pandorica Opens…
If squee is a word, I am in a state of advanced anticipatory squee….
-
AuthorPosts
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
