The Witch’s Familiar

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  • #43697
    Mudlark @mudlark

    @serahni

    when the hybrid was first mentioned, I immediately thought it was a misdirection to make us assume it was Timelord and Dalek when, in fact, it is really human and Dalek.

    I very much doubt it. Davros was quite specific  “Is that what you ran from, Doctor?  Your part in the coming of the hybrid, half Dalek, half Time Lord?” 

    When Davros says this the Doctor is trapped, held fast by Colony Sarff’s snakes*,  and he calls the story of the creation of the hybrid a prophecy, which is odd if it refers to an event in the past.  So it seems to me that his suggestion that the Doctor fled Gallifrey because he had helped create such a hybrid is not meant to be taken literally. Instead he is taunting his adversary by pointing out indirectly that this is what, in a sense, he is doing now, as the regeneration energy drains from him and infuses new life into the Daleks.

    *which alert viewers will have noticed earlier, hanging amongst the cables, though to all appearances the Doctor didn’t.

    #43698
    Mudlark @mudlark

    @denvaldron  @purofilion  @arbutus

    Another reason why Clara failed to exhibit her usual quick thinking and resourcefulness on this occasion might be that from the moment they meet in The Magicians Apprentice, Missy has been doing all she can to undermine her confidence and put her off her stride.  When Clara arrives for the meeting in the square she appears composed and confident, but within minutes Missy has cut the ground from under her feet and left her floundering, and from then on the psychological battery is relentless.   Even when Missy saves her life by teleporting her from the Dalek chamber, she then reinforces feelings of helplessness by trussing her up and suspending her upside down. At no point is Clara consulted or allowed to exercise initiative, or to have any say in the plans which Missy devises.

    In any case, she didn’t always display composure in the face of the unexpected. In The Caretaker her panicky attempts to explain the Skivox Blitzer and associated signs of mayhem to Danny when he unexpectedly arrives on the scene are absurd.  Her experiences, both in teaching and in her travels with the Doctor, have built up her confidence considerably, but that does not mean that the armour of confidence is impregnable.

    @serahni

    Is it possible, and this is just a wild theory, that Clara is terrified most of being inside the Dalek because a part of Oswin lingers in her timestream?

    Very likely, I would have thought.  She has evidently retained little or no conscious memory of her Claricle selves, but assuming that the Clara who re-emerged from the Doctor’s timestream was the re-integrated sum of all of them, it seems probable that there would be some lingering traces in her subconscious mind.

     

    #43700
    DenValdron @denvaldron

    @ichabod

    [quote]As a writer, I’m a gardener, not a designer of highways or bridges. My one experiment in outlining a book froze the whole project for ten years, before I could find my way back to the creative impulse I’d begun with. Well, you and I are (from what I see) very different in our outlooks, so it’s not surprising that we diverge so much in the ways that we read this episode.[/quote]

    We are very different in our outlooks, but neither one of us were invited to write this episode. So it doesn’t really involve our processes as writers. We come to it as watchers, as an audience, and Moffat’s choices are open to analysis and critical assessment. I’m not worried about the process by which he develops something. I’m concerned with whether the choices that are the outcome of that process are effective.

    [quote]And I don’t see all of the episode as lying and pretending; far from it.[/quote]

    So…. that part at the end where Davros goes “F… you Doctor, I was lying all along, and you fell into my frap, you dumb M….F…. I was going to rape the s…. out of you, but it’s so much more satisfying that I got you to volunteer into it you sentimental shmuck!”

    Davros was lying about all that? He was just making it up as he went along? Davros was having a ‘Fool’s Progress’? And just accidentally had the whole regeneration energy transfer mechanism all set up in advance?

    Or was it just the Doctor having a ‘Fool’s Progress’ … In which case, that part at the end where he goes ‘Aha Davros, jokes on you! I knew it was all a trap, what kind of M…. do you take me for? You’re Davros, for P…’s sake! I figured out your plan, turned it into my own trap and walked right in on you. I had a jolly one listening to your song and dance!’ That’s all the Doctor lying through his teeth? For what purpose? Egotism? One upsmanship? Is it the Doctor running a head game on Davros? The Doctor just stumbled in blindly? He didn’t anticipate that Davros had a trap? Or that a device which connects Davros to every Dalek everywhere might not be the best thing to pump regeneration energy into? He didn’t anticipate the revolt of the sewers, he just got lucky?

    [quote] It’s characters under stress making plans as they go along, while losing control of everything they thought they controlled.[/quote]

    Sure. I recognize those sorts of stories. I enjoy those sorts of stories a great deal. The Lazenby Bond is a wonderful example of ‘desperately making things up as you go.’ The first Tremors movie is a terrific example of characters reacting and making things up as they go. Some of the seventh doctor serials, where he’s touted as a master manipulator, actually appear on examination as brilliant improvisation. Several of the Baker serials were like this.

    In a lot of stories, we have situations where the protagonist is essentially reactive – ie, they’re innocent, they’re sitting there, they don’t do anything, they don’t have any motivation. Then the villain intrudes, and they become reactive actors. I’ve always found that curious. I’m not sure that passivity is actually that great a social virtue.

    In the case of the B story, Clara and Missy… yes, this is them making things up as they go. The Mistress from start to finish is improvising. She’s just making stuff up as she goes, taking leaps into the dark. Perfectly realized by her actually taking a leap, or a step, into abyssal space after she opens the airlock. She observes, then acts, and each step is invented as she goes.

    But that’s not the Doctor.

    [quote] To me, this is The Fool’s Progress, not a chess game. But that’s because I much prefer the story of `a Fool to any number of masterminds conning and out-conning each other.[/quote]

    Not a big fan of the Sting movies? Actually, this season’s Community had a wonderful takedown of those.

    I think that for a Fool’s Progress to work, the fool actually has to learn something as they go. If they begin as a fool and end as a fool… is there progress? Or, as my ex-wife used to ask me: “If a man speaks in a forest where there’s no one to hear… Is he still wrong?”

    But then, if the Fool actually develops, is this a Hero’s Journey?

    Regardless, this is definitely not a Fool’s Journey for the Doctor.

    [quote] It’s in the many slips between cup and lip that true connection can occur, and those moments of intimacy are what I value most in art at any level.[/quote]

    Granted. I respect your point of view. That’s just not what’s happening here. It’s very explicitly stated, this is a duel of Machiavellian chess masters.

    [quote] What you see as a “failure in writing” I see as the potential for life-like depth and flexibility in a character; but then I see characters as fallible creatures, not plot-pawns that malfunction if they don’t fit exactly into a prescribed story-function. [/quote]

    But that’s exactly the charge I level at Moffat. He’s taken a character with the potential for life-like depth and flexibility, for fallibility and humanity, and he’s reduced her to a plot pawn to perform a prescribed story function. It’s lazy writing, it’s not the first time he’s pulled it, and it’s not going to be the last.

    #43701
    janetteB @janetteb

    @everyone. Wow. I thought I would never get to the end of the posts. So much to read and think about. I have made notes as I went but they are all over the place so sorry that I can’t credit everyone as I should. It is too late now to reread and I am helping write a yr 12 drama essay too.

    @ichabod. I agree that it seems Davros is mixing genuine pathos with rat-cunning. The moment when they laugh is beautiful. He is using the Doctor but at the same time shows that he does have some respect for him. Davros almost certainly loves Skaro and has some feeling for his “children”. Interesting that Davros is the father figure to the Daleks and as he plays the Doctor’s equal and opposite, it raises the question, where is the Doctor’s home and children.

