The Time of The Doctor

Home Forums Episodes The Eleventh Doctor The Time of The Doctor

This topic contains 528 replies, has 81 voices, and was last updated by  Kharis 8 years, 6 months ago.

Viewing 50 posts - 451 through 500 (of 529 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #24512
    Arjay @arjay

    Hmm, I can’t say that The Moment and Bad Wolf are actually one and the same thus allowing The Moment the same capabilities as Bad Wolf. I thought it was rather distinct that The Moment was just the weapon’s mechanism while the conscience was Bad Wolf as she explicitly identified herself. Think Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket? 🙂  Rather, I just think that Bad Wolf saw an opportunity in The Moment’s potential to be possessed and manifested herself as its conscience. And she did it not only to help The Doctor but also as part of her self-creation scheme.

    #24513
    demafromua @demafromua

    By the way, about Rose Tyler being the Bad Wolf: I own DVDs first series with only Russian voice-over (condolences are in order – its terrible), but in “Parting of Ways” she clearly says “I am the Bad Wolf”, which also might be a reason for her being an image for an interface. Of course, because of a messed-up timeline, it may also mean nothing.

    #24517
    Arbutus @arbutus

    @purofilion     have you heard the one about the lemon and the scotch for colds? You make a hot toddy and put a lemon at the end of the bed. You add scotch to the toddy and keep adding and drinking said scotch until you can no longer see the lemon.

    Okay, now that really made me laugh! Other than it seems a sad waste of a lemon. Have I mentioned that I am fanatical about lemons? I love how they taste, how they smell, how they look. I have a lemon tree in a pot, which sits outside in the summer but is currently taking up way too much space in our small kitchen, with a grow light shining on it, as the days are currently way too grey and short for lemon trees. I think it produces on average, 2-3 lemons per year. I don’t care!

    #24518
    Arbutus @arbutus

    @arjay     Rather, I just think that Bad Wolf saw an opportunity in The Moment’s potential to be possessed and manifested herself as its conscience.

    And you don’t think this is mind meltdown material?  🙂

    #24520
    Arbutus @arbutus

    @purofilion     And I meant to say, good luck with the transition back to work. I hope it all goes smoothly and without too much of a shock to the system. When they see you in the meetings looking terribly zen and serene, they will be amazed. They won’t understand that your spirit is off in time and space with the Doctor and all his bonkers-theorizing companions!

    #24524
    Anonymous @

    @arbutus  thanks for that 🙂 You’re right. I am nervous though. I’ve received doctor’s advice, due to the Crohns Disease, to reduce my work load even further from the original 4 days per week (which was awful) to 3 days and now to 2.5 which is great but the notice came for the later change only yesterday. We have a new principal who is awfully bureaucratic and is desperately trying to be efficient. In reality, he has stepped on many toes and organised a meeting with me with an agenda   different from the one he stipulated. I’m now wary and wonder what awfulness the day will bring. I’ve a migraine forming already. Sorry, all this in the wrong space! Forgive me mods…..I’m wandering…but yes, I’ll think of some more bonkers theorising to add. I’ve popped something on the Music Thread about modern music and crossovers with the classical genre….and I do love Murray Gold. What an amazing composer to creatively add beautifully thought out sections  to each episode and to do it week after week. I recall the first few series of Dr Who were not quite so clever: a budget/timing thing 🙂 Kindest to you all -purofilion

    #24532
    Arjay @arjay

    Heh, relatively speaking my take on it was simple what with maintaining just a single timeline and only working the basic Bad Wolf premise into it and no further. So aside from that one point that Bad Wolf is a distinct Jiminy Cricket-type of conscience, I didn’t think it had as much mind meltdown material. 🙂

    I have a couple other thoughts right now that may be more bonkers-qualified though. I suppose one of them can be mentioned here. At first I mostly dismissed the cameo at the end mentioning the revisiting of old faces as a possible in-joke. Admittedly, I had not yet stumbled on An Adventure In Space and Time at the time. After watching it, I don’t see what’s stopping them from finding more look-alikes to indeed portray those old favorites.

    #24538
    Anonymous @

    Hah hah @arbutus I have survived work and all its vicissitudes! I cannot bear to hear the word ‘maximise’, in any context again!  As for the lies of bureaucracy I shall refer to V for Vendetta for you, and, of course, for @barnable

    “Our integrity sells for so little….it is the last inch of us, but within that inch we are free.”

    No doubt the Doctor, too noble and unselfish to waste too many words talking (although he bluffs a bit) would not say the following in an effort to ask people to talk to government and government to talk to the people. So I shall improvise in words other than mine:

    “The only verdict is vengeance, a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.”

    As for me and ours: Amen to the innocents of Akehaten where the perfidious; the parasitic priests shall perish by a panoply of platitudes in plainsong and be vanquished by us all: the valiant.

    Or, as Education Q_ _ might write: “maximise the parking lot where the cars are parked so that potential facilitating educators will not be taken for a ride and will have to rely on anecdotal evidence to convince line managers of the need for greater understanding with respect to avenues for foliage growth to not cause problems for those attempting to interrogate the evidence associated with their work contract.”

    This reminds me of the planet in the God Complex where the rodent creature(s) planted trees for invading forces to feel properly shaded  -if not wholly confused.

    Kindest, purofilion.  I need a drink. Anyone? Ah, wrong time-zone. The sun is not past the yard arm in your particular locale.

    #24539
    Anonymous @

    @arjay oh yes, Adventure in Space and Time!  Did you see the little documentary by Mark Gatiss who spoke so sweetly and with such poignancy about how William Hartnell and Doctor Who made him feel? He was so gratified to be involved and so humble it was a treat to watch: without being over-treacly, it was a holy thing. Well, I felt that, anyway 🙂

    The gent who played Hartnell (the actor’s name has disappeared from my memory replaced by work related nonsense) was fantastic and it would be great one day to have a few actors re-play some marvellous scenes: but then who needs a re-make? Can anyone ever be Tom Baker with that singular rolling drawl and honeyed baritone?

    Even Pat Troughton? That mischievous flicker in his dark eyes? The long, striking face. One might say it would eclipse the drab original. But Dr Who wasn’t drab & it couldn’t be eclipsed no matter how simple it was. Its fictive quality and dissimulation added grace to a charming show: once the TV came on with Doctor Who, we knew that the day had grown dark and sad (school was the next day) but unflagging delight hit the household and like dolls at midnight my friends and I snapped to life.

