S33 (7) 9 – Cold War
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Dentarthurdent 1 year, 1 month ago.
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14 April 2013 at 20:31 #5591
It’s in the narrative symmetry. The Professor’s Ultravox sing-a-long aborts the world being blown up (albeit in drill) at the start of the episode. The script is quite clear about that. Clara’s singing aborts the world being blown up (not a drill) at the end.
Which might also tell us something about the link between the Professor and Clara (i.e. there is one)…
Skaldek is in mourning for his daughter. Her loss is the first thing he thinks of when he learns he has been frozen for 5000 years. He tells Clara and the Doctor as they question him that he “sang the songs of the red snow” with his daughter when going into battle with her, for her first time.
“Now my daughter will be dust, only dust…” he hisses. That’s grief, despair.
Then young Clara, not a solider, not yet, and the only daughter of someone there (as the only woman on the Firebird) sings to him, as he contemplates destruction, her destruction, and so he hesitates.
Not love saving the day in fact – but, continuing a rather prominent theme, a memory of love.
A memory of love keyed into by a song.
14 April 2013 at 20:43 #5593@juniperfish. But that is not what happens. She sings after he has gone to the Martian ship. Her singing could not be heard by Skaldak.
14 April 2013 at 21:02 #5595…speaking about songs placed in Doctor Who which relate to 1981, what about ‘Tainted Love’ which appears all the way back in ‘End of the World’? Britney Spears also appears, but I’m ignoring that…
14 April 2013 at 21:02 #5597Clara directly appeals to Skaldek’s mercy, during his stand-off with the Doctor, by asking him to remember his daughter, just before the Ice Warrior ship arrives and draws the Firebird to the surface. She also reminds him about the songs he sang with his daughter and he utters the words again “the songs of the red snow”.
Then this happens:
The Doctor: “We’ve surfaced. Your people have saved us.”Skaldek: “Saved me not you.”
Skaldek is beamed out.
The Doctor: “No, no… It’s still armed – a single pulse from that ship…”
The Doctor continues talking as if directly to Skaldek. Why? Because the Ice Warrior has a communicator in his suit and his ship also has comms – they heard his distress beacon after all…
The Doctor: “I will destroy us if I have to… Show mercy Skaldek, show mercy…”
Then Clara sings, then the missiles disarm.
In other words, Skaldek chose not to give the order for that single pulse from his ship. He gave the order to stand down. He heard the song (with Clara’s deliberate mirroring of the “songs of the red snow”) and he showed mercy.
I rest my case!
14 April 2013 at 21:02 #5599So to recap (for myself as much as anyone)…
Phoenix / Firebird = Rebirth
Egyptology = Reincarnation
Looking Glass (Clara does the mirror image of the usual; “smaller on the outside” & “Anywhere in space” rather than time, to the doctor’s vague discomfort) = Reflections in time, fractured self
Power of Song = What exactly? Lots and lots of examples, from 80’s pop to spiritual lullaby for an angry (Sun) god.
Roses = to get everyone going about a favorite returning for the anniversary but not a whole lot else, IMHO.
Clara as cypher – a back story, a functional personality and yet empty; she has traits (nanny) but appears to exist in the ‘now’ with a fake past (Total Recall comes to mind).
Totally agree with @Juniperfish about narrative symmetry of the songs in this episode. Duran Duran famously sang the one of the worst lines in pop history (relates well to the episode, naturally) that “you’re about as easy as a nuclear war”…
14 April 2013 at 21:20 #5601Oh and godsdammit now I’ve actually gone back to listen to Clara singing (again) 🙂
I could catch the lyrics this time. She sings: “I’m lost and I’m found and I’m hungry like the wolf…” a line from the Duran Duran song which the Professor talked to her about earlier. Almost as if he implanted it in her…
Hmmmn…
Songs, keys, the Doctor (Number One) programmes Clara to save the Doctor (Number Eleven)… foreshadowing a la @Blusqueakpip ‘s theory?
I think so!
14 April 2013 at 21:31 #5603Sorry – but your reading does not accord with what we see.
Skaldak has gone, with his suit and his communicator. The Doctor is not talking to him but speaking rhetorically, out loud – vocalising his thoughts.
There is no way – that we see- for Skaldak to hear Clara sing.
We have no idea what happens on the Martian ship.
Your reading might be right – but there is no evidence for it in the programme.
Can I ask – if David Warner had not played the Professor, but some other actor less well known, would you still place such importance on what he does and what he might mean?
14 April 2013 at 21:57 #5605@juniperfish – I have to agree with @htpbdet (it had to happen eventually!) the doc is just praying to himself, willing Skaldak to do the right thing. I think Clara is simply singing to herself to cope with the tension, just as the professor suggested earlier.
Though if the lyrics she happens to choose turn out to be meaningful … “I’m [was] lost and [now] I’m found and I’m hungry [to keep saving the world, like original Bad Wolf Rose]” would be pretty apt, actually…
14 April 2013 at 22:24 #5607@haveyoufedthefish and @htpbdet
Mmmmmn – well….. we do know that the Eleventh Doctor’s sonic can act as a communication signal booster – remember he boosts River’s comms signal in The Time of the Angels with it, for instance. And there he is, talking to Skaldek and staring at his sonic in this tense moment – a detonator and… a signal booster.
I tend to think the story of Skaldek’s connection with his daughter through song was in the script for a holistic rather than an incidental narrative reason.
On the subject of David Warner, it’s not his fame but his rather uncanny resemblance to William Hartnell which first caught my eye, that and the fact that, as @bluesqueakpip noted, he speaks to Clara in a very grandfatherly way and even calls her “My Dear”, an expression used liberally by Doctor One.