    @Serahini, Ichabod and others.  Davros, being an arch egotist assumes that the two great warrior races must refer to this Daleks, masters of the universe and their arch nemesis the Time Lords. Clearly it refers to Time Lords and one other but that other warrior race might well be humans who tend to be quite aggressive and are on the rise as a universal power, at least in future based episodes.

    @arbutus and others well pointed out. Clara is stuck within a Dalek, cramped, trapped, and unable to communicate and with a gun pointed at her head by her best friend while being betrayed by the one person with the ability to save her.  I think she does quite well given the limitations of the vocabulary available to her. Clara does lack self confidence. Back in Cold War she seeks confirmation for her actions, needing to be told that she did well. The claricles have a level of confidence that real Clara often lacks, almost as though they are her alter egos. In the restaurant scene in Listen she tells Danny her mouth has a mind of its own. It wants to go solo. That quick, nervous talking also indicates that she is nervous and covering that.

    Another thought hovering about the peripheries of my half asleep mind concerns the Gallifreyan Claricle. Is she the offspring of the offspring of Mixmaster? That goes back to the question, do Claricles have parents?

    Enough for tonight. I don’t really have much to add only to say that on rewatch this morning I enjoyed the episode much more. Sad though that Bors was never rescued from being dalekised.

    Cheers

    Janette

     

     

    #43702
    Brewski @brewski

    @blenkinsopthebrave. Ah, thanks.  But no! Keep yourself hatted. I was not the first to suggest the hand mines would be the target.

     

    However, I am pleased to say I retained my zero percent average in predictions.  That the Doctor’s compassion is what made Davros who he is because he resented living.   Totally not!   Lol.

    #43703
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    @denvaldron

    Instead of treating The Witch’s Familiar as a single episode, why don’t you try treating it as a chapter in a continuing story?

    If Clara has any residual memory of being mutated into Dalek Oswin, she will be terrified – especially when she realises that she can’t even say her own name (Oswin had managed to hack a lot of the control systems before the Doctor met her and could say her own name). This Clara’s got Dalek nano-genes doing uncontrolled stuff in her brain, and Missy has just admitted that she has no idea what damage will be done getting her out. Implying, incidentally, that no one has survived to get out.

    That Clara is terrified is shown, not told when she fires multiple, uncontrolled shots during that first scene inside the Dalek. Additionally, in Into The Dalek, she’s seen how unreasonably and cruelly the Doctor can react to Daleks. She had to slap him to make him realise that Daleks could be anything but evil; now she’s inside a Dalek herself. And the Doctor has a gun, and has just been told that this is the Dalek who killed Clara.

    Personally, I think my vocabulary at this point would consist of ‘wibble’. 😉

    For Clara’s behaviour to be a ‘plot pawn’, it would need to have never been previously set up; completely against previous characterisation. But the behaviour has been previously set up – just not in this episode. Clara has good reason to be absolutely terrified – especially of facing the Doctor as a Dalek.

    And as @mudlark points out, Clara has been known to make decisions that are obviously stupid when she’s scared.

    #43704

    @bluesqueakpip

    This Clara’s got Dalek nano-genes doing uncontrolled stuff in her brain, and Missy has just admitted that she has no idea what damage will be done getting her out. Implying, incidentally, that no one has survived to get out.

    Which brings us back to the Doctor’s “I’m so sorry”.

    We didn’t see her being removed from the Dalek, and nanogenes don’t seem to just wander off, unless reprogrammed.

    #43705
    Arbutus @arbutus

    Reading some comments on the other place (not the really stupid ones, but the ones from people who can actually articulate a bit of a reason for their dislike) has given rise to some thoughts.

    Someone said that the destruction of the TARDIS made it obvious that Clara and Missy weren’t really dead. I actually agreed with that, because that was the moment too far for me as well, in terms of wondering what might be happening. The commenter felt that this removed all the suspense, but I hadn’t felt that way, and I wondered why? Thinking about it more, I realize that it was never a case of believing them to be dead (which isn’t actually suspenseful, either, now I come to think of it). It was more a question of “Are they dead, and time will be rewritten? Because of course, he has to get the TARDIS back.” Or, “Are they not really dead/destroyed, and if so, where are they, how, and why?” I don’t think that Moffat expected us to believe that the TARDIS was destroyed, and probably not that Clara and Missy were gone for good either.

    Now, the fact of Jenna’s departure puts a twist into all these situations, because we know that any moment could be her last. But personally, I wouldn’t expect her to depart before at the very least, the halfway point of the series, and probably not until later or even the very end. But we shall see.  🙂

    On another note, I saw over there exactly what I feared from the moment I finished watching. Some people are never going to be happy with an episode that slows things down, allows time for conversation, for quiet. I loved those Doctor/Davros moments, and even if they were part of a bluff/double bluff, I believe (as some here have already said) that they were to some degree sincere. I’m pretty sure that those two know each other well enough by now that each could only hope to deceive the other with some degree of honesty. And that moment of shared laughter could not have been anything other than sincere.

    #43706
    jphamlore @jphamlore

    It is possible that Missy is behaving completely rationally given that she is a Time Lord supremacist over humans. She stated her goal plainly in Death in Heaven: She wants her friend back, the Doctor. Actually she has come quite far. Despite all of her crimes, some which came quite close to extinguishing humans, here the Doctor still treats her as his closest friend.

    What she really needs to do to get her friend back is to break the Doctor’s desire to have other companions. My theory with what she is trying to do with Clara is to raise Clara up to be the greatest human companion the Doctor can ever possibly have only to have the Doctor lose Clara in some tragedy.

    As the Doctor ages it seems to me it is getting harder and harder for him to change companions.

    #43707
    blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave

    @arbutus

    the other place

    You really are a glutton for punishment, aren’t you!

    One thing that occurred to me, and it has probably occurred to a host of others as well; perhaps, even, at the other place (shiver…) is that when the Doctor goes back to to save boy Davros, by shooting the hand mines, he is probably responsible for introducing the single most identifiable word associated with the Daleks: “Exterminate!”

    Yes, I know, blatantly obvious <shuffles back to corner…>

    #43708
    Arbutus @arbutus

    @denvaldron   re your points about genuine emotional payoff and the revolting sewers.    I see what you’re saying, and it’s a fair point in a way. But here’s my problem with it. If the Doctor is only to be allowed victory where it is based on concepts that pre-date the episode, this is pretty limiting to the writers. I can see that it might have been better to have introduced the sewer idea earlier in the two-parter, but I’m just not sure, plot-wise, how they could have done so. We didn’t even get to Skaro until basically part two. If you look over the history of the show, I’m pretty sure you would find lots of occasions when concepts we now consider canon were introduced as plot points that would set up a threat or a solution. If they also worked as concepts, they were brought back by other writers later on. Sometimes things are tried that don’t work, and are relegated to the background or quietly forgotten.

    But that’s just me, because the emotional payoff of the episode was there for me, I really enjoyed it. It didn’t bother me that this was a thing about Daleks that hadn’t come up before now, because it was creepy as you say, and as a resolution it created a poetic justice that worked for me.

    I really like your assessment of the Master as trickster, and your use of “chaotician” nails it for me. It seems that Missy has (currently) abandoned any real interest in running the universe for her own sake, and is only interested in her games with the Doctor.

    Interesting too was your categorization of A story and B story. Possibly what makes DW work for me is the fact that I am often more interested in the B than the A. The A is not usually the part of the story that gives me my biggest payoff. Now that I think about it, this may explain why I have tended to prefer Moffat’s era (not always!) to RTD’s, because RTD’s B stories were less appealing to me. Something for me to think about.