    Enjoy the show…Kindest, purofilion

    #24550
    whoviandude @whoviandude

    It needed to be longer cuz it is the last episode of Matt smith and peters first appearance

    #24622
    Serahni @serahni

    I love reading the speculations you guys come up with, even though they make my head hurt. *lol*  Sometimes, when I read through the amount of detail you all manage to use to flesh out your theories, I wonder if I’ve just been sleeping through all these episodes or just not paying close enough attention.  I am impressed!

    Unfortunately, I don’t have any fresh perspective or original guesswork to add.  I find the topic of Clara a perplexing one because, as much as I have taken to her, I’ve never been able to convince myself she hasn’t just been a handy plot device and not really given much of an opportunity to have any sort of existence outside very crafted footsteps laid out for the Doctor to follow.  It feels like every detail we ever find out about her is just another clue, that it has to lead to some bigger picture and that the poor girl really is exactly what River said she’d be; an echo with virtually no substance of her own outside how she can be manipulated to be what the Doctor needs her to be.  With that in mind, it almost seems imperative that there be some bigger reveal, that there be more to this character’s story that somehow pulls back the focus and allows us to see the enormity of her and why, after so long, it has been that we’ve only been able to view her in these tiny, little snippets.  Without that further significance, she seems forever doomed to repeat herself over and over again and that’s just not satisfying.  For sentimentality’s sake, I’d love a family connection, I really would.  If they went down that track, I wouldn’t be in the least bit unhappy, but…

    …I can’t shake the feeling that we don’t need to be bogged down in more story arcs.  I’m sure we’ll get them but I don’t know if Capaldi deserves to inherit one.  I want to know more about Clara, I want there to be more to her, but I’m worried about the Doctor remaining a passenger in his own life.  I’d very much love for the return of a grandfather/granddaughter dynamic and I don’t want the storytelling around Clara to leave her stranded as a narrative puppet but part of me does wonder if we’re not just due something entirely fresh.  So I have reservations about my own desires, which is causing a lot of internal arguments but at least means I might be setting myself up to be pleasantly surprised by whatever shape the 8th Series takes!

    I also can’t shake the feeling that the only fitting exit from the show for The Impossible Girl is death.

    Third time’s a charm, right?

    #24631
    Anonymous @

    @serahni what a great post!  and I tend to agree. Kindest, purofilion

    #24635
    Serahni @serahni

    @purofilion  Thank you!  For me, the worst of the dilemma seems to be that there’s ‘no way back to normal’ for Clara and that the only option is to either stagnate as a ‘get out of jail free’ card or become something even bigger.  I’d be happy with just Clara.  I think she’s delightful and performed to perfection, I don’t necessarily need her to be more than another gutsy human the Doctor sweeps up along the way, but we’re past the point of no return in that regard.  That’s the problem with martyrs; once you become a figurehead, you lose your humanity.  And there doesn’t seem a fitting way for her to end, she’s been virtually set up as the girl who NEVER ends and that seems like a potential narrative flop waiting to happen, not to mention you can’t surely tie down future series to the idea that there is a character out there who logically has to keep existing.  Can you?  I really hope they haven’t spent all this time establishing her as something so pervasive only to have her drift away.  At this point, perhaps a poetic end is just to have her absorbed into the TARDIS at some point where she can live on as the only companion in all of the Whoverse that we can accept really will never, ever leave him. 😉

    #24660
    Arbutus @arbutus

    @serahni   Interesting thoughts. I agree that it would be nice to get back to the world of more “ordinary” companions: no Impossible Girls, or Girls Who Waited, just friends who, as you say, get swept up in passing by the Doctor, and whose lives are enlarged and invigorated as a result. I think you’re right that they may have painted themselves into a bit of a corner with Clara, but they managed to get out of situations with Rose and Amy that were somewhat similar. They made it so clear that Rose would never, ever leave the Doctor under any circumstances, that they could only have killed her off. Instead, they marooned her in a parallel universe, gone forever. Similarly, Amy kept talking about real life and so on, but she and Rory kept going back to the Doctor. They couldn’t really have them traveling with him until they were ancient, so back in time they were sent to someplace the Doctor couldn’t reach them. (This solution, by the way, never really sat well with me, as it still feels too much like an artificial construct.)

    But hopefully, Moffat has a plan for Clara that lets her be a person. Maybe it could be as simple as falling in love with someone and saying, “Doctor, I will never, ever forget you, but I have to get on with my life now.” Somehow, I can’t see Capaldi’s doctor being as unable to let go of a companion as Ten or Eleven were. Wishful thinking? I’m hoping for a little less sentiment in stories to come.

    #24661
    blackthorn @blackthorn

    Agreed!   More ordinary people and less heartbreak, please.    That was one reason I liked Donna so much (though I hadn’t expected to) because she and the Doctor were just mates, and she wasn’t anything weird and wonderful – well, until her last episode, which actually WAS heartbreaking!    But she just went back to being an ordinary person.

    #24669
    Serahni @serahni

    @arbutus   True enough and I too hold out hope that they have a fitting way to write her out when the inevitable time comes.  With all the speculation about links to his family through Susan, I suppose it’s timely enough to remember that even his own granddaughter eventually left him to pursue a life of her own.  My biggest fear is substandard writing that just winds up not being fulfilling.  I’m not a Mof-hater by any means but when you find yourself loving a character despite a lack of real opportunity to get to know her, it’s hard not to fear a certain amount of callousness in dealing with her final moments.  I’ve also started to realise that it was Victorian Clara that made me fall in love with the character, and her performance in The Day of the Doctor also struck a chord.  I loved watching her with Hurt’s Doctor, that felt like a reassuring precursor.

    @blackthorn  Which leads me to agreeing with you, I wish it had been Victorian Clara traveling with the Doctor!  We need a breath of fresh air in regards to companions and their origins, I think, I’d love either a human from another era or an alien.

    And of course, I make no effort to hide that I still fully expect and demand them to bring Romana back at some point. 😉  Not necessarily to travel with him but as a guest spot.  She seems like an achingly obvious absence in a landscape continually obsessed with how the Doctor never meets anyone that can live as long as he does.