The Doctor, the Master, the Professor – Time Lordy sort of moniker isn’t it.
We shall see!
14 April 2013 at 23:05 #5609@juniperfish – I think it’s a case of is David Warner playing an actual Time Lord? Or is he playing the person the Doctor should be, but manifestly isn’t?
That is, is he symbolically filling the Doctor shaped gap that the Doctor has created? He’s taking care of the Doctor’s companion – which the Doctor himself isn’t doing. If it hadn’t been for the Professor, the world would probably have been blown up; Clara would have been scared and frozen with horror in a corridor somewhere and certainly not up to doing ‘think of your daughter’ speeches in the control room. Even if the world and the submarine had survived, Clara would undoubtedly have never wanted to travel with the Doctor again.
What stopped that happening was the Professor taking the Doctor’s role. For this episode, he was Clara’s Grandfather. And the Doctor was an appallingly bad Grandfather. More the wolf, in fact.
So I suspect we’re seeing parallels to the Doctor because it’s written in; the Doctor isn’t being the Doctor. Fortunately, there is a Doctor-figure on hand to save the day. To make Clara realise that the game she’s just got into is one of saving the world, messy and horrible as that might sometimes be.
It may turn out that this Doctor-figure was indeed a past or future Doctor, turning up to help save himself. Or it may just be symbolic.
According to the subtitles, when the Doctor is taunting Skaldak to face him, he says “look me in the eye.” As if he had the single eye of a dalek. And again, like last week when he used the Sonic as a shield, this week he uses the Sonic as a weapon – a weapon that can blow up the submarine.
But his Sonic isn’t a weapon. It’s a screwdriver.
14 April 2013 at 23:09 #5611@juniperfish. Well, I agree that the song and the apparent connection with Skaldak are there for a reason – but I think the reason may be to distract. From what Clara does when she sings the song – which is deactivate the missiles.
I can’t see any sign that the Doctor is using the Sonic Screwdriver to boost any communication signal – and in any event there is none to boost. The Sub has lost its communication capacity ( that is established early on ) and Skaldak has gone with his. The Doctor is holding the Sonic Screwdriver because he is ready to use it if he thinks the missiles are going to be launched.
I love theories as much as the next person. But I think we are concentrating on the wrong thing – precisely as Moffat and Gatiss intended.
If Clara disarmed the sub, what does that mean she is? How did she do it? And in the context of that question her song has an obvious meaning.
I don’t see the Warner resemblance to Hartnell. As someone above said, in many ways he is more reminiscent, both in looks and manner of playing, as Troughton. All three of the Classic Doctors referred to people as “my dear” at various times – it’s not a Hartnell “thing”.
14 April 2013 at 23:19 #5613@bluesqueakpip – I think that’s a pretty good reading. Maybe the doc is so taken with the idea of Clara being a perfect companion, he’s actually failing to make allowances for her need to be eased into the lifestyle like any normal person who doesn’t face homicidal aliens every day of the week. I suspect we’re wishing a bigger role for Warner just because he’s so bloody fantastic.
Anyway, the doctor can’t cross his own personal time line, unless the timelords allow an exception (appears to be the case in all other multi doctor stories).
Having said that, fathers day suggests without the timelords there to enforce that, the doc can pretty much do what he likes. Though if that were the case why not pop back retrospectively and catch rose, help Donna etc? Basically fathers day is some horrible continuity aberration…
14 April 2013 at 23:22 #5615I think if Clara twists her ankle, the internet will explode!
Bah! Humbug! I called that ages ago. “Watch out for the missing shoe” I said. Did anyone listen? Ha! Harrumph! 😉
@juniperfish Narrative symmetry (which this certainly was) does not necessarily imply causative symmetry. I could equally have been a callback to Warner encouraging her to sing to ease tension. I think it was more thematic (as was the resemblance, but only resemblance, of Warner to Doc 1).
They are having huge fun throwing out fan service, while the explanation is almost certainly much more obvious that we are supposing.
14 April 2013 at 23:26 #5617It may turn out that this Doctor-figure was indeed a past or future Doctor, turning up to help save himself. Or it may just be symbolic.
Yes, or, third possibility, linked to the Doctor himself “fracturing” – as much as “all in someone’s head” explanations can be a cop-out, I do wonder if everything is happening in the Doctor’s head. His mind sees a shadow-representation of his past self – Doctor One in the form of the Professor. He conjures it in his mind’s eye, to help him get through a dark situation…
@htpbdet If Skaldek is spelled with an “e” (the BBC site doesn’t name him as far as I can see) that, as you say rearranges to dalek(k)s. Combine that with @bluesqueakpip‘s observation about the Doctor’s phrasing “look me in the eye” and we have evidence that the Doctor is being “dalekised” @scaryb and @ardaraith ‘s theory.
He is fracturing as he is “dalekising” and recalling in his mind past reincarnations to try and help himself hold on.
The choice here is between detonation and communication (as it was in The Cold War) and yes, the sonic isn’t a weapon, yet the Doctor was contemplating using it as one (a daleky thing to do). That’s why I like the idea that a dual function of the sonic was being invoked here – as tool of communication (signal booster) and tool of detonation.
Two choices – communicate or destroy. The Doctor usually strives to choose the former if there is any option at all, whereas the daleks (and a dalekised Doctor?) choose the latter…
14 April 2013 at 23:26 #561914 April 2013 at 23:33 #5621@juniperfish – ha! I think you’re having one of those moments where the symbology this forum proposes is actually much more pleasing than the one the writer was actually capable of delivering … 😀
And that’s why spitballing with you guys is so much fun. Goodnight!