    A further point about Clara. Could her lack of ability to deal confidently with her situation at the end have come from the very fact that she couldn’t use one of her main weapons, her words? It seems to me that she fights back mainly by mouth, and unlike the Doctor with his sonic sunglasses, she didn’t have another tool in place! (Note that I’m not trying to convince you at this point, because I don’t think I will. Only thinking through what my own view is.)

    #43709
    Arbutus @arbutus

    @ichabod    I love your description of the Davros/Doctor conversation. You’re right. Even while I watched, knowing that there was an underlying plot, it was just heartbreaking when the plot was finally revealed. Because you sensed one of those moments where something might have been changed for the better, if Davros had only been up for it. In fact, a lot of what you said about Davros might apply to the Mixmaster as well!

    I wonder if friendship is going to be a theme of this series- it has already come up in the Prologue and both episodes so far.

    @blenkinsopthebrave    Well, not really. I skip over a lot, and tend to find that if someone has written more than a paragraph then it is often a little more thoughtful. I wouldn’t go so far as to post there, though! It just isn’t safe.  🙂

    #43710
    DenValdron @denvaldron

    @arbutus I’m not saying it has to predate the episode. I’m only saying that Moffat has to play fair with his audience. In this case, Moffat comes just shy of deus ex machine. He’s not arbitrarily whipping up a god from the machine who just solves the problem out of nowhere. No, he set it up two or three script pages before.

    The analogy I used is a mystery novel. Typically, in a mystery, we have a cast of characters set up in the first act, and then the unravelling of the mystery which leads to a murderer. Here, however, instead of setting up his premises at the start, Moffat waits until the second last chapter to introduce a character who will turn out to be the murderer. No fair!

    As to Clara –

    * She could use her words. That’s the point. She could make the Dalek casing talk. It just wouldn’t say certain things. She needed a workaround. How about “Doctor, Identify me.” “You’re a Dalek?” “Incorrect!” “You’re Clara?” “Correct!” All she needed to do was workarounds. But instead, she went all Mel on us.

    * I recognize the theory being circulated that Clara’s rather anomalous idiocy was the result of remembered trauma from a future self who ended up as a Dalek. Hmmm. Well, okay, that’s a theory and it may explain the result in a satisfactory way. The thing we do with theories is we test them. We test a theory by extrapolating its consequences, and going to look to see whether those consequences, those predicted results pan out. How do we test this? Well, if we assume that this was deliberate on the part of Moffat, and that he was calling back to that earlier episode, then it seems likely that he would reference it. After all, he can’t guarantee that the people watching this episode watched the Oswin episode three years before, or that they remembered it. So if that was his intent, he’d probably signal it. There’d be a deja vu reference. There isn’t one. There’s no statement or reference which calls back to that earlier episode. Ergo, the theory is unsupported. Not necessarily invalid, but lacking validation.

    #43711
    jphamlore @jphamlore

    @arbutus: “In fact, a lot of what you said about Davros might apply to the Mixmaster as well!”

    Missy won. Missy is still the Doctor’s best friend and no one else can ever match being the only one left of the Doctor’s species in that universe. Certainly not the poodle.

    #43712

    @denvaldron

    No, he set it up two or three script pages before.

    That’s what they are supposed to do, courtesy of Chekhov’s ordnance supplies (and menagerie, for those who know their DWF history)).

     I recognize the theory being circulated that Clara’s rather anomalous idiocy was the result of remembered trauma from a future self who ended up as a Dalek.

    There was no idiocy. She had had her confidence utterly shattered by Missy. This has actually been explained a couple of times now. The horse is dead.

    #43713
    DenValdron @denvaldron

    @arbutus Looking backwards, I’m not sure if the Master/Missy ever really had any interest in ruling the universe. I think perhaps that we should reappraise the title ‘Master.’ We tend to default to reading it as ‘Master = Ruler = King = Tyrant = Dictator = Alpha = Big Dog = Owner = Controller = Dominator’ That may not be it at all.

    Perhaps the Master’s title refers to something else. Perhaps it simply means ‘Better.’ Or ‘Best.’ The smartest, the fastest, the winner, etc. Perhaps the Master has truly gone blazing through the universe, not in a quest to rule it, but to test himself/herself against it. To beat it, to demonstrate that he’s better, that he’s the first place finisher. He’s continually seeking out challenges to demonstrate his superiority.

    Honestly, in the King’s Demons, what the hell is the point of screwing with the Magna Carta? It doesn’t advance ‘rule’ in any meaningful way. Why the continuing one upsmanship with the Doctor through incarnation after incarnation. It’s not about conquest. It’s about proving himself.

    In Logopolis, when the Baker Doctor falls, the Master is crowing victory, he’s proven himself better and smarter. He’s an ego on a collision course with the rest of the universe. He doesn’t want to rule it. He would get bored pretty fast. He just wants the universe to acknowledge he’s better.

    #43714
    DenValdron @denvaldron

    Ha ha. Bravo. I offer you my hand. Well, that’s a bit much. An extended finger is sufficient.

    How about we all play nice.

    #43715
    Arbutus @arbutus

    @denvaldron     Fair enough. I think what we have is some character behaviour that may not bother some people, but feels entirely wrong or out of place to others. I have felt that way about companions or other characters in the past and others have not necessarily shared my view. For example, I felt that Courtney’s hurt at the Doctor not thinking her “special” was overstated, given how I thought a teenager would be more likely to respond to an adult that they didn’t particularly know. Others didn’t agree. Although I could see their points, it didn’t really change my irritation with that bit of writing!

    It’s a good point about the Master. Even when he was trying to conquer the earth, one would have to ask why? (I’m reminded of the Sheriff of Nottingham’s plans: “After this… Derby!”) It probably was always more about proving himself than anything else, and given his continued choice of Earth as a target, proving himself to the Doctor above all.

     

    #43716
    Serahni @serahni

    @mudlark  Oh, I know, and when Davros said that, my next thought was ‘well there goes that theory.’  lol  But it does occur to me that we’re assuming Davros is right, and that he is privy to fact rather than opinion or personal interpretation.  Just because Davros thinks the prophesy means Daleks and Timelords, does that make it automatically so?  Probably.  In the grand scheme of things, I can see it being the more satisfactory story arc.  I wouldn’t push my first assumption as a particularly viable one but it is probably a symptom of being a member of these forums that my mind went there at all!  lol.

    @denvaldron  It is a shame you found the writing of these episodes unsatisfactory.  It is certainly frustrating to be in that situation as a fan, I feel quite grateful not to be faced with it.  I hope the rest of the series does not continue to disappoint you.

    #43717
    Arbutus @arbutus

    @jphamlore   I wasn’t actually talking about Clara, but comparing Missy and Davros, both twisted geniuses, both capable of understanding the Doctor in some very deep ways.

    @ichabod said these things about Davros :    these are the tiny points of light still extant in Davros — that gleam of common humanity  – and then you see Davros’s fear steam-roller that glimmer – Davros’s evil is rooted in fear; mania trumps intimacy and empathy.  So what’s he really afraid of?  I’d say compassion and intimacy — which carry huge, though mostly illusory or transitory risks: rejection.  Betrayal.  Loss of control.

    I think we’ve seen hints of this in Missy, and in other incarnations before hers. As the Tenth Doctor once said, the tragedy of the Master is that he/she had so much potential to be something other than what he became. But as with Davros, it is likely beyond possibility now for Missy to realize that potential.