    More than anything, I’d love a companion that doesn’t NEED the Doctor.  Someone who can have their own identity independent of him, who maybe even travels with him as part of their own, seemingly dubious agenda.  Some sort of cross between Leela and Madame Vastra.  Hell yes, can we have a Silurian assassin please?  *lol*

    #24671
    Anonymous @

    @serahni  oh yes, I echo @arbutus ideas and also @blackthorn  too, we need an ‘ordinary mortal’ or perhaps an alien such as Vastra:  “use one word to describe why you want to see the Doctor”. Great writing there and certainly a beautiful parallel to the gushing chatter we’ve had, at times, from Amy and of course from the ‘prattler’, Clara.

    Sorry, whilst I like Clara and see the story arc of Impossible Girl as fundamentally interesting, I’ve always believed her junkie-type  jabbering (in tBoSJ noticeably) as overcooked. I would like someone who isn’t starry eyed and kittenish; someone almost world weary, who flips their hand with Italianate resignation, someone who shows a kind of transfixed calm, with an astonishingly accurate knowledge of physics, even (other than the River-type), who doesn’t do the “it’s bigger on the inside” thing for longer than 2 minutes. I know, I know: it wouldn’t be the same; it’s a family show etc. 🙂

    Maybe a glum and abrupt person who really needs convincing there’s a different (if not a better) world or age somewhere out there. But no more gibbering. Clearly, I am getting old.

    Kindest, purofilion

    #24675
    Serahni @serahni

    @purofilion  That would also be excellent!  I’d almost go as far as to say that the character wouldn’t need to understand much of how the Doctor lives, how the TARDIS works, or any of that timey-wimey stuff.  It’d be great if they came from an era or a civilisation where the concept of time travel is more or less accepted but not considered general knowledge enough for the whole populace to be conversant on its intricacies.  I mean, I don’t know how to fly a plane.  I don’t know how to fix a plane, or build a plane, or land a plane, but I will admit I don’t spend a lot of time marveling that I can get on one and travel around the world.  I just get on the thing and read a book until it’s time to get off again.  A companion who at least starts with an inherent lack of astonishment and a healthy measure of indifference would be refreshing.  Throw in a personality that doesn’t compliment the Doctor’s but rather clashes with it, someone who can and will employ violence if the end justifies the means, and then I think you’d have an interesting dynamic!

    If she/he just happened to be a sleek, elegant, articulate lizard-person, then that would just be a bonus.

    But I guess this isn’t a thread for new companion speculation.  *lol*  Tangents, I am so good at them.

    #24678
    Arbutus @arbutus

    @serahni    Yes, I also liked Clara best in her Victorian persona. In BG Who, there used to be companions from the past, from the future, and from other planets. In the Big Finish audio plays, which tend to hearken back to a slightly BG approach, they even had a companion for the Sixth Doctor who was considerably older, nearing retirement. It worked phenomenally well. I wish that we could go back to that kind of variety. It would be nice if the companions weren’t always young, perky, and from 21st century earth!

    @purofilion  I love the idea of a companion “with an astonishingly accurate knowledge of physics”. Or maybe one who as @serahni suggests, is onboard with time travel but thinks the TARDIS is a very uncool way to go about it.

    @blackthorn   I’m about to post in the “Companions” forum my thoughts about Donna, my very favourite AG companion.

    #24739
    Anonymous @

    @bluesqueakpip – Martha is currently my favorite candidate for giving the TARDIS number to Clara, since she has computer skills to use and UNIT was involved in tBoSJ at the end.  But, Thanks to you, Sarah Jane is a close second because of her internet search capabilities.

    It’s pretty easy for Time Lord Technology to transmit a hologram to someone’s visual/audio cortex.  Since the Moment could only be seen and heard by [Wilfred in TEoT], it’s a reasonable guess that she was doing just that.

    @fatmaninabox

    Posted above, Bluesquekpip came through once again with the overwhelming evidence. 🙂  With the help of Bluesqueakpip ‘s explanation, I absolutely agree with you that, The Moment being the Wilf lady makes the most sense, especially since it would be another example of The Moment interfering at critical times to make sure the Doctor survives until Trenzalore.  I am still not convinced she was the ‘woman in the shop’though, because the scenario I posted last time just makes more sense to me.  But it would definitely fit The Moment’s “MO”again, so that explanation is a very close second for me.

    All I can say about your Donna being MTL  theory is; “There doesn’t seem to be any evidence for that.” 😉  However, Tenn does look at Donna at the end of TEoT when asked who MTL was?   And it would give some reason why The Moment chose the form of MTL to appear to Wilfred (and chose him), which is still a mystery to me (but IMO the answer to that probably has more to do with off screen reasons).  Although, I would not be surprised at all to learn that Wilfred owns FOP watch!  🙂  For now, I have to agree with @arkleseizure ‘s theory, that MTL is a political rival of Rassilon which has the most evidence.

    Near the end of TEoT (just before the TLs appear on earth), Rassilon says that two people voted against his plan ‘to make Gallifrey rise’ and he said the two people who opposed him would stand in shame like the Weeping Angels of old.  MTL was one of the two people in that scene, holding her hands over her eyes just like a Weeping Angel.

    Contrary to public opinion, I don’t have any objections to MTL being the Doctor’s mum.  Everyone has to have a mum?  And to me, a political rival to Rassilon would make a pretty cool mum for the Doctor.

     

    #24744
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    @barnable
    I don’t have any objections to the Mystery Lady being the Doctor’s mum, either. As you say – he has to have one.

    We also know that the Time Lords were bringing people back from the dead (like the Master) to fight in the Time War. So, no reason it couldn’t be his Mum.