15 April 2013 at 02:56 #5629Ah. it’s good to be back 🙂
Finally caught up with postings on here – lots of great ideas as usual.
Not really sold on the idea of the Professor being the/a Dr, lovely tho it is as an idea. He seems more of a Wilf type character – someone who provides a bit of emotional back-up when the Dr’s had to rush off (he frequently left/lost companions in the past). He’s also a human who quickly understands/isn’t completely freaked out by the idea of aliens and time travel… the best of us? He’s the balance for the war-hungry one (sorry forgot then name).
He’s a professor, he’s curious; he has access to foreign tech (walkman in early 80s was very new-fangled) and foreign music. Shooting at the IW is very human reaction not a Doctory one.
His comment about it being a younger man’s game, when running about, is double edged – suggests he was maybe a bit of an action man when younger, but also the joke that the Dr is of course much older than him.
I think his character is the in-story substitute-Dr for Clara when 11 is off doing other things, but in the sense that he’ll try to protect her, listen to her worries etc. OTOH if they bring back Stephen Berkoff as the Shakri then I’ll happily concede Warner as the first Dr.
🙂
And agree with @whohar re the way they left him sitting in the open doorway, blocking our view of anything that might sneak up on him – classic! 🙂
15 April 2013 at 03:05 #5631@bluesqueakpip Re Clara as container of Dr’s memories – in terms of your meta-theory (she is the programme) then that’s the logical conclusion (as I posted in the other place). So at some point we will get to a place where the Dr is mind-wiped/regenerated /scattered and needs to be rebooted. (See my pet theory that this is what’s already happening)
I really like your idea of password-protected memories. Also an old idea of @phaseshift (I think!) that Clara’s fav phrase is actually a computer instruction –
RUN: You Clever Boy (ie that’s the name of the programme)
REMEMBER
15 April 2013 at 03:20 #5633End of the story –
I think all the various appeals to Skaldak helped, and delayed his decision to push the button, just long enough to let the rescue party find him. The game-changer for him is that he is no longer the last of his kind, marooned with a bunch of apes! And can you imagine his reception when he gets to the IW ship – this IW is a LEGEND! He disappeared, presumed dead, 5,000 years ago. It’d be akin to King Arthur or Alexander the Great turning up on earth. Nuking hte earth would seem like a small-fry thought after that. (And IW’s are honorable, not sneaky like Daleks).
Re the sonic as a weapon to blow up the sub – maybe, like a mobile phone can set off a bomb, a sonic signal could explode the sub’s weapons payload remotely. Or maybe the Doctor is BLUFFING. The essence of MAD (Mutually Assured Distruction (it’s hard to tell the fact from fiction sometimes!) was ALL about bluff and counter-bluff. About persuading the other side that you really were bonkers enough that you just might trigger the possible end of all life on earth.
15 April 2013 at 03:36 #5635Some final thoughts for now, and apologies for dominating the board (Lots of catching up!)
I loved this episode btw, great fun and genuinely scary. Loved the IW makeover and all the film refs. Agree with post further up (@htpbdet?) about the fact that it was a Russian sub and they had no accents, which allowed the actors to concentrate on acting. Wonder if Hungry like the Wolf was in Russian…!
The one (very minor) flaw is the sailor who acts independently to thaw out the IW. It really should have thawed out naturally over a 2-parter. But if you’ve only got 45 mins you need to get him into the action quickly. They made it work by having him wake up angry, thinking he was under attack.
Sonic – they’ve been really teasing about the Dr losing the sonic recently – nearly crunched under the door last week, dropped in water this week. See note above re bluffing (it’s more effective than a jammy dodger).
And I liked the spot by someone re the ET heart-light ref. Lots of great film refs this week, and agree there does seem to be at least a flavour of different Doctors in these episodes.
15 April 2013 at 03:39 #5637Only thing about the Doctor being the major part of his own story is that Moff interview from earlier this year, where he says the Doctor is the constant, that the companion is the one that things happen to… Then again, Rule no 1…
But that is definitely an odd scene when she seems to be underwater. It looks to me that she is mentally not on the sub, but gets pulled back into the reality with the voices trying to bring her round. Now that obv works if she’s half-drowned but also if she’s still dalekised Clara, or similar.
We’re assuming this Clara is the original… I like how she’s being portrayed in these stories – not yet as sassy and confident as the other 2 incarnations. She’s brave, but still quite innocent and very unsure of where she fits in (naturally as these are her first adventures). Her asking the Dr to confirm how she did made me think she’s very nervous that she screwed up and is trying to persuade herself otherwise. The Dr’s reassurance was a lovely touch. (He was quick enough to tell the cattle prodder he was an idiot).
And yes, lots of roses and red (possibly of the fishy persuasion) about.
15 April 2013 at 12:04 #5643The episode
A very enjoyable episode, it took a lot of persuasion (and pizza) to get the family back together on the sofa for this week’s episode after the disappointment last week. Nice to have my 8y/o gripping on to me when the Ice Warrior was on the loose.
I thought there wasn’t anything of particular story-arc importance here but most of you lot seem to have dug some bits up ;).
The Professor did seem to be very knowing but not sure if his likability made him seem more important than he actually was?
@htpbdet I think Clara singing at the end was purely because she was scared, not some subliminal bit of magic to disarm the warheads.
