Sleep No More
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Dentarthurdent 6 months ago.
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20 November 2015 at 21:44 #47363
Yes to both of you! The sonics were to enable the Doctor to try and discover
what’s lurking inside Clara IMHO. And it will be shocking!
Aw geez louise! Feel so impatient to know!!!!!20 November 2015 at 22:47 #47367Anonymous @
@saraji it’s ‘detriment’ by the way
Given that the last 15 posts have written about how little we’ve seen of Clara I would think you’re watching the wrong show.
He asked her to see him – but right now, he can’t see her. There is something inside Clara, and it’s getting ready to be born. That’s the dalek casing/zygon pod/sleep pod imagery. The other image carries on from Last Christmas – that the real Clara is asleep and the Clara who is wandering around walking and talking is the result of Clara’s dream.
Well, that’s brilliant -awesome, and the night before Squeak! I’m agog and I don’t know really how it’s all gonna end, people!
Still, stay strong!
20 November 2015 at 23:59 #47371Sorry for the delay. I’ve spent the evening being entertained by Ed Byrne in a comedy gig.
I’ve removed that bit in the post. Now to catch-up on stuff before we Face the Raven!
Put your back into it son. That’s lousy trolling.
21 November 2015 at 01:17 #47373@phaseshift Thank you! sorry about that, I hope you had a good night.
21 November 2015 at 01:30 #47374@catladymeow Good criticism. Yes, some of us, like you, understood the episode just fine. I was also never confused by it, just didn’t really move me in any kind of way. Appreciated the brave attempt, and always like a good layering of ‘Matrix’ like themes, it just never pulled me in.
@jphamlore & @ichabod I agree about the Moon tarot card, it makes perfect sense.
@bluesqueakpip & @purofilion. Yes, this episode is driving home the plugged in Clara theme, and the theme of not knowing the difference between reality and fiction. Donna was also forced to find her way through altered reality and layers of truth, in the ‘Library’ and in ‘Turn Left’ Why did CAL know what face to sow Donna before er upload, and who sent the bug on Donna’s back?
I still hold to the my bonkers Library theory, but I also see another theme, all the way back to Bad Wolf. Missy/Master and the Universe/Time Vortex/Bad Wolf have been coaxing and guiding time in the Doctor’s favor. If you look at the long history of Doctor Who we see that the Time Vortex/Bad Wolf considered the Doctor AND the Master its chosen children. It makes sense that the Master is a tool in the Universe/Bad Wolf’s protection of time and the Doctor. Clara is part of that protection, like Donna, chosen to protect the Doctor. The Great Intelligence and Davros striding in through the Doctor’s timeline to create the opposite and to create chaos. Hi did the Great Intelligence and Davros go back in time? Heck, how did Colony Sarf? Never explained, but keeps happening. Technically the Doctor should be able to hide in time, but not if his enemies can follow him. I think ‘Last Christmas’ like ‘Listen’ and ‘Silence in the Library’ hold many keys to the story arch, and ‘Sleep no More’ confirms it. In all of them we are never sure of reality, like the world CAL creates, or the dream crabs; they essentially pacify the death of ‘reality’ and make us question reality itself. Bad Wolf was the ultimate bootstrap paradox, and I feel it is still going on, first through Donna, and then through Clara. “I create myself” is what Bad Wolf says. Like the story in ‘Sleep no More’ or the question of the Claricle births.
‘Sleep no More’ may have been a clever way to get the universe thinking about a being a quantum locked being through a televised production. “The image of an angel” if you remember with Any was enough. In my opinion, Morpheus has dream crabs inside feeding, the rest is a story. “Don’t trust anything you see” as the Doctor said in Last Christmas, and his glasses are proof he needs help looking past the obvious. He needs to listen more, see less. The biggest wild card in this: River. She is always trying to bend time to save the Doctor at any cost. Also, Ashildr, she is problematic, and am more and more sure she will become the Nightmare Child and the death of Clara and the Doctor s the destroyer of world’s will drive him into he Valyard next season.