    As to her opposing Rassilon: I’ve always thought that the Doctor’s clearly rather rapid exit from Gallifrey (with granddaughter in tow) has more than a hint of ‘politics, dear boy’. That he does have his granddaughter in tow could easily suggest that the entire family are well known as dissidents. 🙂

    #24746
    Anonymous @

    @barnable

    All I can say about your Donna being MTL theory is; “There doesn’t seem to be any evidence for that.” 😉

    Touché and, indeed, ouch 😀

    I’d forgotten about the way Ten looked at Donna which would add a bit more weight to my theory but I think you, @arkleseizure and @bluesqueakpip make valid, and probably more accurate points. I must admit my knowledge of BG Who, particularly when it comes to the TL’s is, well, non-existent 🙂

    #25061
    amypond6123 @amypond6123

    if you think about it the doctors kinda been in this situation before. If you know what I mean Matt smith fans 😀 we all know the doctor was in a situation where the daleks and cybermen and about EVERY thing else that hates the doctor was at the cave for a similar reason. You know the panorica episodes just like the time of the doctor so I really like that they did that but i’m worried that the writers are running out of ideas! ;-;

    #25063
    Anonymous @

    @amypond6123

    i’m worried that the writers are running out of ideas

    That is always what I worry about happening to shows I like.  But I am not as concerned about it happening on Doctor Who though.  DW is a really cleverly designed show, that allows new actors to play the main character and it is just what was suppose to happen all along.  The new actor has his own ideas about how the Doctor should act, and it might not be your favorite rendition of the character, but it is usually still good in a new way.  So if they can always find good actors to play the doctor, then a new batch of good writers should have brand new ideas for the show. 

    I think you are right that tTotD and tPO, are the same in that one respect.  But the rest of the stories were completely different to me.  Not every aspect has to be original, it’s a little like complaining about the Doctor wearing the same clothes in different episodes.  It will be impossible to not repeat yourself a little after 50 years.

    #25169
    wolfweed @wolfweed

    #25582
    doctorwhovian @doctorwhovian

    I think i’ve watched it 100 times now; the ending has made me cry everytime. We have to say bye to this wonderful era, that has definitely competed with 10s (something that we never expected would happen.) We will miss you Matt. <3

    #25583
    doctorwhovian @doctorwhovian
    #25688
    ZoobyDow @zoobydow

    “I’m from Gallifrey, boys!”

    EXPLOSION

    * spend the next 10 minutes crying from a regeneration *

    #25911
    lucig4 @lucig4

    Hello everyone…
    I have to ask a question thats bugging me for a while.
    The eleventh Doctor could not regenerate further because he used up all of his regeneration circle but the time lords granted him a new one.
    But then how is it possible that in the “Series 6, Episode 1: The Impossible Astronaut”, the Doctor, after being shot by River Song, starts regenerating and then River has to shoot him again during his regeneration so she could permanently kill him?

    #25913
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    @lucig4 – he’s inside the Tessalector. The ‘regeneration’ is a light show created by the Tessalector so that it looks as if the real Doctor is really regenerating.

    There’s a forum for The Impossible Astronaut – though we don’t really discuss the regeneration effect, because we were doing a retrospective rather than watching it for the first time.

    #25935
    lucig4 @lucig4

    I dont think so because in the “Series 6, Episode 1: The Impossible Astronaut”, the Doctor actually died and his death was a fixed time, seen by Amy, Rory and River. But then in the “Doctor Who – The Wedding of River Song – Series 6”, River changes a fixed point in time and time gets mixed up. So my point is that the Doctor was actually regenarating when he was shot by River and he was not inside the Tessalector. And on top of that, the fact that the Doctor wasn’t able to regenarate anymore was public knowledge.

    #25941
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    @lucig4 – you may not think so, but your post is contradicting itself.

    If the Doctor’s death is a fixed point, then he was regenerating in The Impossible Astronaut. We see the regeneration light show.

    However, he can’t regenerate any more (The Time of The Doctor). That’s the contradiction.

    The simple solution is that he always was inside the Tessalector – and the light show always was a light show. The fixed point in time was that he was believed to have died at Lake Silencio. River had to shoot him, even though that shooting didn’t actually kill him.

    Incidentally, the fact that something is known by the Daleks doesn’t make it ‘public knowledge’ (unless you’re a Dalek). Everyone else in the universe would count up the Doctor’s incarnations and conclude that – as the Eleventh Doctor – he had one, maybe two left. The only people who know about ‘Captain Grumpy’ being the same person as ‘The Doctor’ are the Daleks. They also know about the Tennant Doctor needing to regenerate after being shot, owing to it being Dalek Fred who shot him. 🙂

    The Time Lords know about Captain Grumpy but they don’t, for example, know about the Tennant Doctor using up a regeneration to stay in the same incarnation. The Doctor’s friends and companions know about the mid-point regeneration – but they don’t know about Captain Grumpy.

    Remember, The War Doctor didn’t call himself ‘The Doctor’ during his ninth incarnation. As far as the rest of the universe (i.e. us) is concerned, ‘The Doctor’ vanishes at some point during his Eighth incarnation, and turns up on Earth to meet Rose. Everyone thinks that ‘The Doctor’ who turns up on Earth is ‘The Ninth Doctor’. He is – but he’s the tenth incarnation.

    Which means the entire universe (except the Daleks, who knew exactly who The War Doctor was) has miscounted the number of regenerations… and since the entire universe has miscounted, the Doctor lets them go on thinking he can regenerate. In fact, there’s a certain amount of suspicion that he’d not kept count himself.

    ::shakes fist:: Moffat!

    #25978
    lucig4 @lucig4

    Bluesqueakpip

    Thanks for replying.
    You helped me a lot. Really!! 🙂

    #26720
    wolfweed @wolfweed

    http://www.doctorwhotv.co.uk/moffat-explains-doctors-timey-tomb-62195.htm

    If the Doctor prevented his own death how could his tomb be there in The Name of the Doctor? Moff tells all…

    z

    #26728
    wolfweed @wolfweed

    http://www.doctorwhotv.co.uk/smiths-regeneration-was-originally-more-brutal-troubling-62169.htm
    z
    …Original reports claimed the 11th Doctor lost a leg at some point…….

    #26799
    soundworld @soundworld

    Well, I’m a little bit late to the party – its been a tough few months, and I have only just watched ToTD (twice now!).

    I’ve very much enjoyed catching up on this thread and reading everybody’s thoughts.  The first viewing I was so sad seeing the Dr ageing, alone, and I really did not want to see the end of Matt smith’s Doctor.  On second viewing I’ve picked up a lot more, of course.