    #43718
    DenValdron @denvaldron

    @arbutus It’s a big world and there’s a lot of room in it for diversity. Human behaviour has wide parameters, and writers often struggle with that. It’s not easy. There’s a story, how do you get the characters to follow through the story. There’s a story about Captain Janeway of Voyager, and the actress who plays her. According to legend – she once went to the writers and asked them quite seriously if her character was insane… because she was written so arbitrarily. We’re not there with Clara, so that’s good.

    As to the Master, I’m quite enthused. It’s almost an epiphany. There have been so many times in the classic series that the Master seemed almost like a pantomime villain, a ridiculous, motiveless, comic opera bad guy. One of the pleasures of Mark of the Rani, is that the new time lord villain, the Rani, calls the Master out on it, literally telling him repeatedly ‘you’re a boob!’ His perpetual schemes, and the way they blew up in his face, didn’t make a lot of sense in the overarching scheme of things, does a lot to pull the character together, to make the Master coherent, even epic.

    #43719
    DenValdron @denvaldron

    @serahni I don’t think that Moffat writes solely for me. 😉 In any case, there have been brilliant episodes to make up for the bad ones, so I figure that I’m ahead. Even these episodes, while flawed, are not worthless. There’s much to like in them. I wish I could turn off my analytical faculties and just enjoy. But they click away, no matter what. Good or bad, I love the show. And while I won’t hesitate to call out what I see as bad, that doesn’t keep me from loving the show. I had a cat once with bladder control issues, I still loved that cat. Even the worst of Moffat doesn’t compare with having your lap wee’d on while you were reading. And there’s a lot to love, not just in the best of Doctor Who, but even in its worst. It works out.

    #43720
    DenValdron @denvaldron

    Hmmm. I made an intemperate and uncalled for remark. To anyone offended, please accept my apologies. I have written privately to the subject of my ire.

    #43721
    Mudlark @mudlark

    @serahni   Prophecies are tricky things, and even if they are taken seriously, it comes down in the end to how they are interpreted.  There have been hints in the past that the Time Lords have some means of accurate prognostication (other their ability to take sneak peeks at the future?), but Davros here was probably relying on rumour and hearsay and twisting it to his own ends.  The actual existence of such a prophecy, its content and its meaning, is another matter entirely – maybe the seed for a possible future episode in the saga.

     

    #43722
    Brewski @brewski

    Some preliminary thoughts:

    I am wondering, too, why the Doctor didn’t retrieve the sonic when he went back.

    Laughed out loud at “the only other chair on Skaro”. Oh Moffat. Stealing your own joke from The Curse of the Fatal Death.   (That had sewers in it too.  Must been nostalgic that day 😉 )

    @blenkinsopthebrave you know, it COULD be that the Doctor told Davros about Gallifrey still being out there knowing full well he’d try to find it.  Maybe he’s manipulating Davros into helping him find it.

    @bendubz11 you missed a hybrid: half human half Time Lord in the tv movie.  I’m kidding. I’m KIDDING! Pretend you didn’t read that.

    One more: I’m quite sure the Doctor wouldn’t let it happen, but… wouldn’t it be awful if he really can’t get her out of the Dalek, and the rest of her time with him is really her insIde it and she dOesn’t know it?  And ultimately she ends up in the Assylum thinking her name is Oswin.  Ok,  forget I wrote that, too. I wish my back space key was working.  :O

     

    #43723
    221BadWolf @221badwolf

    @brewski I certainly thought the whole episode gave off a Curse of Fatal Death vibe! Not just the chair and sewers, but the whole “Davros trapped the Doctor but the Doctor was expecting it and had a counter-attack but then Davros had Colony Sarff but then The Doctor knew he would win all along” plot.

    Cool theory! I personally don’t think that Asylum!Clara is Original!Clara, but I’m interested in the possibility that Clara might now be under the influence of the Dalek nanogenes which were inserted into her when she was in the Dalek casing.

    #43724
    DrBen @drben

    @ichabod – Completely disagree.  She’s shut up in horrible, stinky Dalek armor that transforms her into a monster, to the outward eye (and ear).  The Doctor is in a fury because he thinks Clara is dead — so he’s not thinking clearly.  Missy is lying to the Doctor, and Clara knows that the Doctor has old bonds with her, and seems to be believing Missy’s lies — and Clara panics.  Her being unable to think of thinking “open” reads very clearly as *panic*, not stupidity.  I’m a reasonably capable and intelligent person, and I’ve had my brain choke on me in much less horrifying situations.  So I do buy it.

    Not just that, but she’s got wires going into her flippin’ brain that are connecting her to the Dalek Dodge-Em.  We’ve been told that Daleks operate by focusing emotion rather than suppressing it, so I totally find it believable that the initial fear and panic she experienced at the Doctor not recognizing her in the Dalek get-up is completely multiplied and enhanced by the Dalek tech.  The tech kicks her panic into overdrive which (for an actual Dalek) would presumably cause it to start exterminating all over the place.  For our Clara, it just causes her to yell “it’s me, it’s me, it’s me!” even though she knows it’s making her say “I am a Dalek.”

    @phaseshift – Thanks for the nod on the tarot thread.  I enjoyed writing that post, and I’m glad to see that the topic is still coming up.

    @kharis – Nice to see another tarot enthusiast!  I totally agree that Clara is the Hanged (Wo)Man at the moment, which is a step in the right direction for her.  While I had her pegged as the Lovers for while last season (with Danny), I think she spent most of her time last season as the Hierophant – the teacher, the control freak.

    #43725
    Mudlark @mudlark

    @ichabod

    I’m in the camp of seeing that intimate little conversation + shared laughter as absolutely authentic — these are the tiny points of light still extant in Davros the survival of which make his treachery not just awful but sort of tragic

    I meant to respond to this earlier, but ran out of time.

    Up to a point I agree.  This was a person who was born with a normal, maybe exceptional capacity for empathy, but he was born into a generations’ long war which had devastated the planet and, during his traumatising upbringing in the environment of that war, that capacity had been distorted and subverted into a driving will to protect his own people, and only his own people, at whatever the cost.  All else had been suppressed and become atrophied in the course of his centuries of existence. But the latent capacity, reinforced by the Doctor’s long ago intervention, remains.

    A clever and observant psychopath could no doubt mimic the sentiments and emotions which Davros displays, but Davros, contemplating the possible end of his existence, is in an emotionally sensitive state and so primed to tap those buried reserves of genuine feeling.  On the surface it makes him more convincing but, further than that, and perhaps to his own surprise, what emerges is to some extent genuine, even if it never obscures his ultimate objective.  It helps, also, that he appears to have a genuine, if grudging respect and feeling of affinity for the Doctor, and in the moment in which they share a joke at least, the barriers did indeed seem to have dissolved entirely.

     

    #43726
    DrBen @drben

    Oh and a couple more things.

    On the subject of whether the Doctor knew what he was doing from the beginning (including, why did he tell about Gallifrey, how could he know Missy would save him at the right time, etc.) — I’ve always gotten the message that the Doctor makes it up as he goes along, and then, when everything works out, he convinces others that that was his plan all along.  It’s equal parts quick thinking and serendipity.  So he may have been entirely sincere up to a point, and then shifted.

    Re Sonic Sunglasses – They didn’t bother me all that much, but I did cringe a bit at the phrase “wearable tech.”  It seems a little silly for the Doctor to be topical — he has access to all space and time, so an already-dated 2015 phrase like “wearable tech” sounded a bit off to me.  It would be like the Fourth Doctor listening to disco or the Seventh Doctor talking about the Iran-Contra scandal.