Also, important to note that ‘Sleep no More’ seemed like dream version of Clara’s time in the heart of the Tardis. The creatures, the corridors, the pathway are very much mirroring that….like it’s her dream in part
In no way do I see ‘Sleep noMore’ as a stand alone, I see it as confirmation of the reality altered theme. I have a lot of thoughts on all of this that could take up pages, but I will end here, since it’s dinner time. 🙂
21 November 2015 at 01:52 #47375Sorry, lots of typos, since it was a fast stream of thought. This is how the sentence should read: “‘Sleep no More’ may have been a clever way to get the universe thinking about a quantum locked being through a televised production. “The image of an angel” if you remember with AMY Pond was enough.”
21 November 2015 at 02:05 #47377….and “Why did CAL know what face to SHOW Donna before HER upload, and who sent the bug on Donna’s back?” was another major typo. Will try and slow down and proof before I push send next time. :-\
21 November 2015 at 02:29 #47378@kharis Morpheus has dream crabs inside feeding, the rest is a story. “Don’t trust anything you see” as the Doctor said in Last Christmas, and his glasses are proof he needs help looking past the obvious. He needs to listen more, see less. The biggest wild card in this: River. She is always trying to bend time to save the Doctor at any cost. Also, Ashildr, she is problematic, and am more and more sure she will become the Nightmare Child and the death of Clara and the Doctor s the destroyer of world’s will drive him into he Valyard next season.
Great bonkerizing! I’ve also kept looking back over my shoulder at Last Xmas, because . . . well, because, damn it! As for the valyard, I can see him going that way just ahead, if the S9 ending cuts him too deeply and there is no relief. Only I suspect some form of relief in Hell Bent, because there’s that Moffat thing about how the final 3 will “shock you, terrify you, and surprise you. Strictly in that order.” So whatever we see in Raven or even Heaven Sent could potentially be radically revised or reversed in Hell Bent (SURPRISE!). “Don’t trust anything you see” indeed!
I love that “see less, hear more”, by the way. Yep, you could say that about him in general — funny how in such verbally agile scripts, we didn’t get to hearing (words, for example) until Under the Lake, as far as I can remember, and even there it’s vibrations in the floor that play the chief auditory role (and the sound design, of course). Don’t worry about typos — everybody’s probably feeling a bit rushed and jittery, so close to Sat. night/Sun. morning, and because spending time here and elsewhere sharing ideas about DW naturally shoves all our (er — my) necessary chores etc. into the Corner of Neglect, which makes everything even more rushed since I do have to squeeze them into my schedule (!! Ha!) somehow.
21 November 2015 at 03:07 #47379Ooh be careful in referring to future episodes on this thread? Maybe the Spoilers thread is the best, there?
Anyway, yes I agree we’re all jittery -I know I am. I actually couldn’t sleep properly last night as I was thinking of all the puzzles and then woke up early and started thinking again -my brain simply won’t shut down!
@kharis I think that the bug was simply a creature, also quantum locked, which was deliberately put on Donna’s back by the seer to try to manoeuvre the doctor out of his particular path -Doctor Donna was, after all, very important and had been placed in that position from the day of her wedding by Dalek Caan who has prophesied this occurrence and ensured the final meeting materialised. The Daleks have time travelling abilities, can build void ships etc and that’s why along with the TLs, it was necessary (so the Doctor thought) to finish the endless war between Gallifrey and Dalek command.
In no way do I see ‘Sleep noMore’ as a stand alone –I agree, I think I said that I thought it was a deliberate positioning -the link between a metaphorical Part A and the much smaller, tighter Part B -but I’m not sure if anyone agrees with me: I can’t help but think that much of these choices by show-runners are not random and are positioned deliberately like a recitative in an opera, or a separate ‘between’ section in a ballet (forgive my lack of knowledge of ballet terms!) in order to create an apex of information – the methods in which the camera worked in Sleep No More suggested how the Doctor sees Clara -or is trying to and possibly failing – and we also saw the camera slide away from the Doctor and return, quickly and sneakily as if we’re not sure exactly what he’s thinking. I think, for myself, that the episode was positioned in the right place though I understand others may not share that opinion.
What concerns me is that there will be areas we’ll never receive answers for?
Does anyone want or need answers to
* who or what was under the blanket in Listen?
* Why do we have an Orson? Is he part of a time line which was re-written and so we’ll never know?
* Were the stories of Robin Wood (I’m referring here to the woods in London too!) and Kill the Moon part of a separate construction in Clara’s head? Because I think not now and that annoys me somewhat!
@bluesqueakpip do you have answers to the first two points?