    I kept expecting ‘Handles’ to snap back to cyber-life – I was constantly expecting a ‘No! behind you!’ moment.  I haven’t checked a thought which just occured – is Handles the cyberhead that was visible in the Black room under the Tower of London in DoTD?

    So many great ideas from you all, particularly many from @purofilion and I especially liked @bluesqueakpip

    “Act One: he stops running away from himself. Act Two: he stops running away from what he’s done. Act Three: he stops running away from death.”

    The whole cycle of the 3 stories starts with the Doctor’s decision to travel to Trenzalore, despite knowing its the one place he must not go to.  I don’t actually see any conflict (see @wolfweed post above) with the fact that the tomb now no longer exists.  The point is that the Doctor stopped running, and embarked on a journey of the self, stayed on Trenzalore to the point of death and was awarded a Resurrection.  We could view the regeneration as a Singularity, where many things are simultaneously possible, in this case he embarks on a new timestream.  But he lived a continuous ‘story’ to get to this point.  For external observers it might look like a paradox, but for him and Clara, this is the way it all happened.  Like some kind of figure -8 or mobius time-strip.  Viewed from a higher dimensional perspective it all makes sense!

    @cathannabel

    when her nan was talking bout her grandad to me it sounded like she was describing the doctor…

    You don’t think…  noooooo.  Surely not.  But …

    It certainly came across that way to me.  An even more bizarre thought: Clara IS her own nan… reminiscing and giving an encouraging wink!

    And, @juniperfish and the Egyptian mythology –

    Trenza Lore (the lore of the braid) is a place of quantum superposition, where simultaneous possibilities exist in the multiverse. Gallifrey, in its bubble universe, is simultaneously present and not-present. It is pressing against the skin of the universe it has been banished from at Trenzalore, through a crack caused by the explosion of one of its own time-machines, the Doctor’s TARDIS. And the TARDIS always takes the Doctor where he needs to go.

    Wow! To the Egyptian mythology explanation – that just feels so right as a deeper level of whats occurred.
    As others have said, the answer to the question ‘Doctor Who?’ is ‘The Doctor’ rather than ‘the Warrior’.

    Re the debate on fixed points in time.  Any event can happen – its all probabilities in the underlying ‘quantum foam’.  Some likelihoods are of course more probably than others.  Once a particular event has happened,  it has coalesced out of the quantum foam and into what we amusingly like to call reality.  Perhaps, the more people that this event affects, the more that this event is in the general mass consciousness, the more ‘fixed’ it becomes and is harder to change?  But we have just seen in this story that things we thought might be fixed, can be changed.  The tomb is no longer on Trenzalore – but its still there in the old time line (just a jump to the left away).

    I’m reminded again of Heinlein’s multiverse stories – different agencies competing with each other to constantly rewrite ‘history’ and to create their future – but all timelines still exist, constantly branching (gives a headache to think about it).  If ‘you’ split between different timestreams, which is the real ‘you’?  The one telling the story?  The sum of all the parts?

    Its way to late for this – goodnight, and apologies for coming so late to the party. There weren’t even any cheesy nibbles left down the back of the sofa. 🙂

    #26867
    SuperNoodle @supernoodle

    I think that this episode was amazing. Amy’s part was great too, but I wonder what it looked like to Clara to see The Doctor touching an invisible girl. And then…I think Clara looks a bit scared.

    #27498
    wholocked @wholocked

    I can’t believe they are changing the doctor to a old guy!

    Though I do enjoying seing who the next doctor is, they could have chosen better person. I am very excited to see how Capaldi does, I am scared he might ruin being the doctor. There is always a chance of making doctor who better though.

    #27535
    bijolt @bijolt

    Loved The Episode….. In fact the entire series(that’s why I watched till this one!)

    One thing that kept striking me was that in multiple episodes the “Doctor Who?” question was being asked… Firstly if it was so important how come he told River Song(Well I can still digest that, come on she was his wife).

    BUT Clara :

    She had read his name, and conveniently remembered every single thing of the episode “Journey To the center of the Tardis” except the Doctor’s name (When they go to Trenzalore, the first time)… Why? I mean, I am not saying I didn’t like what happened, but every time the question was asked near Clara, I was like “Come on, you know the answer, speak up!”

    #27536
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    @bijolt

    As to why he told River – we saw in Wedding of River Song that part of a Gallifreyan marriage ceremony seems to be revealing your true name. By then, of course, the Doctor already knew that River’s real name was Melody Williams. As you say, she was his wife. Reluctant as the Doctor seems to be to admit his birth name, River had a right to know.

    Why doesn’t Clara remember the Doctor’s name? I can think of a few reasons. Firstly, she seems to remember Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS in a subconscious way; the memories seem to be there (she knew where the swimming pool was), but have to be dredged up. So it might be that she hasn’t received the right ‘trigger’ – not the need to say his name, but something she saw when she saw his name on that …

    If it’s the above, I’d guess that it’s a planned plot point for Series 8.

    It’s also possible that she doesn’t really know it – she saw an incomprehensible set of Gallifreyan symbols, but realised from where they were that this must be the Doctor’s name.

    Plan C is that she knows it and remembers it, but knows (perhaps picked up from the TARDIS telepathic circuit, or from River when she was linked through Clara) that the Doctor’s name must never, ever be spoken aloud except by him – when it’s safe to bring the Time Lords through. Even River never says it audibly – she uses the TARDIS telepathic link or whispers it straight into his ear, so no one else can hear it.

    Again, if it were C, I’d expect that plot point to be carried on in Series 8. Possibly, after Time of the Doctor, the power of his name is that – if anyone else knows it – they can bring the Time Lords/Gallifrey through into a planned ambush. River, of course, knows that. She knew about Trenzalore, the tomb, and the secret entrance. Clara was told in Time of the Doctor that it wasn’t safe to let the Time Lords through and realised that the Doctor would rather die than restart the Time War. So she found a way of persuading them to help the Doctor without using the ‘come back’ code.

    🙂

    #29039
    kingofthemountain @kingofthemountain

    WARNING this post is SERIOUSLY long

    Hi everyone. I only began watching Doctor Who a couple of months ago, and got hooked pretty quickly, watching all of AG Who in a few weeks. Needless to say, it is one of the greatest things I have done, and I couldn’t get enough. Unfortunately I haven’t means or the free time anymore to re-watch it all (although I intend to at some point) and so I have taken to this newly found website and have thoroughly enjoyed it all. I haven’t looked at all of the threads because that would require me to be more than an average-slow pace reader with a lot of time on my hands, but I have finally trudged through most of what I thought most intriguing/important, including a few days of getting through this forum bit by bit.