Regarding Clara, she seemed really child-like in this episode. Maybe it’s just in contrast to previous incarnations but for a 20-something she seems very naive and eager to impress.
As @scaryb alludes to, the Sonic wasn’t the weapon it was just the trigger. I didn’t think it had gained new powers (except the red light). In fact it was more of a weapon in last week’s ep. One question, did it go red at the beginning of the ep or was it after the Professor had kept it for a while?
@juniperfish The Doctor being Dalek-ised is a tempting solution but I don’t think he is the same as Clara in the Asylum. Much like the people trapped in the Wi-fi, they seemed limited to being trapped in the room they were converted in.
The Ice Warriors use of the word ‘blink’ seemed out of place. Could it have been a link to Moffat’s biggest success? – big new theory alert – The Weeping Angels are sending Clara around time and space (not sure why she’d have memory issues though?)
Wider speculation
River was stolen as a child to be used as a weapon kill the Doctor. I speculate she isn’t de-activated yet and does end up killing him. In Silence in the Library she mentions seeing other regenerations of the Doctor so I’m guessing she’ll see at least one more. Having River still involved also makes Clara as their daughter more plausible … maybe .. perhaps … !?!? :S
15 April 2013 at 14:01 #5655Hi. Having returned from the coast to an end of term party with neighbours have only just caught up on Cold War and all the posts.
LOvely episode and have more to say but is now nearing midnight so I will be brief. The first thing that really hit me was the mention of “daughter”. The IW’s memory of his daughter really didn’t need to be there. I felt as though it was shoe horned in for a reason, displacing the emphasis on him being the last of his kind. Daughter’s are a definite theme in this series.
Second point was Clara questioning how she could understand the Russians. In Masque of Mandragora, the Dr realises that Sarah Jane is under hypnosis when she does that.
Clara does appear to be a blank slate. She didn’t know how the internet worked, she has no interests or tastes and her asking the Professor how she was performing gave me the impression of the actress asking how she is going in her new role. This incarnation of Clara appears to be acting as she thinks a companion should. I don’t think that is a failing of the actress, quite the opposite in fact. It isn’t easy to act someone acting badly but that I what I suspect she is doing. Clara is struggling with the role of companion not JLC.
cheers
Janette
15 April 2013 at 14:26 #5657@janetteb I’ve been pondering Clara’s responses in this ep, and it seems they are actually rather realistic. For instance, the trauma Clara experiences after seeing death. What she may have envisioned as a fun adventure – and her way of finally seeing her “101 places” – has suddenly become a bit more serious. The Professor recognizes the signs of shock and insistently asks questions about her life back home. She is unable to answer because she is in shock, so he persists by trying new techniques. Likewise with the singing at the end. She is scared, perhaps more scared than before because the IW is no longer there to reason with.
In RoA, when she doesn’t know where she wants to go …. My gosh, I would probably be the same! How can you ask for something specific when you have no idea what’s out there. Same applies to checking-in about her performance. I think it reveals a character who is eager for adventure, and experience, but has not had much of either. Sadly, I think I’m back to looking at Clara as a genuine mystery.
15 April 2013 at 14:44 #5659I enjoyed Cold War very much — I liked the last two episodes as well, but this is the first time since The Snowmen that I’ve rewatched an episode the next day.
Lately I’ve been thinking about one of my favourite bonkers theories: that the Doctor has been / is being converted into a Dalek. I first heard it here, and have been thinking about the pros and cons of the theory over the past few days, especially while watching Cold War.
The idea is that, just like Oswin in Asylum of the Daleks, the Doctor is living in a fantasy world in his mind, after being physically converted into a Dalek.
Those flickering lights that recurred through last year’s episodes: they were some hazy perception of the Dalekisation process. Or else a feature of his real environment that occasionally leaks into his ‘dream’ world.
The eggs from last year’s episodes. Those are the Doctor’s psyche dealing with his compulsion to eggs-terminate. Before he can complete the thought, the eggs-termination gets sublimated into some harmless egg-related word or image. In the same way, Oswin was turning her eggs into souffles.
‘First they take away love…’ said Oswin in Asylum. The loss of Amy and Rory in his dream-world represents the Doctor’s loss of love, a critical step in his Dalekisation. (Oswin’s messages to her mother represent her retention of love.) When the Doctor completely isolates himself on his cloud the real Dalekisation work can begin.
‘Then they take away memory’ (I think that’s how it goes). The Doctor’s forgotten about the Great Intelligence. And perhaps more importantly, in his dream world the Doctor has been forgotten. The obvious last step in this process is that, when everyone else has forgotten the Doctor, so will he. OK, it’s not really obvious. But with enough caffeine and wine, or Steven Moffat levels of cleverness,I’m sure this could be made to sound like it makes sense.
Of late, the Doctor is being acclimatised to a new way of getting around. An anti-gravity motorbike. A hoverbike. A heavily-arrmed submarine. Clearly this is part of his Dalek training program. When he’s a Dalek there’ll be no more running around, and no more TARDISing. He’ll be operating a heavily armed floating travel machine. Saving the submarine was a sort of test of his ability to handle his travel machine. Some have noted that submarines don’t work like that (I wouldn’t know). But ‘lateral movement’ is very much a part of how a Dalek travel machine works.
In Cold War in particular, we see him using the sonic screwdriver as a kind of security blanket, constantly holding it out in front of himself when he’s afraid. As many have noticed, the sonic screwdriver has changed its appearance. It has, I think, come to look a lot like a Dalek gun. It’s acquired so many improbable capabilities, the Doctor’s learning to be completely dependent on it. And is it just me, or is the Doctor more fearful these days than he used to be? Fear, and the use of the gun to deal with that fear, are I think core aspects of the Dalek psyche. As he runs around that submarine pointing his sonic everywhere, he could be a little boy playing Daleks. At this stage his pseudo-gunstick isn’t armed, even in the training simulation. But for how long?