21 November 2015 at 03:21 #47381Oh yes, terrible trolling. That’s a zero for success, there. “These shows are ….”
I presume it meant “episodes” -and to the “show’s detramint” -yet another mild reference to shows.
Why do people waste their time? I think back to how another recent newbie, spoke of “why there was such focus on the companions in the past two years when that hadn’t been the case in the old series as the assistant was very much a ‘second’ to the Doctor who solved all the problems in his unique and alien manner.”
I mentioned that the very first episode of the reboot was “Rose” and that this signalled a very new and distinct programme where the companion was equal to the Doctor and had the capacity to change futures -ie Rose and Donna. Obviously the Impossible Girl Arc involved a companion in something completely new. Certainly without a companion, whether in BG or AG, we know how the Doctor fares -and it isn’t spectacular. Certainly though, a distance has formed between the Doctor and Clara of late -so to make assumptions that she’s taken over the show suggests some haven’t watched it or even thought about it for a moment in between the wine coolers and the bongs made out of potatoes. 🙂
But that’s OK. We all start somewhere. I made mine out of a zucchini.
21 November 2015 at 04:05 #47384@purofilion @kharis In regards to whether Sleep No More is a standalone or not, I’m really rather puzzled. I didn’t include it in my ring narrative theory, and it does make it very clear to me how it was supposed to be in S8, but at the same time you make a compelling case for it to be important to the current story arc. It is unquestionable that it aids the altered reality theme as you point out Kharis, and I can see why you view it as the connector episode Puro – another monster infecting Clara as with most of the series, and CapDoc being beaten leads nicely into the culmination of the series, in a slightly similar way to how Professor Yana “beats” Tennant in Utopia. I’m just really unsure of what it is and I don’t think I will be until at the very least a few days after I’ve seen Raven and processed everything.
21 November 2015 at 04:39 #47385@puro Oops — In my defense, such as it is, I was quoting a now rather widely quoted comment by Moffat during an interview shown on one of the other discussion sites — Den of Geek or Doctorwhotv, I think — so I thought that was okay; it’s been up there now for a while. Or is it my comment about what we might infer from it that’s spoilery?
If so, may the Mighty Ones move the whole megilleh over to spoilers — regular one I guess, Spoilers 2? And apologies if I crossed the line there.
I can’t help but think that much of these choices by show-runners are not random and are positioned deliberately like a recitative in an opera, or a separate ‘between’ section in a ballet (forgive my lack of knowledge of ballet terms!)
Is a divertissement only a musical term? Maybe it would work with ballet too . . .
@bendubz11 Has the Doctor lost this round? I’ve seen it posted that in fact the Doctor and Clara escaped in the Tardis after setting the station spinning into the colonized moon with nobody left alive on it but — no, Rasmussen is turned to sand, so nobody, just the video. In that case they *may* have foiled the evil plan (if Verrier smashes to bits and the video is lost). I’m left with the impression, though, that the Doctor himself still regards this sequence of events as a failure because even though he’s sent Verrier station to its destruction, he still can’t figure out what was going on there — it still “makes no *sense*!” Because after he and Clara leave, *we* get to see the end of the story that the two of them haven’t seen. So it’s no surprise, really, that none of it makes sense to him the Doctor.
21 November 2015 at 05:04 #47386@purofilion “…how the Doctor sees Clara -or is trying to and possibly failing – and we also saw the camera slide away from the Doctor and return, quickly and sneakily as if we’re not sure exactly what he’s thinking.” Good point! The bug on Donna’s back doesn’t seem that Dalek Caan would send, he was in favor of the Doctor. Maybe the Great Intelligence or Davros, but it still seems like there has been both a malevolent force following the Doctor’s timeline and the helpful force. Possibly the Great Intelligence and Clara in the timeline explain, but it seems bigger, like who guided Clara? River? Bad Wolf? River is a daughter of the time vortex, and Missy was chosen by the time vortex, maybe River and Missy are unknowing minions of the time vortex/Bad Wolf? Pretty sure the “Moment” was part of the Time Vortex power. Clara being brought to the “moment” that changed everything was by permission of the Time Vortex.
@bendubz11 yes, the theme, since the Library, and then driven home in ‘Last Christmas’ has been the an altered reality.
Like your Utopia reference. 🙂
@ichabod Thank you! Yes, so excited for this weekend! I’m setting aside everything Sunday to watch it. I hope there is a relief in Hell Bent.