    I am loving all of the bonkers (I’ve picked up this word without having used it once before, thank you all) theories regarding The Moment/Bad Wolf, is The Moment behind the crack, is The Doctor behind the crack, split time lines and the like and thought I would chime in with something that has slowly festered in my subconscious while I’ve slowly read through this forum. Being my first post there is a lot flying around in my head so forgive the length of it.

    Now I have only seen each episode in the show once so I can expect quite a few problems with this, but I have something that I feel might sort of be interesting to you all (I will try to minimize use of brackets to keep it a bit clearer… *ironically presses closing bracket key*). I also apologise if I am only repeating something which has been cleared up in a different forum/blog.

    First thing I want to say is that I think a split time line following tDoTD makes a lot of sense to me because (in addition to what has already postulated by bluesqueakpip and someone else who I apologise I have forgotten the identity of) in tNoTD when Clara enters his time stream she says she saw all of his faces and most likely did not see CapDoc’s face because she would either be confused upon seeing him in the TARDIS 2 episodes later, or there would be a big problem with her knowing who the last doctor was/will be. This implies to me that in that timeline, Eleven actually did die on Trenzalore, and so the entering of the time stream must be one of the few things that would be different to the alternate timeline created in tDotD. If there is only one timeline following tDotD, there surely must be 2 timelines following tTotD, because Capaldi simply didn’t show up in the time stream, but he is indeed a Doctor. Of course it could very well be that time was re-written in tTotD, or perhaps that Capaldi is, while still The Doctor, not technically (ie by definition) the same time lord, and so there were 2/3/4 time streams in his grave-TARDIS (which was put their following his inevitable death as the 407<sup>th</sup> Doctor incarnation in 300 years) and Eleven couldn’t possibly have thought that he need look elsewhere in the grave-TARDIS once he saw his timestream in the first room. ( I just kind of like the 2 time lines idea :))

    Moving on, first something to set up my post: When RTD rebooted DW I think he definitely had something planned regarding the Time War, even before introducing season 1, but thought that it was probably not best to introduce what would be a new show to a lot of viewers with a scenario that both had a lot of set up and was a critically defining point for the main character. In season 1 we know that The Doctor has just been through the Time War, that he is the last Time Lord, believes there are no Daleks left and he has done something (I can’t remember if he ever said it was during the Time War or not) that he really seriously feels guilty for. Maybe it was just me, but I had suspicion during the whole season that he had killed all of the Time Lords and Daleks as a way to end the Time War based on these things, and during tPotW when said something like “now you see the decision I have to make” to captain Jack I thought surely that is what happened in the Time War. Now if I am correct that RTD had his idea about what would happen in the Time War when he finally put it in an episode and decided to show this much later in the series to allow The Doctor to have this ongoing and defining guilt for many seasons, and made tPotW a very similar scenario to what The Doctor did in the Time War (I know Moffat wrote tDotD but I think the idea that he killed everyone was pretty hard to avoid), I would not be surprised if The Moment and Bad Wolf are indeed linked (purely from a “could the writer’s have thought this far ahead” viewpoint).

    Now my serious bonkers theory regarding 1) The Moment being behind the crack 2) The Doctor being behind the crack 3) are The Moment, Bad Wolf and perhaps the time vortex all one (or linked) and do they continue to do things following tDotD 4) Clara 5) dual timelines

    So in tDotD we find out that there are now 2 time lines and in one of them he didn’t destroy Gallifrey. I think it is reasonable that The Moment is still active in both time lines (ie it didn’t destroy itself when The War Doctor pressed the BRB). Now we fast forward 400 or so years in the Doctor’s timeline and he is on Trenzalore listening to someone ask him “Doctor Who?!” and they’ve accidentally hit the repeat button on their speakers. Now I do like someone’s ideas of ‘trenza’ having something to do with superposition in quantum-ness-stuff, implying that on trenzalore, in the crack there are simultaneously 2 things existing, one of them is The Moment, having just destroyed Gallifrey, waiting to pass judgment on The Doctor (again I’ve used someone elses idea but I can’t remember whose, so I am sorry) and the other one is Gallifrey, with all the TLs AND The Moment, who has decided it doesn’t mind talking to people and thinks it might be a good idea to see if it can get these TLs back into the regular universe to be normal and do stuff again (I get the feeling that not having seen any Classic Who I am wrong in thinking this is altogether a good idea, but hey there are endless possibilities if they come back). The Moment recognises that it is currently in superposition, being at the crack twice at the same time, and the one on Gallifrey sort of asks the one on destroyed Gallifrey “what are you doing here?” “I want to pass judgment on The Doctor” “Ah but there are 2 of us, so you might be thinking about the wrong Doctor” “Good point, let’s ask him which Doctor he is shall we” “Agreed. DOCTOR WHO?!”

    Now  The Doctor either believes or knows (undecided on which one just yet) that if he answers that question (and he thinks the question is asking for his real name, which it might not be) the TLs on Gallifrey will come back through the crack, and although they don’t know it, they will start the Time War again, so he refrains from asking, all the while The Moment and Gallifrey are stuck in their time loop just waiting (which is why they didn’t just say stuff it after 400 years and come back anyway)

    Now let’s get to this same point in time but from Gallifrey’s perspective: They are in the Time War, the Daleks have gotten through their sky fortresses (or some name like that) and are wreaking havoc on Gallifrey (in one of the mini episodes before tDotD someone said if 1 Dalek gets through, it will end us, then we see a whole fleet). They realise they need a SERIOUSLY powerful weapon if they are to  survive, so they make a thing and they put some vortex-y stuff in it because, well , the time vortex is pretty crazy. Then the thing they seems to develop a conscience so they don’t use it. The War Doctor then shows up and steals The Moment, and all the TLs think “great, we are 100% doomed, he is going to kill us with the Daleks”, however instead of pressing the BRB The Moment talks to him by taking the shape of how he has once seen it before (or was it after, I always get those mixed up :P), tDotD happens, he comes back with all of his other selves, ready to move the whole planet out of the Dalek’s way. *lots of shaky noises and a massive tremor* Gallifrey is now in a pocket universe. But hold on there is still one Doctor here with us. Capaldi Doctor walks on Gallifrey for the first time in hundreds of years, somewhat happy for this, but somewhat confused and annoyed about being stuck in the pocket universe as well. Then he says “ah this part of my memory is just now coming back to me. I remembered that I called all of my other selves to help me shift Gallifrey, so I went to help shift Gallifrey, but I hadn’t remembered that when I did that I typed in some computer programming saying that only myself and previous selves should not be shifted, I suppose I am not a previous self of my previous self, thus I got shifted :P.” They accept his answer and he goes to help The Moment.