So this is how I think it works. You can’t have baby, child, adolescent Daleks running around shooting things every time they get excited or frightened. The same applies to human (and Gallifreyan) Dalek converts. They must go through a period of dormancy where they work through a Dalek childhood harmlessly, in simulation, inside their heads. It’s only when they ‘pass’ their training program that they’re ‘woken up’ and allowed to interact with the real world as fully-fledged Daleks.
So where does Clara fit in? In each of her two latest incarnations, she’s been a ‘governess’, someone who educates and entertains children. She’s part of the Dalek training program. She’s the Doctor’s perception of a module of the training program that guides, monitors and assesses him. She may even be controlling the simulation, ensuring it doesn’t get out of hand while the inexperienced Dalek is still finding his ‘feet’. Letting him handle the world with training wheels, so to speak. While Clara was unconscious, all hell seemed to break loose on the submarine, with the Doctor completely losing control of the situation. When she woke up, everyone calmed down and let the Doctor take charge again.
At times in Cold War, the Doctor seemed completely out of his depth (pun intended, I’m afraid). He just stood their gaping, like a schoolboy called on to provide an answer he doesn’t know, while Clara unobtrusively saved the situation.
Also, it seemed to me that Clara’s reaction to those horribly dismantled bodies was a little low-key. She paid a certain lip-service to being distressed, presumably to maintain her cover in the simulated world, but she didn’t seem nearly as distressed as a real person would be.
When did the Doctor become a Dalek? I’m not sure. Initially I thought maybe in 1964… but would Stephen Moffat risk the outrage that would follow retconning the whole series away? Nah. So now I think… before Asylum. The Doctor says goodbye to Amy and Rory, then goes off and gets captured by the Daleks. Asylum to Cold War are all in his head, It makes sense that he would be exposed early on to the idea of what life might be like for a Dalek convert, so it won’t come as too much of a shock when the penny drops. And because we like Clara, and she’ll probably continue after the Doctor is cured of being a Dalek (assuming he is cured) I’ll hazard a guess that his Dalek casing is right alongside hers in the Dalek nursery, and the Dalek training program has used her personality as the basis of his ‘governess’ module. And perhaps vice versa. When he’s rescued or rescues himself from being a Dalek, he’ll also save her… or vice versa.
I was pretty convinced of this theory until about 10 minutes into Cold War. Now I’m only about 20% convinced.
(Now I favour a much earlier (pre-Snowmen) theory, because Clara passed out when the TARDIS vanished. And clearly the Doctor suspects this too, which is why he set the TARDIS to vanish, to see what would happen to Clara… But that’s a bonkers theory for another time.)
15 April 2013 at 17:37 #5661@phileasf – you make a pretty compelling argument! I love the idea that he’s now brandishing the screwdriver like a dalek weapon.
It would certainly make a humdinger of a series cliff hanger if the doc re-evaluates everything this series in flashback (maybe that’s the YouCleverBoy program running), wakes up, remembers, the camera pans back … aaaaaaaand he’s a dalek. Cue credits. Doctor Who will return in November…
I’d say the conversion point would be towards the end of asylum; he went off looking for clara … and never came back. The asylum was never destroyed. Clara is still a dalek.
“its all a dream” never goes down well with audiences though – I’m thinking Dallas and St Elsewhere here – so its a huge risk to try and pull off. I guess the big clue to watch for is the doc actually “firing” the screwdriver in the next few eps …
15 April 2013 at 18:27 #5669@haveyoufedthefish and @phileasf – I’d go against the ‘its all a dream’ for the very reason that audiences usually resent it. When Moffat decided to do the ‘Amy is a ganger’ plotline, the clues were puzzling – but not subtle. Even the smallest child could see Madame Kovarian breaking into ‘reality’.
So I’d add go for the idea – which I think has been suggested before – that, yes, what we’re watching might be an unreliable, Rashomon-style retelling, but it is a retelling of actual events. The Doctor is trying to work out how he got into this mess. He may be attempting a reprogramming, or we may be watching the upload/download of his memory.
One of the most constant jokes in this series has been the Doctor missing something that’s right in front of him; haring off along a primrose path while the Ice Warrior is standing right behind him. So whatever is going on, it’s big and it’s obvious. So big, in fact, we can’t see it.
I think Moffat did joke immediately after The Pandorica Opens that the next episode would be entirely in flashback; so it wouldn’t surprise me if the whole of S7 does turn out to be the biggest flashback in the history of television. It would fit with what we’ve noticed; events don’t seem to be in quite the right order. It would also fit the ‘right in front of us/behind us, but we can’t see it’ joke. We’re in the middle of the program – the Doctor has run ‘You Clever Boy’. Now the download (and we know from Rory, River and the Ganger-Doctor that a downloaded program can have the ‘soul’ of the original) needs to work out what went wrong.
I do think Clara’s either the ‘storage device’ or the next Doctor. Why might she be the next Doctor? (Apart from all the ‘Doctor Who – the programme’ clues) Because one last ditch effort to erase a virus is to wipe the hard drive, reformat, destroy all the old programming and data – and then reinstall the stuff you know to be virus free.
15 April 2013 at 18:32 #567115 April 2013 at 20:19 #5691@phileasf Mmmmn – I too was wondering about the “it’s all in the Doctor’s head as he tries to fight dalekisation” theory, just upstream of your post. Nice spot on the anti-grav tech as a possible clue.
@bluesqueakpip ‘s idea of seeing this in flashback (rather than it being a dream-state/ fugue state in the present) is nice, very nice – and timey wimey is one of Moffat’s things….
I really do wonder why the TARDIS keeps bailing and I bet it’s not simply the HADS.
I’ve thought either she’s skipping out to avoid the paradox of two versions of the Doctor’s TARDIS in the same place at the same time, when earlier incarnations of the Doc are in the vicinity.
Or, if the Doctor is being dalekised, perhaps she’s getting skittish and their Time Lord/ TARDIS bond is breaking apart.
Or, indeed, as @htpbdet and others have suggested, it could be because Clara is an IDRIS figure and that’s also causing a bit of a paradox hiccup every now and again.
In terms of the appearance of “dark doppleganger Doctor”, the two main candidates seem to be The Valeyard making an early appearance or dalekised Doctor at present. Plain old ganger Doctor is trailing in third place…
So we need to watch out for songs as keys (pass-codes) again next week, as this clue-theme now seems to have overtaken the eggs.
15 April 2013 at 20:58 #5693@thommack I like the idea of River not yet being fully deactivated. There is a definite sense that during Silence in the Library she knew the Doctor at least a 2 incarnations down the line. That makes me sad as it increases the chance that Matt Smith may leave. I wonder how Clara may fit In with this theory?
does anyone know if River makes an appearance during the 50th? I’m just thinking about her insistence that the Doctor not travel alone at the end of Angels take Manhatten – maybe she was actively willing him to meet Clara?
15 April 2013 at 21:11 #5695Oh!! He had twine in his pocket!! In The Mind Rober, the Doctor finds a roll of twine in the cave. He says it is an invitation: a classical way of getting through a maze. Could this be a clue? Has Sindy appeared in any shows before?
…there’s also a library that contains all the known works of fiction….and “an intelligence”
15 April 2013 at 21:15 #5697I really do wonder why the TARDIS keeps bailing
I admit her ‘bugger this for a game of sailors, I’m off!’ was one of the funniest moments in Cold War. 🙂
15 April 2013 at 21:18 #5699@ardaraith – the clue could be in the story title that the twine was found in: The Mind Robbers.
I think the Sindy doll is just a meta-joke; Sindy was also ‘born’ in 1963.
15 April 2013 at 21:31 #5703@bluesqueakpip (spelling errors abound) Hmm, The Mind Robber….there is an intelligence in that episode, as well. Might he have the twine in his pocket to find his way out of the mental maze of …. dalekisation??
15 April 2013 at 22:01 #5707I’ve been thinking about songs as “pass keys” a la @bluesqueakpip‘s suggestion that Clara is password protected
Asylum of the Daleks – Carmen. Bizet’s song “L’amour est un oiseau rebelle” from that opera plays in Clara’s “mind palace” and she uses it to ward off the reality of her situation (song pass-key is a defence)
The Snowmen – anything? The Who music is redesigned to pay tribute to past incarnations but that’s not a diagetic song pass-key like the others.
The Bells of St. John – the bells themselves? Clara uses “the bells” to call the Doctor (song pass-key is a summoning device)
The Rings of Akhaten – the song of the Queen of Years soothes the savage beast of the vampire sun god (song pass-key is a disarming device)
Cold War – the songs of the red snow which Saldek used to sing with his daughter are invoked by Clara singing Duran Duran (I’m sticking to that) and his savage beast is tamed (song pass-key is, again, a disarming device)
So the song pass-keys so far have defensive, communicative and disarming capabilities. Akin to a Dalek weapons array? Or able to disarm one?
Incidentally the lyrics of “L’amour est un oiseau rebelle” are interesting to revisit now we know more about Clara:
Love is a rebellious bird
that no one can tame,
and if you call for him, it’ll be quite in vain
for it’s in his nature to say no.
Nothing helps, neither a threat nor a prayer
One man talks well, the other rests silent
and it’s the other one that I prefer
doesn’t say a thing, but pleases me.Clara wears a bird necklace we now know – a phoenix, symbol of rising from the ashes/ regeneration. And I’m placing my bets now that love saves the day, in some shape or form, in this year’s arc!
The lyrics speak of two men – cue doppleganger Doctor theories and one is SILENT (cue “silence will fall” etc.). Cue all the Silence theories/ Doctor memory loss theories.
Anyone got anything to add to this song pass-key cogitation?
15 April 2013 at 22:47 #5713@juniperfish – I think we may have got caught up in The Firebird as a phoenix, and forgotten that it’s also an ballet by Stravinsky. Musical pass key, anyone?
Anyway, the short version of the plot. The Hero, Prince Ivan (Russian for ‘John’, John Smith?), enters the magical realm of Kaschei the immortal (that rather suggests the Master’s non-canonical nickname) and while he’s there, manages to catch the Firebird. He also falls in love with a princess, has a row with Kaschei about it, Kaschei sends his monsters at him and the Firebird drives them off (with lots of dancing). And then manages to send Kaschei to sleep.
While he’s asleep, the Firebird tells Ivan the secret of Kaschei’s immortality – his soul is kept inside a magical egg. Ivan destroys the egg, killing Kaschei, all the monsters vanish, the real people inside this magical world wake up, Ivan gets the princess, and all dance.
I wouldn’t say that we’re following this plot exactly, but what strikes me is:
The tiny clues are to a ‘land of fiction’ (the twine), a ‘magical land’ – which @phileasf has picked up on. I’d point out that in both cases there are real people in this fictional land.
We get a repeat of a theme that’s being hammered home in the last few episodes. Soul (whatever the metaphysics of it are) and body are not the same thing. In Bells of St John, people’s ‘souls’ were uploaded and could be downloaded. In Rings of Akhaten, souls could be eaten. In Cold War, the big reveal was that an Ice Warrior isn’t the same thing as his armour.
Equally, in Bells of St John you have the Doctor interacting via a remote robot, in Cold War Skaldak makes his armour move like a robot. Could be the Doctor thinking a Dalek shell isn’t the same thing as the ‘soul’ inside, could be the idea that the soul can be transferred into another body (the egg) for safekeeping.
The folk tale the ballet was loosely based on (there’s a version here: http://www.artrusse.ca/fairytales/firebird.htm also has other interesting motifs; a helpful wolf, Prince Ivan is an incurable thief and he gets killed and brought back to life.
Oh, and when he’s brought back to life, he thinks he’s just been asleep.
15 April 2013 at 22:53 #5715Sorry, struggling with the link to the folk tale: <a href=”http://www.artrusse.ca/fairytales/firebird.htm“>
15 April 2013 at 23:44 #5717@theatreguy But in the mini-episode last night we see the Doctor taking River to the singing towers, and it’s 11 who takes her.
16 April 2013 at 00:59 #5719@phileasf. Good post.
I was a bit skeptical about the Dalek-isation of the Doc for a couple of reasons:
First it’s been attempted before in Evil of the Daleks (kind of), although the Daleks did not know what they were doing.
Secondly it didn’t seem to make logical sense. In AotD both the Doc and Amy were exposed to the nanos, so why didn’t Amy become infected to. However, on rewatching AotD I realised that we do not know when Amy was given the protective bracelet by the Doc. She may have had it on the whole time she was on the planet (except for a minute or two before the Doc found out).
It also seems to me that they could have left that whole thread out of the ep and it would still have worked (with some relatively minor changes). It may have diminished the impact of Rory-Amy’s marriage crisis however.
So I’m coming round to this as my #1 Bonkers theory.
Is this Moffat laying a mah-oosive clue in AotD as to how this season will play out? I see parallels to TIA in the setup here, albeit more subtle.
16 April 2013 at 05:54 #5725Blimey -you’re all bonkers!!
Next you’ll be saying that the Doctor’s put his soul into the sonic screwdriver just before he hands it to River!
.
Oh…
16 April 2013 at 07:48 #5727I am warming to the dalekisation of the Dr too. @phileasf put forward a very convincing case for it. I do not entirely believe Clara’s back story. Maybe he dreamed that hence the similiarity between the car that almost knocks down her dad to the one that killed Rose’s dad and all the Rose references. Also ties with the Dr as Soldier in Cold War. I thought it interesting that he didn’t challenge that as in the past he was always adamant that he was not a soldier.
I wonder if MOffat is aware of this site, and if so just what his expression is on reading through all the wonderful, bonkers theories, an amused chuckle, a twinge of envy, (I wish I’d thought of that), or dismay..
Cheers
Janette
16 April 2013 at 08:31 #5729“an amused chuckle, a twinge of envy, (I wish I’d thought of that), or dismay..”
Probably all three.
16 April 2013 at 09:47 #5733Something that keeps playing on my mind is this bit of dialogue between Clara and the Professor
Professor: I always sing a song
Clara: What?
Professor: To keep my spirits up
Clara: Yeh, that would work…if this was Pinocchio
I’m not quite sure what it is about it, apart from that it was funny at the time.
Maybe it’s the Professors use of the word SPIRITS or possibly maybe something to do with the Picocchio Paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinocchio_paradox ? Pinocchio was a toy that became real, is Clara a Sindy doll that has been given life 😛
Anyone else want to play along with this?
16 April 2013 at 09:56 #5735For the aged amongst us (i.e. me!) can we sum up the possible theories at the moment – please?
Is this the list:
1. The Dr has been made into a Dalek and we are seeing this series of episodes in flashback and somehow Clara will provide the mechanism to save him? Possibly by Running a computer programme called “You clever Boy”.
2. There is a dark Dr/doppleganger of some kind – although I confess I do not understand how Clara is seen to work in that scenario.
3. Egyptian theme of rebirth – Clara being a Phoenix like symbol.
4. Clara as Susan – somehow.
5. Clara as IDRIS – possibly because she has been forced out of the TARDIS by the Great Intelligence. As it turns out, this theory would also work with the “You Clever Boy” programme being one that Idris had archived for future use, because she can archive the future as well as the past.
6. 5, but with the variation that IDRIS has taken possession of Susan’s body – so we will end up with a rebooted Dr, Clara as Susan and the TARDIS in action as normal.
7. Some connection with CAL and Silence in the Library.
Have I missed any out?
At the moment, I think I favour 6. But that’s probably just because this is Anniversary year and to my mind that would be fab.
But 1 has the virtue of being true to Moffat’s form – in each of Smith’s seasons, the opening episode has been a key to the finale. So, if he is true to form, and he usually is, this one will be too. It also means that all the “but she’s impossible” stuff would be misdirection. Another Moffat trope. Clara in Asylum could easily have been a regenerated Susan taken by the Daleks and the reason she has been able to hold out for so long is that she is a Time Lord and, as Evil of the Daleks showed, it was difficult (then impossible) for the Daleks to dalekise the Doctor. If there is stuff we have not seen in Asylum yet what we might see is the TARDIS being summoned by both the combined minds of Susan and the Doctor and Clara activating the TARDIS’ programme “You Clever Boy” to reboot the Doctor. Somehow. Then the stories we have seen this season would simply be, past and future memories of the Doctor as part of the reboot process.