    #43727
    Kharis @kharis

    @drben I also noticed that the tarot references in this season are meant to be noticed and almost put out as clues.  If they were there before that was just good sleuthing on your part.  But the titles in this two parter alone are almost a request to pay attention.  This whole two part episode seemed to be the Major Arcana 1&2 plus the Minor Arcana wands.  I think that may imply four Queens and four Kings who will manipulate his journey toward ‘The World.’ The issues with his screwdriver and Missy’s random stick would lean more towards her being the negative and positive influences of the Queen of Wands.  This whole two parter was all fire and wands, so it makes sense.  The Queen of Wands even has a familiar next to her throne.  I also thought the dog referenced in the Clara joke Missy made about the couple looked oddly like the dog drawn traditionally as the faithful companion to the Fool.  It all seems very deliberate this time.

    #43728
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    @denvaldron

    No, he set it up two or three script pages before.

    Nope, sorry. It’s definitely not a Deus Ex Machina. Using regeneration energy for someone other than themselves is a previously known character attribute of Time Lords, so the only thing that needs to be set up within the episode are the revolting sewers.

    The set-up is in two parts.

    First part: Missy and Clara arrive in sewers, Missy explains that the sewers on Skaro are decaying Daleks and pokes one with a stick. It reacts. That’s about ten minutes/script pages into the episode.

    Second part: Missy pokes holes in a Dalek, leading to the discovery that the decaying Daleks are even more pissed off than the normal Dalek, and will kill the younger Daleks if they get a chance. That’s fifteen minutes/script pages in.

    Resolution: Comes at 38 minutes/script pages in.

    So as @pedant says, what we’re looking at here is a Chekhov’s Dalek. Set up in the first ten minutes, false resolution very soon afterwards, real resolution at the end (ish).

    Regarding Clara: I’ve given my back-story explanation, as have others. It is the job of the writer to write a character in such a way that the actor can make sense of the characterisation. It is then the job of the actor to convince the audience about that characterisation.

    If Jenna Coleman didn’t manage to convince you that Clara was so terrified that she developed fear-induced stupidity, I’m afraid that’s Jenna Coleman’s fault. It’s an acting failure, not a writing failure.

    It’s not the fault of Steven Moffat; he’s not obliged to write scripts that include flashbacks every ten seconds, or lines explaining Clara’s Dalek phobia, just to help an actor convince the audience that they’re terrified out of their wits.

    Or, as @arbutus said, it may be simply the way the people in the audience are all different.

    #43729
    DrBen @drben

    @kharis – Good call with Missy’s pointed stick and the Queen of Wands!

    #43730
    Mudlark @mudlark

    @brewski

    I am wondering, too, why the Doctor didn’t retrieve the sonic when he went back.

    Perhaps because Davros, had kept it and many centuries later shown it to him as proof that he remembered their original encounter.  To have retrieved it after that would have been to create a small, but possibly significant glitch in the space-time continuum.  There would have been no point in taking it back from Davros after their later confrontation, because by then it was corroded and inoperable – see the artwork on the BBC website.

    #43731
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    @jphamlore

    I think Missy’s characterisation has been consistent since the closing scenes of The Last of the Time Lords; nobody kills the Doctor except Missy! 😉

    I agree that part of it is simply wanting her friend back, but I wonder whether Moffat’s also built on the Master’s discovery that it was Rassillon and the Council of Time Lords who were responsible for his madness. It’s as if the Master originally thought his madness was partly his former friend’s fault. And now that Missy knows it isn’t, a large dose of resentment has simply disappeared.

    At least, I find it difficult to imagine previous Master’s telling that ‘the Doctor escapes’ story in quite the admiring way Missy did.

    #43732
    ichabod @ichabod

    @missy  Very sadly, my OH decided to watch part two with me last night. when it was finished he said, and I quote:
    “What a lot of crap (sorry), I don’t know what you see in it.” *sigh*

    My sister checked out TWF and told me she changed channels after two minutes — “Everybody was so busy *Acting* like crazy!”  She hates live theater, too — “They’re always Acting *at* you, not just doing their stuff and you happen to be watching.”  She won’t watch the Brit tv mysteries that I enjoy, same thing — it feels artificial to her.  It occurred to me that maybe when talking about it to the uninitiated, it might be useful to refer to DW as Space Opera, because that’s pretty much what it is — big arias, big music, big momentum, big canvas, big ideas, all of it outsized, mixed with beautiful small scenes of “human” scale interaction, and comedy.

    What I mean is, I think people who don’t like theater (or opera) are probably not going to like DW.  This ain’t kitchen sink drama, which is what the US, at any rate, is offered (either that, or “Action Pictures”, which is kind of an oxymoron, come to think of it) as opposed to broad-scale, often-epic fantasy drama.

     

    #43733
    ichabod @ichabod

    @denvaldron   Perhaps the Master’s title refers to something else. Perhaps it simply means ‘Better.’ Or ‘Best.’ The smartest, the fastest, the winner, etc. Perhaps the Master has truly gone blazing through the universe, not in a quest to rule it, but to test himself/herself against it. To beat it, to demonstrate that he’s better, that he’s the first place finisher.

    Yes, I like that — it stands as a welcome change from all the huffing and puffing in BG by the Master along the lines of “And I shall rule the universe!”  So — the Doctor is driven by curiosity, he wants to *see* the universe.  MixMaster wants the universe to see *him*/*her* as the brightest star in it?  But — the Doctor has to say so.  Over and over and over (he did, after all, say it at the end of DiH).  Needy = it’s never enough, it’s never over . . .

    There’s a story, how do you get the characters to follow through the story.

    A perfect example of the difference I was talking about: for me, there is no story.  It usually starts with a voice; someone speaking, others answering.  Characters assemble; the story arises from them and their interactions.  It’s my job to keep up with them, not to bend them to fit a pre-made form.  That’s the first stage — the creative flow and power comes through them, as sub-personalities that my authorial self has encouraged to form.  Once that raw material is out there — then the shaping process starts, and that’s when this author steps in to bring the story together and do the development and the polishing that brings it all together into (I hope) a functioning whole.  If I have to *make* them do something, they die on the page.

    @arbutus    I love your description of the Davros/Doctor conversation. You’re right. Even while I watched, knowing that there was an underlying plot, it was just heartbreaking when the plot was finally revealed. Because you sensed one of those moments where something might have been changed for the better, if Davros had only been up for it.

    Mmm, thank you; as I see it: “if only Davros had been *brave* enough”.  What distinguishes the Doctor as a hero (whether acknowledged or not) is that he’s brave enough.  Yes, it’s a trap — and he walks into it.  Yes, all his companions leave him — and he keeps taking them on, learning to receive and give hugs, and then losing those people.  Yes, everybody dies — but in the meantime, he’ll save them if he can.  Yes, some die anyway, and it’s failure, and it hurts and it’s scary — but he’ll still do his damnedest again next time.

    Davros isn’t brave; he’s living inside a fortress, from within which he attacks others.  Missy isn’t brave; she’s reckless and aggressive, because she believes herself invincible.  The Doctor knows he can fail, knows he can produce terrible consequences for others, but he still takes Boy Davros’s hand and walks with him off the battlefield.  He’ll deal with the consequences as best he can when they come home to roost.  IMO, it’s kind of like being a grown-up (well, that’s me talking — the me that had two younger sisters and a working mom and dad gone, so I was left in charge; and the sisters are still okay, so I confess to a bias here).

    @brewski  you know, it COULD be that the Doctor told Davros about Gallifrey still being out there knowing full well he’d try to find it. Maybe he’s manipulating Davros into helping him find it.

    Oyg!  You are so smart!  Sure, why not?  He knows, as we all do, that even if Skaro melts down completely into sewer sludge, Davros won’t die, so — makes him an involuntary bird-dog?

     

    #43734
    Brewski @brewski

    <div class=”bbp-reply-author”><span class=”useratname”>@221badwolf</span></div>
    <div class=”bbp-reply-content”>

    I certainly thought the whole episode gave off a Curse of Fatal Death vibe!

    I wonder how much was intentional.  Either way I love it.

    Cool theory! I personally don’t think that Asylum!Clara is Original!Clara, but I’m interested in the possibility that Clara might now be under the influence of the Dalek nanogenes which were inserted into her when she was in the Dalek casing.

    I actually thought something along those lines as I was watching Clara getting the circuits plugged in and Missy being dubious about how she’d get back out.  But unfortunately I have a  bad habit here of going back and forth between “serious bonkers” and “bonkers bonkers”.

     

    </div>

    #43735
    Brewski @brewski

    @ichabod

    Oyg!  You are so smart!  Sure, why not?  He knows, as we all do, that even if Skaro melts down completely into sewer sludge, Davros won’t die, so — makes him an involuntary bird-dog?

    Thanks! :p  I have been very successful at outsmarting myself.   But it WOULD be a pretty awesome slap in the prosthetics for Davros!

    #43736
    Brewski @brewski

    @denvaldron

    From a literary criticism point of view I tend to agree with your analysis. Of course we all know that this (or any) show isn’t going to be perfect, especially given how much material they have to crank out in such a short time. Mind you, I’m not meaning that to make excuses.

    Looking backwards, I’m not sure if the Master/Missy ever really had any interest in ruling the universe. I think perhaps that we should reappraise the title ‘Master.’ We tend to default to reading it as ‘Master = Ruler = King = Tyrant = Dictator = Alpha = Big Dog = Owner = Controller = Dominator’ That may not be it at all.
    Perhaps the Master’s title refers to something else. Perhaps it simply means ‘Better.’ Or ‘Best.’ The smartest, the fastest, the winner, etc. Perhaps the Master has truly gone blazing through the universe, not in a quest to rule it, but to test himself/herself against it. To beat it, to demonstrate that he’s better, that he’s the first place finisher. He’s continually seeking out challenges to demonstrate his superiority.
    Honestly, in the King’s Demons, what the hell is the point of screwing with the Magna Carta? It doesn’t advance ‘rule’ in any meaningful way. Why the continuing one upsmanship with the Doctor through incarnation after incarnation. It’s not about conquest. It’s about proving himself.
    In Logopolis, when the Baker Doctor falls, the Master is crowing victory, he’s proven himself better and smarter. He’s an ego on a collision course with the rest of the universe. He doesn’t want to rule it. He would get bored pretty fast. He just wants the universe to acknowledge he’s better

    I’m quite enthused. It’s almost an epiphany. There have been so many times in the classic series that the Master seemed almost like a pantomime villain, a ridiculous, motiveless, comic opera bad guy. One of the pleasures of Mark of the Rani, is that the new time lord villain, the Rani, calls the Master out on it, literally telling him repeatedly ‘you’re a boob!’ His perpetual schemes, and the way they blew up in his face, didn’t make a lot of sense in the overarching scheme of things, does a lot to pull the character together, to make the Master coherent, even epic

    I really love this bit of bonkers theorizing! I do!

    And isn’t it wonderful fun to make the narrative work for us in such creative ways rather than just saying The Master’s Magna Carta plan was just poorly thought-out writing.

    #43737
    jphamlore @jphamlore

    @bluesqueakpip: I agree something definitely should have changed within the Master / Missy after the revelation about Rassillon and the Council of Time Lords.

    That’s brings up to me the question of why does the Master hang around Earth so much even after he was able to escape imprisonment there? One solid interpretation is his jealously towards the Doctor and the Doctor’s protection of Earth. Is the Master’s jealously so great that he would hang around a planet that makes him / her sick to the stomach from the rotting smell of its inhabitants?

    But I have to wonder if there isn’t some terrible prophecy about Time Lords and Earth, that humans might not be the warrior race that will one day form part of a duo that will devastate the cosmos.

    #43738
    jphamlore @jphamlore

    @kharis and others: Thank you for bringing to our attention the tarot card references, which are no doubt correct.

    In some sense I see this as a throwback to the early part of the Fourth Doctor’s classic series, because back then any sort of mysticism that could be tied to extraterrestrials was fair game as an explanation. For example, consider pyramid power and ancient astronauts in Pyramids of Mars.

    It’s a little trickier nowadays because some of the tropes that could be used back then are now seen as offensive ethnic stereotypes, and the BBC is trying to market Dr Who worldwide. Tarot cards are a great avenue.

    Is there some good online reference that explains the relations between the cards? Is there some order the cards must appear?

    #43739
    JimmytheTulip @jimmythetulip

    This was a brilliant episode. I wasn’t completely convince with TMA but this put it into context wonderfully to make a great two parter. I really think (and still do after this episode) that Clara is the Master, an incarnation prior to Missy who used a chameleon arch to hide her true self. Evidence pointing to this:

    – in “Listen” Clara says (to Danny): “Say something nice” – a line oft repeated by Missy herself in season 7.

    – “I just want to have my friend back”… The Doctor would never accept Missy as a friend, but  if Missy took all her “Master”ishness out with a chameleon arch then suddenly she’s in with a chance…

    – It explains why she gave Clara the Doctor’s phone number.

    – and in this most recent episode… “In a way, this is why I gave her to you in the first place – to make you see. The friend inside the enemy, the enemy inside the friend. Everyone’s a bit of both. Everyone’s a hybrid.”

    …it’s pure speculation, of course, but explains a lot. If Clara were a product of either Missy or the Doctor/Missy then she’d be a Time Lord/Lady. She’d have two hearts and a Gallifreyan anatomy (including a respiratory bypass) surely the Doctor would have noticed that by now…?

    #43740
    Anonymous @

    @missy don’t worry @denvaldron commented that it was a bit wrong and showed shoddy writing. It’s OK  if your partner feels similarly. My own nearly fell asleep -but then, in all honesty he did have the flu!

    @ichabod @denvaldron

    Ichi, that was beautifully said. I guess, Den, what I was trying to explain was that the so-called “villain only revealed two chapters before the end,” wasn’t the case. Davros and his intentions and even the Doctor’s, were clear from the Prologue.

    Briefly on the fact that Daleks don’t die -I know this has been hinted at before: that they can keep living in some form or another. If we take that proposition, as mentioned, then we can move a step forward (though I must take ichi’s point and claim this isn’t chess -it’s a little like a Sonata with an ‘A’ theme, a ‘B’ theme and motifs flying out from the variations thereon) to the idea that the Daleks must find their end in a type or simulation of a grave. What that ‘grave’ is and that it’s still living in its own way, is totally plausible. It’s not a re-write of History or a fly in the soup of Terry Nation.

    If it’s established that the Daleks go mad and end up on a holding planet where, possibly for eternity, they stay: too mad to work and yet unable to be collapsed and completely recycled like an old Ford motor car, then the proposition which follows: that Daleks cannot die, is created. In fact, it’s a solid proposition. It works from the perspective of the Impossible Girl as well -it’s where we first meet Oswin, the claricle. This creates a nice circular narrative. That the girl who thought she wasn’t a Dalek becomes the girl who definitely knows she isn’t and might end up in an even worse pickle: over taken by the monstrous sewage.   🙂

    Missy worries that “he’s trapped and alone at the heart of the Dalek empire.” I would think the Doctor knows his enemy and has attempted to investigate every element of his greatest nemesis. To indicate otherwise is to suggest the Doctor is stupid rather than just Clara. 🙂

    But we know she’s not. She’s surrounded, attached and hot-wired into a Dalek. If she’s literally attached by wires, would it not be possible to speculate that a part of her brain connected to rational thought is dissolving the longer she’s attached to the Dalek interior machinery?

    I think it’s eminently sensible and plausible and yet, because it’s Who, it’s not immediately essential to spell out each and every item.

    I liked @serahni‘s comprehensive suggestion also -that would make considerable sense.

    As for being so terrified that she cannot think of a way to sidestep the Dalek’s words and translation matrix? Absolutely. She’s not been painted as an extremely clever woman or companion -but definitely relatively smart. There are times when even relatively smart women would fail to do anything but repeat, over and over, “help me, help me, please see me. It’s me.”

    It’s everybody’s nightmare and this was foreshadowed by the Doctor when he appeared in Davros’ chair, “a nightmare.” So, Clara was in one of her own. Again.

    But to become philosophical and a bit Ancient Greek about it, the need to be ‘seen,’ to be understood, and to have our emotions, needs and intellect grasped by others, is the primal wish of any individual who adores or loves (and needs) to be seen by another: a lover; a sister; a father; a friend: to no longer be seen through the glass darkly.

    But practically, by saying over and over, “I am a Dalek” is quite an odd repetition for a Dalek. These monstrous beings are hardly new to the Doctor and so this strange repetition would eventually help the Doctor turn a corner of understanding.

    But back to the “new revelation” for a second. If one thinks that the Daleks having sewers is a new concept or  even “bad writing,” consider The Flesh in Smith’s season. They too were left in a heap to “die” or did they actually die? Did they keep believing, have faith, keep some intellectual element intact despite infirm bodies? I think that was the case and helps to foreshadow the concept that, sometimes in the Whoniverse, no thing actually dies. We could look as recently as last season in Dark Water where the bodies of those cremated felt “everything” because they were still alive; or their mind was conscious and still capably connected to nerves.

    In the end, this was a fantasy, but the seed still lives: and it makes sense too, that Missy, investigating the Daleks to the same degree as the Doctor, could use the idea of “still living” and transmute this concept for the Daleks. In fact, rather than the “last two chapters” reveal, it was Missy (at the beginning of The Witch’s Familiar) who pronounced to Clara, exactly where they’d stumbled: a corridor leading to the Dalek ‘leaders’ but only through the least desirable route.

    As to the “hustle” I find myself utterly confused. How was this so? If you speak of two leaders, eminent and respected, believing in utterly different things and knowing one has to out-think the other at every step, then I suppose one could call it a hustle. But then you’d need to affix that label to some of the greatest writers we have; whether it be DH Lawrence, Hilary Mantel, the Bronte’s, Austen or Margaret Atwood -there are ‘hustles’ in all of their plots: where emotion is still true but players on a stage must outthink another because these characters live in a world of deception. Sophisticated and cosmopolitan, but deceptive and seedy, on occasion.

    I don’t think we are any less invested in the emotion because it’s cleverly doubled back on us: Clara in the Dalek is the only truly honest being at that moment and can’t communicate properly although, as you said yourself, even Missy is possibly the more honest (at least to her herself) person during the episode. There’s little dramatic irony to be had there -yet every step is clearly a lie to Clara: “look over that edge for me, there’s a good girl”; “take one step more and look into that eye…”; “get in the Dalek: it won’t hurt.”

    Finally, just because the Doctor’s outmanoeuvring his fellow “hustler” is he less aware of the emotions he creates? Just because he is acting to Davros, doesn’t mean he fails to believe the statements he makes. It doesn’t follow that we think he’s always a liar and that we’ve been ‘had’ in some way because the Doctor had to use brains to carefully persuade Davros. He’s thoughtful and curious but we know his driving force (never be cruel, never be cowardly…) is sincere compassion. But he needs to use Davros’ belief in his compassion against him – therefore such compassion must exist. For Davros to undermine it, it must germinate. It must ‘be’: “he is not mocking honesty.”

    You think the Doctor doesn’t have a crisis of conscience, that he’s unsympathetic to Davros completely?

    I believe not so! We’re assured, from his companions, that the Doctor feels he must use this new regeneration cycle wisely and should re-do past mistakes; that he even feels he’s no longer entitled to call himself the Doctor. In other words, his “crisis of conscience” has been established as early as Deep Breath and I’d say, even earlier, when he admits he took young Amelia because he was curious and he enjoyed the flattery. I believe the Tennant Doctor said the same thing to Martha in Gridlock.

    Kindest, puro

    #43741
    lisa @lisa

    @jimmythetulip I totally agree about Clara as a hybrid of something whether its a Missy version
    or a claricle or possibly even the Valeyard as I have seen mentioned elsewhere. In any case as
    I have said upstream I am convinced that she went into the time stream in Name of the Doctor and
    died as River said she would. Whatever version of Clara that came out has something lurking inside
    of the Clara façade. That is why she seemed different last season and your right about so many clues.
    The Valeyard idea is quite interesting to me too. Apparently the anniversary of that episode is
    approaching? Also, she has said some very Valeyard things last season. Like asking if she was a good
    Doctor. She wanted to be accepted to be as good a Doctor as the original. There are clues that she may
    have time lord in her. The fact that there were several Clara’s just like there are several Doctors,
    the Tardis had some trouble with liking her for quite a while, the colors she wears, often red which
    has symbolism, the time she wore a skirt that was the same pattern as the robes of Rasilon,
    In the ‘Journey to the Center of the Tarddis’ she reads the Doctors book which should have been
    written in Galifreyan so how did she understand it and so many other small things. Why? I know it
    sounds nit-piky but why drop all these subtle clues? So in conclusion this has been my particular
    obsession about the series. I love all the discussion about all the rest but its this puzzle in
    particular that has the lock on me more than everything else. So when I watch the episodes I’m
    watching as a detective for more clues to this mystery.
    My last speculation is we might find out quite a lot by episode 10 called ‘Face the Raven’ because
    Clara’s mother’s maiden name was Ravenwood. I’m also hoping we get more answers about why
    Missy chose Clara because there has to still be more to that too.

    #43742
    lisa @lisa

    @jimmythetulip To be fair we can probably assume that Missy has been up and down Clara’s
    timeline. Its conceivable that Clara could be a Missy version but there are so many good
    competing possibilities. I think they all have a real chance and it’s all feels so deliciously
    fiendish to me just like Missy does!

    #43743
    Anonymous @

    @denvaldron

    Well, I should have read @bluesqueakpip‘s reference to your statement about the Deus ex Machina first and her reference to it being some 30 odd pages before the ‘reveal’ that the Doctor instigates.

    “Missy and Clara arrive in sewers, Missy explains that the sewers on Skaro are decaying Daleks and pokes one with a stick. It reacts. That’s about ten minutes/script pages into the episode.”

    I believe I mentioned this above, myself. I don’t think there’s any finger pointing, though, you’ve simply argued your point and done so well. We all play nice (generally!) 🙂

    I have argued the intense need to understand Clara’s particular use of her weaponry, which as others upthread commented, relies on words. I too relegated her to “relatively smart” rather than brilliant because, even using her weapon of choice, fast talking and verbosity, she’s useless in The Caretaker. Even Danny, as “PE” is more successful in this instance. I truly believe that stuck in a sewer, which at any moment is about to “revolt” is Clara’s greatest fear. Turned into a Dalek, perhaps repeatedly crying “exterminate” she could well live forever: transmuted into Dalek goo for eternity. To use your words, “What the F*** else would you f**ing do, huh?”

    🙂

    What I like about the Whoniverse is it does rely on an audience’s memory sometimes. We do occasionally need to analyse a particular plot by back referencing it from some years before. I don’t believe Moffat relies on this capacity -it doesn’t help the casual viewer – but to point us back towards a previous season, is not asking or predicting too much from this audience. It’s desirous and it certainly flatters those who like the puzzle. My 13 year old for one (and yeah, I’d take Pip’s point that Clara must act her socks off to persuade us of her overall character. It’s not undesirable to expect the viewer to see her fully shaped according to her behaviour and attitudes in Kill the Moon, The Caretaker, Into the Dalek and when she was Oswin, “making soufflés without any milk.” On that point it’s not the Dalek, actually, “it’s the recipe,” which works beautifully when understanding how the Daleks are hardwired -perhaps another minor foreshadowing of the “creature within”).

    “I wish I could turn off my analytical faculties and just enjoy. But they click away, no matter what. Good or bad, I love the show.”

    Yeah, my son, also not a rube (though he doesn’t need to point out the fact he isn’t one) feels that his analytical abilities are a total hindrance. Shame we others lack them or just can’t switch them off.  🙂   Obviously none of us are switching anything off and nor should we. Our minds go “clack clack”  too.

    Again, on the topic of a “jive” or a hustle as @mudlark responded to so well, and perhaps acts an alternate idea to that of @drben‘s (welcome back by the way and good to read your thoughts too), Davros ends up being the tool of his own ‘created’ compassion. So convincing is he that he begins to believe himself -those tears may well have been true. There’s a latent capacity, a due-diligence brought about by ferocious competence which ironically could hinder the Doctor’s own plans were he not equally as old and as clever as the Doctor (as Ohila states, “Davros should have turned to dust a long time ago”). But in other narrative work, like Pride and Prejudice, this feeling, the (almost) suspension of deception and subsequent actions, are highlighted. It’s not a new narrative device and so whilst the Doctor is practising his part in this play to perfection, he’s so stunningly good at it that he convinces himself -and us –  because compassion and kindness are the forefront of the Doctor and not merely his façade for the day.

    When the Doctor takes young Davros’ hand, there’s definitely emotional impetus -and as that’s established early on in the first episode it allows us to believe that firstly there’s an emotional pay-off at hand and secondly that compassion is the elemental force always at work within the Doctor -even in undermining it for the sake of his own people (for Davros would have expected to find Gallifrey and use his daleks to defeat the universe, perhaps creating an eternal void) is essential to give Davros a last ditch chance to ‘change his mind’ and see the sunset for what it truly is.

    I think the Doctor always hopes that his enemies can become his friends -he always presents an option. The compassion shown at the beginning of The Magician’s Apprentice goes hand in hand with Davros’ choice. Which he sets aside in favour of revenge.

    @arbutus -wonderful -“if Davros had only been up for it. In fact, a lot of what you said about Davros might apply to the Mixmaster as well! I wonder if friendship is going to be a theme of this series…”

    But then Davros has received many such ‘interventions’ and failed to take any up!  I don’t believe the Doctor had any choice yet he allowed Davros to choose first: hope for the best and plan for the worst isn’t such a bad motif when you’re in the middle of the Dalek’s empire!

    As to your ‘Master’ concept Den, I like that a lot. That the mixmaster wants simply to win, at all costs, is terrific and of course we saw this in Tennant’s second series where the Master refused to regenerate and said “you win” -he may as well have said: “You’re the best, Doctor so I concede for I am no longer ‘Master.’ ”

    Brilliant.

    @kharis I know nought about Tarot -I always walk away from anything traditionally considered ‘occult’ probably due to my strict Catholic teachers which has left me ignorant about these issues. I don’t know much about poker and card games either to my shame. But I like what you’ve suggested so far and the idea that Moffat has used these elements to help sustain his ‘story’ is a sensible one. I wonder if it will come to a head in the Harness episodes? He strikes me as a writer who could use mysticism well -he did write Kill the Moon and was scheduled to write two episodes this season

    @221badwolf and @brewski yes: the nanogenes of the Dalek wandering around in Clara’s brain, forever more. It was Missy who said “I don’t know what will happen after.” I really hope there’s an antidote.

    @jphamlore perhaps Missy “hangs around earth” because she is forever trying to chase down her best friend, and like some friends, wants to compete and win: she wants to best the Doctor. If he’s on earth, then this must be her stage also.

    #43744
    JimmytheTulip @jimmythetulip

    @lisa

    Oh, I agree. Half the fun of this season is going to be deciphering all the little clues until we finally work out or are told the answer to the Great Mystery.

    Whichever theory happens to be the right one, it’s going to be a whole lot of awesome watching it unravel. 🙂

    #43745
    jphamlore @jphamlore

    @purofilion: The scary thing is what if the Master / Missy was acting for somewhat rational reasons and not mere jealousy.

    Suppose there was a Time Lord Nostradamus who made some terrible prophecy such as:

    A warlike race old and tired will conspire
    With a young fanatic one who knows they’re right
    The union of their might
    Will set the universe on fire

    After all Missy asserted precisely in Death in Heaven that she did not need an army but the Doctor did because he thought he was in the right.

    The Master / Missy has thus been interfering in Earth affairs to deliberately try and create rule by corrupt leaders around whom Earth would never rally around, to breed cynicism and despair, to destroy the notion of hope and right. Because otherwise it was prophesized by this Time Lord Nostradamus that religious fanatics from a planet suspiciously resembling Earth would be recruited by some older interstellar power to spread war throughout the universe.

    #43747
    Anonymous @

    @jphamlore

    well yes, that could be interesting: her need for an army was specifically asserted to be for the Doctor alone. And I get the religious fanatics: we’ve had a few trolling about here earlier in the year comparing the Doctor to Christ. But that’s another story entirely 🙂

    @pedant Now, I don’t know about your menagerie but I do recall this from The Glass Menagerie where Tom says “Yes I have tricks in my pocket. I have things up my sleeve. But I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion as the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion”

    This would seat nicely with the Doctor as magician or equally, Davros and Missy. They all present an illusion but Missy claims to be giving us truth disguised as illusion. I wonder what more she knows about Clara. Having seen into the heart of Gallifrey, perhaps both the Doctor and Missy are aware of something dreadful in the state of Clara.

     

    #43748
    Kharis @kharis

    <span class=”useratname”>@jphamlore</span>  Yes, any site that uses the Rider Waite deck is going to be the most classical.   My training was from my mother who believed the Tarot told an ancient story tied to King Arthur, The Fisher King and most of all Christ.  She did not use them as divination, but as scholarly study and a way to use archetype.  She was a part of a group that saw this story being the hidden story of our sentient and soulful existence.  I met some of the authors of famous books on this subject as a child and became fascinated myself.  I studied the cards from Jungian perspective, looking at them as subconscious archetype.  I also continued studying on my own time the books my mom had in our home and she schooled me on her beliefs and theories surrounding this story.  She believed that the Tarot kept the true story alive in the medieval days when this story would been burned and destroyed in book form.  It was seen as a game so harmless.

    So I have never studied it online, since my schooling in it was before there was a web/online available to everyone.  My mom was fond of the Rider Waite deck for it’s traditional approach.  Some newer decks can get very occult or new age, and this tends to water down the universal symbolism and often reduces it to la la drum circle, tantric sex, healing crystal stuff.   That’s not the kind of Tarot we are referencing, that is a type of Tarot popularized by people who believe in astrology.

    Let me know if you find a site that is user friendly.  I will look myself and get back to you.  (:

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