    Now back to trenzalore and The Doctor is biding as much time as he can when Clara finds her way back and they have their lovely chats and then she says to the crack that they should help him. Now The Moment says “that’s lovely but I can’t see what he needs help with through this darned crack, I can just hear stuff”. So Capaldi Doctor (I am going to refer to him as Doctor 2.1, or just 2.1) says “good heavens I think I’ve finally remembered everything, I only survived that because you gave me a new regeneration” “seems fair enough, you’ve just saved us all from being destroyed by Daleks and you also destroyed all the Daleks and also if you don’t survive we are basically doomed to remain here forever or go back out and fight the Daleks again” “Jolly good, well we can’t see through the crack, because obviously we would have helped me earlier if we could have, so this is a map of trenzalore and I am standing on the clock tower” so they give him the regens. Now The Moment sees more into it than The Doctor because it is, you know, super powerful. So it does everything it has to do in order make The Doctor have done everything we know he has done because it all leads up to him not destroying Gallifrey after all and also being on trenzalore for what is currently happening to happen. It turns into Bad Wolf to save him in tPotW (of course a few hours ago [from it’s perspective] it already knew it had been Bad Wolf, but, you know, timey-wimey and uber powerful), it shows itself as the mysterious TL lady in tEoT, and as the last piece of the puzzle it gives Clara The Doctor’s phone number so she can grab his attention, leading him to making her the new companion, leading her to enter the time stream, creating the reason that her phone call grabbed his attention (the last time-wimey magic of The Moment), leading her to trenzalore.

    Basically that was a way I saw of tying a lot of your different theories into one ultimate bonkers theory. Let me know what you think, if indeed you have read any or all of it.

    A couple of side notes:
    I think Bad Wolf/The Moment is able to influence people’s minds without them knowing it, because a couple of the ways it tries to lead Rose to absorbing the vortex energy and becoming Bad Wolf is it has a child spray paint ‘Bad Wolf’ on the TARDIS, and in that episode where he re-visits the farting alien who became mayor, we see she had ‘randomly’ chosen a name is actually ‘Bad Wolf’ in another language. So either they are genuinely coincidences or BW has actually made these people do these things (maybe she made Clara want to go into the time stream, and maybe she did that before she gave Clara the phone number because timey-wimey).

    If indeed The Moment is BW, we know from tPotW that she is able to destroy the Daleks completely without actually harming any of the ‘good guys’, which could mean either that 1)The Doctor wouldn’t have actually destroyed Gallifrey had he pressed the BRB but BW wanted him to not press it for his own conscience’s sake, however I don’t see dual timelines working in that case 🙁 or 2) if it was being used as The Moment it was created and intended to cause destruction and so couldn’t have not destroyed Gallifrey if it was put into action by the BRB.

    The way that The Moment was mentioned in passing in tEoT and also how when War Doctor mentioned BW we saw Tennant looked surprised but there was absolutely no follow up  even though we know that was a pretty big deal to him (and there was another thing but I can’t for the life of me remember what it was) make me think that The Moment/BW will be showing up again at some point.

    Being Australian I at times had trouble understanding what was said. Rarely by The Doctor, just at times when he was a bit rushed or was yelling, but a few times with Amy, and most of Capaldi’s dialogue at the end of tTotD so I really hope this Scottish accent won’t give me troubles in the next couple of seasons 🙁

    “because timey-wimey” is now one of my favourite things to say

    #29042
    Anonymous @

    Bloomin heck @kingofthemountain  just woke up, read it, head exploded….(also from Oz). Gosh. Big first post…. 🙂   Also, good, very bonkers..so basically, Capaldi doc is slightly confused (at first) as he’s on Gallifrey too?  he forgot to write some programming into the TARDIS to assume that it included himself (as well).  The bit in middle  -quite amazing. Need to absorb it.

    Also, TM as BW -which I think we did discuss many many moons ago!  But great – welcome

    Kindest, purofilion

    #29043
    Anonymous @

    @thekingofthemountain -I think the Dr did die on Trenza but Clara hopped in his stream and stopped it -however, we have the situation of The Dr reading about physics which I’m sure we sorted out but I can’t remember….As for the tM giving him regens-would she give him enough that he would use it as a weapon against the Daleks? I’m not sure on the morality of that one?

    Also Tennant couldn’t see BW -it was designed as a weapon for the TL who wanted to use it -a subconscious weapon which showed itself in the kindest and also the most memorable way -in other words. scoring your heart, as it were.

    Rose, I think, was BW first, then the Moment took on that ‘look’ shall we say. Indeed the Moment states that ‘I am taking on a form of something/someone from your past’ -enter Rose as first NuWho companion -which in anniversary land is all very heart melting!

    As for your first question, the question that must never be asked due to absolute confusion (sorry: had to say that!), I like the paragraph wherein you commented on a possible conversation between 2 BW: let’s ask which dr he is!’. Very cool indeed!

    Kindest, puro.

    #29044
    kingofthemountain @kingofthemountain

    @purfilion

    Thanks for reading 🙂 granted this definitely made more sense in my head than i am able to express in words

    “so basically, Capaldi doc is slightly confused (at first) as he’s on Gallifrey too?”

    I should have explained here, this is an idea I came up with that would fit in with the ideas about him having lost his memory and regains throughout series 8, and also because a few people said it would be really cool if he was behind the crack. So at some point in the middle of series 8 maybe he remembers himself calling his other selves to Gallifrey, so he thinks he must go back to that time and help at once, only to remember too late that his former self didn’t factor him into his calculations (Eleven probably didn’t even know 2.1 was there and had no issue with his plan having worked), thus he wasn’t exempt from being moved into the pocket universe.