I’m seeing the tragedy of this season fueling a hate “a shard of ice in his heart” that pushes him into becoming the Valyard.
The way the people turned to dust in ‘Sleep no More’ made me think of the dream crabs, same with the altered reality. And what is above the Doctor’s head in the debriefing room?
21 November 2015 at 05:11 #47387Look above him in the meat closet. Looks like a dream crab, then a glitch, then it’s gone.
21 November 2015 at 05:34 #47388The video footage, like CAL, the dream man in Amy’s Choice, or the dream crabs, took information, and used it to create a world that felt real, this time in the form of movies, from the dream centre of their minds. So much of the “scary” parts could have been twisted versions, like in a nightmare, of Clara’s journey to the centre of the Tardis. The goal to create something that needs to be seen to use it’s power, like a dream crab or wheeping angel.
21 November 2015 at 05:59 #47391@ichabod Has the Doctor lost this round? I’ve seen it posted that in fact the Doctor and Clara escaped in the Tardis after setting the station spinning into the colonized moon with nobody left alive on it but — no, Rasmussen is turned to sand, so nobody, just the video.
Yes, the Doctor’s lost. The video is the point.
Here’s Mark Gattis’s take in a Radio Times story (http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2015-11-14/mark-gatiss-has-a-sequel-planned-to-doctor-whos-sleep-no-more)
21 November 2015 at 06:25 #47392“What if we had ideas that could think for themselves? What if one day our dreams no longer needed us? When these things occur and are held to be true, the time will be upon us. The Time of Angels.”
“Bob: You’re not talking to me sir. The Angel has no voice. They stripped my cerebral cortex from my body and reanimated a version of my consciousness to communicate with you. Sorry about the confusion.” ….like Rasmussen.
“OCTAVIAN: They don’t look like Angels.
AMY: And they’re not fast. You said they were fast. They should have had us by now.
DOCTOR: Look at them. They’re dying, losing their form. They must have been down here for centuries, starving.
AMY: Losing their image?
DOCTOR: And their image is their power.”Sort of makes sense, doesn’t it? Now if you watch the video and see the sandmen then like Amy you have something in the corner of your eye, a Wheeping Angel. Look at the Angels in their deteriorated form, still an Angel. Why the quote from River about dreams?
My only problem with this theory is that the sandmen are blind. Maybe purposefully blind? But how about that for bonkerizing? 😉
21 November 2015 at 06:30 #47393@kharis and what is Sand but grinded down stone? I fully support your wonderful bonkerising!
21 November 2015 at 06:43 #47394@bendubz11 Thank you! Had fun with it. The River quote seems important. Possibly they are so deteriorated that they are blind, so they don’t need to cover their eyes. What happened to Nagata? Did we ever see anyone get killed?
21 November 2015 at 06:57 #47395love your bonkerising! Awesome +
I think that the bug may have been part of the ‘vicious’ plan to bring all the parallel universes (that were imploding) together. Rose was warning the Doctor thru those words and never telling Donna who she actually was – I think the Doctor knew with those words “bad wolf” -the look of true terror on his face was enough to being fear to us all.
I think that parallel and imploding universes- even those pocket universes holding Gallifrey for example could be a theme at the ….go to spoilers
21 November 2015 at 06:59 #47396divertissement ! Brilliant. That fits!
21 November 2015 at 07:18 #47398@purofilion Happy to help; got some word-chops, me, feels good to deploy them from time to time! And I like that word. It has character(s).
21 November 2015 at 09:12 #47402Just need to say for me some of the previous discussion has been wavering a bit over into spolier territory 🙁
I didn’t even know the name of the next episode (i mean the one next weekend not the one today – which again i only found out here) and i haven’t heard the Moffat interview as i try and stay away from such things (i have a backlog of about 4 Dr Who magazines i haven’t read yet). Now i realise both of these things i mention above are widely available so to many are not considered spolierish but they are a bit to me.
So a plea from me. Can we try and keep things contained a bit more to discussing the episode and what has gone on before and not speculate too much based on what people may or may not have heard about future episodes.
Obviouly this is a tricky area since the whole point is to bonkerise about what may happen! One of the main reasons i keep coming back here (apart from all you wonderful bonkers people of course) is because i have never felt in danger of too many spoliers but i fear that is changing a bit.
Anyway. Maybe im just being to sensitive about it. Apologies for the moan – i just felt i needed to say what i thought!
(\(\;;/)/)
p.s. Was chuckling at how the pathetic troll was by and large ignored due to them really not making an effort! Nice 🙂
21 November 2015 at 10:14 #47403@ichabod and @purofilion
Ooh be careful in referring to future episodes on this thread? Maybe the Spoilers thread is the best, there?
Talking about future episodes is fine. Releasing Spoilers into the wild isn’t. 🙂
However, some things that are technically ‘spoilers’, like episode titles and widely repeated Moffat quotes, are out there in the world already. For example, I suppose ‘Heaven Sent’ and ‘Hell Bent’ are technically spoilers, but you’d have to live the life of a Doctor Who hermit, hidden under the blanket with only old episodes and a sonic screwdriver for company, to not know the titles of the remaining three episodes.
Same with the Moffat quote: though personally, I’m in awe of Moffat’s ability to lie his boots off in the line of duty (i.e. protecting major plot points). I’m not surprised Peter Davison cast him in the Five(ish) Doctors; Moffat’s air of grumpy sincerity while lying through his teeth is quite an acting skill.
Back when we started this forum, spoilers (and the resulting forum) were one of the things discussed – and we decided that what really matters is saying or implying that you know something is a spoiler or know that there is a spoiler. Someone can accidentally mention a factoid that they’ve gleaned from spoilers – but as long as we spoilerphobes don’t know it’s a spoiler, we’re likely to take it as another speculation.
Personally, I started being really adverse to spoilers because some idiot spoiled me for the surprise in Utopia. Then I kept being really adverse because I found that knowing a plot point in advance ruins the bonkers theorising, and that’s a huge part of the fun of Who for me.
The Daleks have had time travel since very early in the BG series, I think. But yes, right now I think we may be about to find out either that the universe does care about the Doctor – or that while the universe doesn’t care, the people in it do. 🙂
21 November 2015 at 10:45 #47405my apologies, absolute and sincere.
I was worried we’d get clocked.
I should have assumed you’d know best ichi 🙂
21 November 2015 at 10:48 #47406sorry about that too -I think different ppl have different views about what constitutes spoilers.
I suppose the titles of the next eps are spoilers -technically? And in those titles could lie secrets…. who nose?
I shall remain confus-ed
21 November 2015 at 11:54 #47410@purofilion
Yeah my annoyingly analytical brain goes haywire with any little bit of info so i have to try not and feed it. For example had to really quickly stop reading the last post by @bluesqueakpip as i felt that was starting to go too far (i dunno if it did or not as i didn’t read).
Totally agree everyone is different as to what is a spoiler – its a really difficult one. Personally i try not to even comment on something in the ‘next time’ part of an epiode in case some people here don’t watch that.
Not sure when i will get to see tonights episode – staying with family this weekend so am not in control of the remote. I may plan on plying people with lots of booze so they fall asleep early and i can take control of the TV! Bwahahahaha!
(\(\;;/)/)
21 November 2015 at 12:11 #47411@spider yes, that’ll work -or maybe some sleep boogers for prolonged exposure to the Dreamworld?
21 November 2015 at 12:40 #47412Apologies, I posted before I saw that you hadn’t seen the names of the episodes. I suppose any discussion based on the names should stay under the BBC Approved Spoilers forum?
21 November 2015 at 13:26 #47413@bluesqueakpip no worries. I figured it was a case of posting timey wimeyness and wasn’t deliberate XD.
I agree that future episode titles (and perhaps any specific quotes from people about upcoming episodes?) might be better under approved spoilers. Personally i prefer the discussions and bonkers in this forum to just be based on what we have seen from the episodes themselves and not draw in any conclusions from what people may know about future episodes or the like. I know its not quite as simple as that and as i said before in general in the time i’ve been on this forum it hasn’t been an issue – i just felt it was starting to creep that way. Understandable i suppose due to us rumbling on (too fast!) to the end of the series! Anyway – again just my opinion. Spoilers are such tricky beasts!
@purofilion good idea! I might also see if i can source some dream crabs as well … uh oh, i’ve thought about a dream crab now! Eep! Whats that scuttling …. ahhhhhhhh! *squelch* *thud* zzzzzzzzzzzz.
(\(\;;/)/) Zzzzz
21 November 2015 at 14:40 #47417On the hybrid issue, I’m pretty convinced that the eventual realisation of that Plot is that it is nothing to fear, despite its build up as something terrible. It goes back to my thoughts on what it is to live in a multicultural society and the place we find ourselves currently in.
This is going to be pretty long as it’s series to date, so apologies in advance.
We start the series with the Doctor having a party in a fairytale castle with lots of references to Arthur and the Grail. Pure mythology and a story of how Arthur united the tribes of ancient Britons under noble and just laws.
A myth, and one that has, on occasion, been seized on by the extreme right with their obsessions about racial purity. They are a bit like Davros in that regard. Whose entire shtick is based on Nazi philosophy. As the Doctor says:
The Doctor: Davros is the Child of War. A war that wouldn’t end. A thousand years of fighting ’till nobody could remember why. So Davros, he created a new kind of warrior. One that wouldn’t bother with that question. A mutant in a tank that would never ever stop. And they never did.
Clara: The Daleks?
The Doctor: How scared must you be, to seal every one of your own kind inside a tankLast season we considered fear as a superpower, this season the dark paths it can lead you down.
We know the Arthurian legend to be a myth because that period is documented to the extent we know that the Britons were still divided into Kingdoms when the Vikings rocked up and started looting, pillaging, and more importantly settling in the UK. We have no idea of Ashildr’s route. Did she come with the initial Norse settlers? Or did she come via Normandy with William in 1066. Those Vikings who had settled in France to defend against their own kind? We certainly know she fought in the 100 year war to defend against another incursion.
Largely, the difference is immaterial these days. After a 1000 years does anyone hold any of these distinctions against people anymore? It’s part of our Great British heritage. We remember them, but the differences don’t matter anymore. We’ve been hybridised as a culture so many times. We have Roman and Norse Gods as days of the week.
We skip forward again and see the Zygons attempting to assimilate on the world. An analogy for so many groups in the multicultural society we live in. With its conflicts and pressure points. A message of tolerance, but above all, breaking the cycle of violence. To strive in hope until, as Osgood says about her status:
I’ll answer that question on the day it doesn’t matter anymore.
Skipping forward centuries we find the underwater base. The references to Star Trek perhaps a direct reference to the aims of that series. Deliberately cast to show that humans had gone past the absurd pressure points of the time it was filmed in. Black and Russian members of the crew. Looking at the makeup of the Drum crew we have an afro caribbean Captain saving his deaf second in command and a British Pakistani character offering love advice to British Indian character. A message of hope, because in the face of love (like Osgood for her dead sister) the differences don’t mean a damn.
And in this episode, even further into the future, we see a hybrid of the IndianJapan cultures. With a Geordie accent. With a trans actor whose gender shouldn’t really matter. Differences that shouldn’t really matter because surely it is the character’s actions that should define them?
So given what we’ve seen this series, and that the hybridisation or fusion of cultures and people that have led inexorably towards us, do we really think that the hybrid will be archvillain material? Or will they be someone a bit like us? As Missy (the Master is inherently an evil but largely truthful character) said “We’re all hybrids in one way or another”.
21 November 2015 at 14:48 #47418It’s as well to remind people on the spoiler front as we approach the end of the series, and I’ll apologise myself for using the title of tonights episode late last night. I’ve given myself a stern talking to.
I’d had a few beers on my night out. 🙂
21 November 2015 at 15:54 #47419Really like your take on the hybrid theme. I also think it can cut both ways. On the one hand, we are all a mixture of races, cultures, languages, as you point out. On the other hand, it is only by recognising that fact that we can understand our own limitations and put aside our pretensions to moral superiority.
I am reminded of the the end of “Quatermss and the Pit”, where the discovery of the Martian spaceship beneath the surface of London coincides with the race riots on the surface, and we are forced to confront the reality that our heritage is bound to the Martian race purges. As Quatermass soberly reminds us at the end, “We are the Martians”.
21 November 2015 at 16:01 #47420@spider @purofilion Got it; sorry for any spillover into spoilery — I have a tendency to forget which thread I’m on, in the very pleasant heat of discussion. Must watch out for that.
@phaseshift I’ve been wondering about these counter-messages about hybridization, if that’s what they are. Yes, we are all hybrids in all sorts of ways, and need to get over ourselves about it and what it means (enhanced genetic robustness, if you take it to that level, and thank gods for that because here on poor old Earth we’re gonna need it); on the other hand, an ultimate hybrid *warrior*, born and bred for the purpose of war, is a very dangerous thing. So if the Doctor ever in the past had anything to do with creating such a being, he’d have plenty of reason to run like hell in the opposite direction, especially lately, having seen so much of war in his travels since leaving Gallifrey.
21 November 2015 at 16:02 #47421@phaseshift so THAT’s what the hybridness in Sleep No More was! The IndoJapanese environment!
21 November 2015 at 16:37 #47423But what sort of hybrid ‘warrior’?
A soldier so brave, he doesn’t need a gun.
Inversions. Warriors like the Daleks, or peacekeepers like the Osgoods?
Or even a warrior like Kate Stewart, who’s clearly inherited all her father’s aggressive instincts – but can be talked down into accepting a peace.
21 November 2015 at 18:00 #47426@kharis – is River still ‘psychically linked’ to Clara? (name of the doctor)
re. the sandmen being blind. how do we explain the Rasmussen sandman? he had fully functioning eyesight as far as we know. i suppose if he was the ‘5 year sleeper’, he may have gained the ability of full human reconstruction…? i suppose it ties into that ‘the whole episode was just a story’ theory that was mentioned earlier….
@bluesqueakpip – the daleks built a time machine way back in order to chase the doctor through time in series 2’s (BG) ‘the chase’. i watched it the other day.
classic.
22 November 2015 at 03:44 #47473@tommo Oh yes! I think River is still linked to Clara.
If you go with the angel theory Rasmussen is like Angel Bob. If you go with what we’ve seen, it’s just part of the story.
22 November 2015 at 06:10 #47481Over on the Raven thread @serahni just said something which made me think back to this and the 2nd Zygon episode. (obviously don’t go investigate unless you’ve see Face The Raven) From The Zygon Inversion:
Clara: So you must have thought I was dead for a while?
<i>Doctor: Yeah.
Clara: How was that?
Doctor: Longest<b> month</b> of my life.
Clara: It could only have been five minutes!
Doctor: I’ll be the judge of time.</i>And then in Sleep No More we have a machine that compresses sleep in to a 5 minute period that allows you to go a month without sleep. Coincidence?
7 January 2016 at 17:24 #50032Have people seen this? I’m not sure I understand it, but it seems quite provocative:
https://www.reddit.com/r/gallifrey/comments/3zp3f8/doctor_who_magazines_sleep_no_more_review_from/
7 January 2016 at 22:30 #50038Did anyone else just go ‘huh??!!’ at the end of this? Kind of like how I went ‘huh??! ‘ at the end of the Sherlock Christmas special.
I was a bit confused about how the monsters form. I mean, does the dust just collect in piles on the floor and take on a life of its own? And what did he mean by them being digested? cause he said they didnt attack people, they consume them. I need to watch it again!
Really good idea, but I thought it would be more convincing if the monsters were some sort of physical manifestation of the negative energy of nightmares.
8 January 2016 at 05:48 #50042@superfreak Did anyone else just go ‘huh??!!’ at the end of this? Kind of like how I went ‘huh??! ‘ at the end of the Sherlock Christmas special.
That’d be me; I’m not the quick study I was in days of yore, and I need re-watches just to get really complicated stuff straight before I can chat about it. That review of SNM cited in my post above throws a bit more light on what they might have been doing with this episode — it’s the only really positive review of SNM I’ve seen, I think, so it’s worth a look. The Sherlock episode was puzzling until I began to get the drug overdose induced Victorian hallucination idea, and I admire the cleverness of it and the pro-feminist “plot” gimmick.
But I don’t feel any impulse to go back and look at it again, now that I can (probably) follow the story(ies) better. The “clever stunt” element puts me off, I think; and also my much-attenuated interest in Holmes and Watson, all that remains of my teen-aged absorption in the original stories along with a few later versions in film and novel form.
Oh, the monsters in SNM — I just took them as the McGuffin and didn’t question further. For me the interest was seeing the Doctor rushing around and getting not-very-far, really, as a figure caught and used in Rasmussen’s carefully devised story, “How I Cleverly Conquered the Universe, or Anyway I’m About To”. The novelty of it was interesting; a kind of stripped-down, inside-out “Before the Flood”, according to the (more or less crazy) villain? Haven’t re-watched in a while, but springtime desperation will probably bring that about.
8 January 2016 at 18:32 #50049Sherlock Spoiler alert!
yeah I liked the Sherlock episode-I saw a lot of the Doctor in him when he was being rude (but funny!) I thought that it was pretty obvious that the suicide was just theatrics-so I wasnt too mystified by that element, but I loved the mystery of who was behind it and why the man (I cant remember his name, Im terrible at remembering names!) was being targeted.
But yeah-SNM def needs a reviewing but Im already watching all of series 9 again. Except I think Ill skip face the Raven cause it makes me cry too much! I dont normally rewatch things over and over (not since I was a kid!) , and especially not so soon but there is just someting about Dr Who that is so amazing that it doenst get boring watching it again. (Although that might have something to do with that fact I have a girl crush on Peter Capaldi!)
8 January 2016 at 22:02 #50051There is a Sherlock thread (safest to keep things segregated).
15 January 2016 at 04:16 #50146It’s seldom I say this, but I didn’t like this episode. Perhaps I’m dense, but what the hell was it all about?
Yes, I know, sleep deprivation, but I couldn’t make head nor tail of this.
The only clue I thought, was the Doctor saying that ‘this is a story.”
The last line was really chilling though. I found it really odd putting the crdits at the end instead of the
beginning.
If this is the only episode from 9 series that I don’t get, I’m doing well. *big grin*
Could someone explain it all for me please.
I shall watch it again, naturally.
Cheers,
Missy
15 January 2016 at 04:27 #50148ps
I have managed to readf some of the posts, and might be a little bit more in the loop!
As someone said, they really have it in for Clara. Does anyone wonder if she could be a “Ganger” from the Flesh
episodes with MS?
It’s really annoying because usually I’m on the same wave length of Mark and Steven?
Still need help though – please.
Cheers,
Missy
15 January 2016 at 06:23 #50153@missy It’s a good example of an “unreliable narrator” story: a film put together *by the bad guy*, Rasmussen, so we have to assume that he has edited the footage from the station cameras (and helmet cams of various characters) to make the story *he* wants to tell, for his own nefarious purposes having to do with spreading the Sandman predators out into the universe via the film (I think). So it’s presumably heavily manipulated material to begin with, crafted to manipulate the viewers’ understanding.
Within that framework of deception, we see a story of the Doctor and Clara pretty much failing to get a grip on the situation, let alone solve it or save the lives of the rescue crew they find there. They end up escaping the Sandmen in a state of confusion and defeat. Moffat said somewhere that he was happy to take on a story in which the Doctor fails, for a change, and its placement just before Face the Raven is ominous: it shows us a failure which Clara should have noted and taken as a warning that the Doctor can’t ALWAYS be relied upon to solve whatever puzzle lands on his plate.
On the other hand, how do we know that he really did fail, or that he didn’t turn around and do something clever right afterwards that saved what was left of the day? That certainly wouldn’t appear in Rasmussen’s film.
The ambiguity is deliberate, complicated by a dizzying succession of shifts of viewpoint (which camera are we seeing things through now?), and probably not meant to be solved until a “part II” can be provided in a later series (probably S10).
15 January 2016 at 09:14 #50157@missy you’re very lucky to have @ichabod to wrap that right up for you. 🙂
If you’re watching this later than ‘us’ -read the posts above.
No, I kid.
I understand you didn’t have any other choice -and this ep is confusing. I had to watch it thrice before things fell into place. I loved it though. I might watch it now actually (stop me from crying over the recent dead -I should write “passing” but I don’t really want to)
Anyway, I hope you’re enjoying your DVD. It’s great isn’t it? I gave this season’s set to a friend who hadn’t watched an episode in well over a year. General excitement ensued.
Kindest, Puro.
PS: you’ve watched every ep three times by now and watched the whole thing one after another? 🙂
15 January 2016 at 10:28 #50158Thank you so much. As I said I did catch the word “story.”
Make no mistake, I shall watch again and again until I get it.
Cheers for that,
Missy
15 January 2016 at 10:32 #50159@puroandson
Thank you too puro. No I have only watched 7/8 once so far. As usual this bird is tormenting herself by only
watching one a night! So I’m bonkers I hear you all say. Of course I am! I’m a Whovian aren’t I?
When people die they are ‘dead’in my book, not ‘passed away.’
Cheers,
Missy
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