I guess the problems with that are: (a) what, then, happened to Rory and Amy (because Clara should be with the Dr when he loses them); and (b) the Dalekisation process we see during Asylum involves everyone who is Dakekised growing an eye-stalk in their forehead – everyone except Clara, who does not but who is in a full Dalek machine. I have no answers to either – it might have been the case that Susan, regenerated into Clara form, had been taken by the Daleks after the Doctor left her with David Campbell and found a way to convert her, or tried to convert her and failed and so imprisoned her – but that would not explain why she had the memories of the crewmember/junior entertainment officer Starship Alaska.
Okay – over to you guys. What have I missed out or overlooked?
16 April 2013 at 10:14 #5739I forgot to add that I have wondered for some time if the Daleks are in league with the Great Intelligence in this arc.
But that was becasue the symbols which identified the “bad” wi-fi source looked to me like they might have been Dalek symbols.
It now occurs to me that there may be scattered, hidden references to Daleks throughout these Clara stories – Skaldak; the symbols in Bells, the way the great crowd in Rings looked like the Dalek Assembly in Asylum – not sure if there is one in Snowmen (except the rather loose connection that the era is the same as Evil of the Daleks and the GI says: The Governess is our most perfect replication of humanity. Which ties in with what the Daleks were trying to achieve in Evil of the Daleks). Are there others?
If that is right, then the Dalekisation theory zips to number one position…
16 April 2013 at 10:44 #5745@bluesqueakpip I really love the Stravinsky The Firebird link – nice spot. In particular the Kasechi/ Kosechi the Master possible connection.
I mean, for the 50th Anniversary, it’s got to be iconic Who, and it wouldn’t be right without the Master in the mix somewhere, eh @phaseshift ?
I’d really enjoy it if the Master was, for a change, the “good guy”, helping out as the Doctor goes “dark side”. If the ultimate enemy is the daleks, well, we know the Master fought with his people against the daleks and even he, to date (am I right?) has never sided with them.
@htpbdet Your 1 and 2 , dalekising Doctor and dark doppleganger Doctor actually fit together.
This is a nice quote about Stevenson’s classic novel:
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is perhaps one of the most famous examples of literature of the ‘double’ or ‘doppelganger’, in which an individual is either split into two or more contrasting personalities, or haunted by a ‘shadow’ figure who may or may not be a repressed or discarded part of himself.
Source: http://www.glyndwr.ac.uk/rdover/other/dr_jekyl.htm
So “dark doppleganger Doctor” doesn’t have to mean two (or more!) entirely separate versions of the Doctor running around at the same time, although, given time travel, it very probably does. It just means that the Doctor, in one shape or another is going “dark side”.
The many, many doubles in Moff’s run, from ganger Doctor, to Tesselector Doctor, to the two versions of the Doctor in Amys Choice, not to mention the Dreamlord himself, have all been foreshadowing this IMHO.
I keep going back to Madame Kovarian and her talk of being in an “endless bitter war” with the Doctor. Who is she working with? Perhaps those eye-patches were, all along, an “it’s the daleks” clue to join the others you’ve just pulled out, staring us in the eye-stalk?
We do need to work River into your list. I have no doubt all the song pass-keys are a nod to her. She is connected to theories that somehow CAL/ Clara are connected and therefore River may be communicating with Clara to help the Doctor.
16 April 2013 at 12:13 #5747@juniperfish, I think you’re definitely on to something with the songs. It’s been a while since I saw it, but were there any Christmas carols in The Snowmen?
I’ve been looking at the lyrics of Vienna (one of my favourites since the early 80s, so great to see it get a mention and a bit of a singalong in my favourite show). Intriguingly, silence gets a mention:
Alone in the night as the daylight brings a cold empty silence
The warmth of your hand and a cold grey skyIt fades to the distance.
The image is gone
only you and I
This means nothing to me16 April 2013 at 12:19 #5749Next you’ll be saying that the Doctor’s put his soul into the sonic screwdriver just before he hands it to River!
Nice thought, @whisht!
Yes, unwrapping this, he could have put the Whoniverse equivalent of a zipped program into the screwdriver, then hands it to River. His younger self, trying to save River, unwittingly also downloads his own older soul into the safe location of the Library. Safe because it’s now guarded by the Vashta Nerada – no one else can live on that planet (quite possibly not even the Silence are safe there now )
And his soul sleeps, to be woken up when You Clever Boy is run.
That would be very nice, because it bridges how the Doctor currently is – calculating, willing to use even his wife and deceive his friends to save himself – with the way he used to be. Ten’s frantic run isn’t calculating at all; it’s simply the Doctor trying desperately to save someone else’s life. It’s the Doctor at his best.
16 April 2013 at 12:24 #5751the symbols which identified the “bad” wi-fi source looked to me like they might have been Dalek symbols.
… they might look a bit Dalek but they’re actually just standard “characters” in the standard Windows (Win-1592) character set.
16 April 2013 at 12:25 #5753@PhineasF – the Doctor whistles ‘Silent Night’.
I’d say it’s a fairly safe bet that the constant problems with flickering electric light mean that the Silence are hanging around somewhere. Possibly in a Soviet sub because the Soviets wouldn’t have watched anything as capitalist as the Americans beating them to the moon?
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