    “Also, TM as BW -which I think we did discuss many many moons ago!”

    Do you mean there was a general consensus on this being viable or not? sorry I probably missed it or haven’t read it yet if there was, I just remember reading in this forum there was a bit of discussion about it. Also many moons ago for you was just the other day for me.

    “I think the Dr did die on Trenza but Clara hopped in his stream and stopped it -however, we have the situation of The Dr reading about physics which I’m sure we sorted out but I can’t remember”

    I think it will turn out like that as well, and it is certainly one of the viable explanations 😛 I just thought I had a neat little way to tie everything together but any aspect that doesn’t fit in i think is dispensable enough.

    “As for the tM giving him regens-would she give him enough that he would use it as a weapon against the Daleks? I’m not sure on the morality of that one?”

    I was thinking of tM as being BW for this part, which would fit in with what she did in tPotW, but if not then we know that tM didn’t have any problems with The Doctor effectively destroying all the Daleks when he shifted Gallifrey and made them shoot each other, however that was more a case of turning their own aggression on themselves.

    “Also Tennant couldn’t see BW”

    Yeh for this part i just meant that when War Doctor mentioned “Bad Wolf” we saw Tennant look at him suddenly with a look of surprise, “How in the world do you know of Bad Wolf?” he thinks to himself. But this was never followed up in the episode, which was weird to me.

    “it was designed as a weapon for the TL who wanted to use it -a subconscious weapon which showed itself in the kindest and also the most memorable way -in other words. scoring your heart, as it were.

    Rose, I think, was BW first, then the Moment took on that ‘look’ shall we say. Indeed the Moment states that ‘I am taking on a form of something/someone from your past’ -enter Rose as first NuWho companion -which in anniversary land is all very heart melting!”

    At the time i had just passed this off as it was explained, tM was making itself look like someone the Doctor knows to make it easy to talk to him, and that makes perfect sense as well. But the fact that it said “you know me as Bad Wolf” (or something similar) and that it said “I’m from your past, or was it your future? I always get those mixed up” were either clever filler conversations that were interesting or put there to let us bonker about it until/if it is cleared up. We know from there that tM has the thing like the TARDIS where it exists in all moments of time, or at least is aware of the future, so it just opens the door for it to possibly interfere with the Doctors past (ie tPotW) and create those sort of time loops which someone mentioned  (ie creating Clara and making the things which happened happen)

    At this point I can’t even remember which parts of what i’ve said are original, but I definitely borrowed from as many as I could of the theories i read in this forum to see if i might make more of them possible 😛

    Thanks again for reading. Where should I look to see where all the main action is happening on this website? I will probably find that much of what i’ve said has been disproven/resolved/agreed otherwise 😛

    #29045
    kingofthemountain @kingofthemountain

    @purofilion

    “we have the situation of The Dr reading about physics which I’m sure we sorted out but I can’t remember…”

    I was about to address this just then but i forgot. If i recall correctly The Doctor was reading a book with a title to do quantum physics that ties to something about ‘braids’ and hinted at possibilities of superposition related to trenzalore (‘trenza’ means something in spanish i think is what someone said). Other than it’s hinting i don’t think it did much plot-wise (yet?) but it definitely helps anyone theorising about dual timelines. For me i thought it helped me justify the idea of tM being in one of universes in the crack, all by itself in the spot where Gallifrey was, and Gallifrey with TLs and tM in the other universe.

    thanks

    #29052
    Uchiha_Kai @uchihakai

    Nice theory

    #29058
    Arbutus @arbutus

    @kingofthemountain

    I read your long post last night, but had to put a little more distance between myself and the bottle of Italian rose before trying a response.  🙂  I really liked the notion that the reason Clara didn’t see  Capaldi Doctor in the timestream in NotD was because he didn’t exist in that timeline (where the Doctor did die at Trenzalore). I suppose that was already clear to some of the smarties on here, but it hadn’t occurred to me!

    Nice user name, BTW.   🙂

    #29065
    Anonymous @

    @thekingofthemountain are you stating that Clara is created by BW or tM?? I wondered whether we had mentioned that before or have I got your interpretation wrong?? This is great stuff, you know; it’s been 6 months since I’ve thought about it all & therefore I’m getting old or needing to make sure that I have the right info leading up to Aug 23!  Thanks for your response and the detail -wow. Do you think there was more to bW’s statement “I’m from your past/or your future” than what was said -you believe there is more to that, I think??  Interesting.

    With respect to Tenn Dr saying ‘you know Bad Wolf’:  I think this was a viewer nod to say ‘yep, I knew BW and I knew Rose’ which makes (some) hearts bleed.

    Still thinking. Kindest, puro

    #29066
    Anonymous @

    sorry @kingofthemountain   -apologies wrong name!

    #29075
    kingofthemountain @kingofthemountain

    @arbutus

    Thanks for reading 🙂

    @purofilion

    So my idea wasn’t that tM would have created Clara, but that it would have used her to help the doctor by giving her the doctors phone numbe (BoSJ). of course that alone didn’t work because she had to become the Claricles for her phone call to grab the Doctor’s attention at all, which she did long after she called him, but that’s the order it happened in the show.
    I also prefer the idea that the Doctor’s tomb is still on Trenzalore, he just didn’t die as Eleven and also he didn’t die there but rather his tomb was placed there (you wouldn’t expect people to be buried in the floors under their hospital beds) when he eventually did die (hopefully after a lot more regenerations). Then you don’t have to worry about NotD and Clara in the time stream never having had happened because that would had to have had some
    Greater implications (and not seeing Capaldi doctor’s face (“I saw all your faces”) could be explained that the 2.1-2.13 doctors have a separate time stream that can be jumped into)

    Regarding BW statement, I think that definitely could just be something the writer’s used to introduce us to the power of tM (it knows his future having just met him) to make us a little bit more comfortable with it bringing 3 Doctors together through a magical portal and also later bringing 13 doctors into a time locked time war (also given there were “all 13 of him” there does that mean tennant’s double somehow showed up as well?)

Viewing 50 posts - 451 through 500 (of 529 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic.