The Trailer – Discuss it here

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The trailer for The Day of The Doctor is now on the official BBC site. So it no longer counts as a spoiler, although some people may still not want to see it.

Let’s try and keep discussion of it here if possible.

Previous teaser

Second Trailer


279 comments

  1. Well, Hurt Doctor standing in front of that rose-sceptre just made me think of the line of Juliet’s from Romeo and Juliet, particularly as we have a reference to Elizabethan England (Shakespeare’s time):

    What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
    By any other name would
    smell as sweet;

    Intriguing, particularly given the mystery of the Doctor’s name.

    Certainly seems as if we are meeting Rose in her “Bad Wolf” incarnation.

    Hurt Doctor seems to be the incarnation who made the choice to Time-Lock Gallifrey, effectively committing Time Lord genocide. But I like all the when speculation.

    That was a very mischievous shot of the Eleventh Doctor’s shoes, recalling doppleganger Doctor from The Almost People.

    Eleven’s spotty bow-tie and Ten’s long spotty tie might indicate bubble or colliding universes. Blue bow-tie Doctor is ganger Doctor and the time-line sacrificed is red bow-tie Doctor, symbolised by the red rose?

    Presumably we are inside the Eleventh Doctor’s time-line.

    Cripes those special effects look expensive – no wonder we haven’t had much of a spread of 50th year events.

  2. @pedant – does she look as bonkers as a forum of Who theorists, you mean?

    Yes. My money is on Zygon!Clara.

    @Wolfweed – Yes. Copyright to a recorded performance rests with the artist, not the BBC. Generally the original contract will cover stuff like opening recaps, flashbacks in the next episode, coming nexts and trailers. It also covers using a clip as an extract for programmes like ‘The Doctors Revisted’ or ‘Ten Greatest Doctor Who Villains’ – there’ll be an already agreed fee for that, which the BBC just pay on use.

    But I don’t think ‘extract’ would cover re-using the performance as a flashback in an entirely different episode, or remastering it to imply a new scene. It depends on whether someone was smart enough to work out in advance that they might want to reuse bits of Mr Dalton’s performance later and negotiate the rights back then. If they ::cough:: Steven Moffat ::cough:: were – well, this episode really has been planned ever since The Eleventh Hour.

    But even if not, it’s not normally a problem, more a matter of agreeing the fee.

  3. @bluesqueakpip

    Yes. Copyright to a recorded performance rests with the artist, not the BBC.

    That’s not really true, but even so there is a tried and trusted principle in law: don’t get in a scrap with anyone who can afford more expensive lawyers than you.

    And the BBC is MUCH cuter about tying up rights than it used to be.

    But even if not, it’s not normally a problem, more a matter of agreeing the fee.

    In advance…

  4. @Craig – thanks for spotting that. i’m sure you’re right (at least that it’s not mcgann, whomever it is), as i’ve now found pics of kate stewart online sporting a trenchcoat. and the hair is close enough! haha…

    i’m very rarely right on speculation, regarding the show, so i won’t be disappointed in that respect. i think my innermost “fanboy” really, really just wanted a casual appearance by mcgann, as i feel it would’ve been the simplest, and easiest, way to tie the BG shows with the AG shows. it is the 50th anniversary of the entire series, after all, and having zero BG doctors on screen feels wrong, somehow. there is another rumour floating about concerning this very subject (which i will not divulge here, of course), and i can only hope that it turns out to be true, instead…

    or, that the silhouetted figure is 8! grrrr, it would have been so easy to write him in! i mean, the zygons aren’t exactly familiar to the casual fan, or the AG fans, for that matter. one brief cameo by 8 wouldn’t de-rail the whole movie…

    oh, moffat. i forgive you, if only because AG who is so wonderful on its own. it can’t be easy being headwriter for the most iconic science fiction tv show… in the history of the world!

    🙂

  5. @pedant –  An actor doesn’t sell their performance to the BBC – they sell them the licence to use the recordings of their performance for an agreed number of years/number of broadcasts. At an agreed fee.

    In advance…

    Well, yeah, in advance. I sort of took that for granted If the BBC use a clip without advance permission and an agreed fee, all hell and the wrath of Equity/SAG’s lawyers would break loose…

    It does depend very much on the laws of the country concerned and the rights you licence in the contract.

  6. @pedent No, I think you got that right. Totally out of her normal character, isn’t it? Then again maybe a differnet Clara or a Zygon.

  7. @geoffers – I’m with you, I’d love to see a McGann appearance, and I’m still not ruling it out. It would be the easiest pg appearance to pull off successfully because he’s had so little screen time that age wouldnt be the issue it would with the other docs.

    if the HurtDoctor is the real D9 then I would imagine at least one out of mcgann and eccleston would be making an appearance to help establish that.

    but if there is to be a surprise d8 appearance, I’d be amazed if we get any hint of it before the episode – look how well they kept Clara’s AoTD role quiet. Think @craig is right, it’s Kate. Or a zygon impersonation of Kate.

  8. @Wolfweed Thanks for the link

    @Bluesqueakpip and @Timeloop too – well it did immediately make me think of Desperate Housewives, with the pink high heels and over-bright green lawn, and that was narrated by somebody dead?

    I’m leaning more and more to the idea (can’t remember whose it was originally – sorry) that the whole Time War sealed in a time loop scenario has derailed the Doctor’s time-line/ created a bubble universe and that it will all need to be corrected, bringing back the Time Lords and setting the time-line “straight”.

  9. Thanks @wolfweed

    I have had a look through the comments there. We are not alone in thinking it is creepy or even confusing. Someone said (and is right) that if you pause the video at 00:07 seconds you will see the Doctor really worried. And kinda looking towards something. Waiting for something? Held hostage by the Zygons so they can change the future?
    Maybe the Zygons are trying to replace the Doctor who is sealed in his own timestream?

    @Juniperfish What exactly makes you think that way?

  10. The first trailer has got nearly 2 million clicks. The second one just now reached 500k. Not bad, though I hope the second one catches up.

  11. @Pedant – DON’T GET ME EXCITED ABOUT TWEETING BIRDS! 🙂

    They recall my all-time, all-important, episode for the red/ blue bow-tie theory – Amy’s Choice. Remember how the tweeting birds signalled the passage from one “reality” to the other?

    @Timeloop

    Well, the spooky new teaser remind me of Desperate Housewives with the dead narrator, thus reminding me of the skeletal dead hand of the Doctor clutching the sonic we glimpsed way back when, thus also linking with the fact that in “this” time-line Eleven is the last Doctor – we have seen his tomb at Trenzalor – he dies. But obviously, that can’t be it – we know Doctor Who is going to continue, so time needs to be altered in a pretty significant way to avoid the “fall of the Eleventh” being the fall of the Doctor per se.

    The teaser also reminded me of a third frightening suburbia (Ledworth being the first, and the world of Desperate Housewives being the second) – that of The Stepford Wives (the original, not the horrible and unnecessary remake) when all the women turned out to have been replaced by robots. That fits in rather nicely with above theories of a Zygon Clara and/or a doppleganger Doctor, which in turn fits in nicely with the idea of two time-streams, two realities, two universes.

     

     

  12. @Juniperfish. He does not die. He cannot die. He visits his grave, where we can see his complete time-stream, including days not yet lived.

    There are two TARDISES(TARDII, TARDIS) present. If he were to die in the big TARDIS, it would create a paradox. Surely the final death of the Doctor is a fixed point in time, which can not be altered. This would leave us only with the suggestion that the Doctor who dies at Trenzalore knew about it. And arranged everything accordingly.

    Unless Moffat changes his future. Which he might, but he doesn’t need to. Don’t you think? Does that make sense to you?

  13. If he were to die in the big TARDIS, it would create a paradox.

    No paradox required. For one thing, there’s that identical crack in the window of Giant TARDIS – newly created by falling onto Trenzalore.

    It would work like this:

    • The Doctor vanishes into his time-stream.
  14. The TARDIS follows Emergency Protocol One and takes stray companions home.
  15. The TARDIS returns to Trenzalore in the forlorn hope that the Doctor has returned. He hasn’t. She ‘lands’ in the spot now occupied by Giant Future TARDIS
  16. The TARDIS stays on Trenzalore until she dies. (sniff. sniff. err – anyone got a hanky?)
  17. @Bluesqueakpip Yes it would create a paradox. He cannot die in the TARDIS of a different, future Doctor. Because then there would be no place for him to die in in the first place.

    You are describing two TARDISES (TARDII, TARDIS – did we decide on something?) on top of each other.

    Much like Rory dying when he has just seen himself die.

  18. @Timeloop and @Juniperfish

    Day of the Daleks. I’d say our current Doctors are inside the loop; in Day of the Daleks there was sort of a giant time-loop between the ‘present’ and the ’22nd Century’ in which an entire history happened.

    The loop was caused by a time traveller from the future coming back to our present to prevent his future ever happening. Instead he makes it happen.

    Soooo… if the Doctor has indeed ‘made’ himself, he can’t ever unmake himself. He can’t change his own future – if it was the knowledge of that future that made ‘The Doctor’. He also can’t change his own past – if that past created what he now is.

    However, it’s just been carefully demonstrated that people from outside the Doctor’s (the GI and Clara) current time line have no problem whatsoever changing the Doctor’s past, future or socks. This is compatible with Day of The Daleks, where the Doctor has no problem at all destroying the ‘loop’ and getting things back to their proper state.

    To summarise: the Doctor can’t change anything. Clara can change anything. There may well be an up-stream version of the Doctor who knows exactly what happened – of course there is – but he can’t alter anything from inside the loop.

  19. @Timeloop – you’re missing the significance of the broken window – I time-check it in #20421.

    The TARDIS we see as a monument is not the TARDIS of a different, future Doctor. It’s his TARDIS. It’s a TARDIS so close in time to the one he landed in that the crack in the window never got fixed.

    All it needs to avoid a paradox is for the TARDIS to leave Trenzalore and return at a point in time slightly earlier than the Smith Doctor and Clara’s arrival.

    This would be better with diagrams… but anyway, it’s time travel. She goes, she comes back – but before she came back the first time.:-?

  20. @Bluesqueakpip Perfectly fine, but what are you referring to?

    Maybe I did not make myself clear. I was just trying to explain that the Doctor simply can’t ever die in his own time-stream because that would create a massive paradox. The very last death of any future Doctor is a fixed point in time for sure, which can never be altered. Which concludes that the current Doctor just can’t die inside that time-stream.

    The Doctor cannot die in a TARDIS that would not be there if he were to die in that time-stream.

    I did not suggest any alteration from the Doctor?

  21. @Bluesqueakpip Who says that the Doctor simply did not fix the window just as he did not fix the chameleon circuit? I don’t think the TARDIS would look like that if she arrived “slightly earlier”. And we know from the one time Rose was evacuated that the TARDIS does not return to the Doctor. That protocol is activated when there is mortal danger and the Doctor wants his companions save.

  22. @Juniperfish

    They recall my all-time, all-important, episode for the red/ blue bow-tie theory – Amy’s Choice. Remember how the tweeting birds signalled the passage from one “reality” to the other?

    It’s almost as if I knew you would bite on that 😉

  23. @Timeloop – maybe I’m not making myself clear, because I’m saying that of course he can die in his own time-stream…

    He probably won’t, but there’s absolutely nothing to cause a paradox. If he dies in his time-stream, then there aren’t ‘two’ TARDIS’s present; only one, at two different time points. See The Big Bang and the two Sonic Screwdrivers.

    The Doctor stepping into his own time stream and not reappearing will cause Emergency Protocol One to kick in. That means TARDIS A (the one Smith arrived in) will de-materialise to take Mme Vastra et al. back.

    Once Mme Vastra et al. are safely delivered, the TARDIS can do what she likes. What she likes is to return to Trenzalore and see if her thief turns up. She returns – but re-materialises at a time-point that is before TARDIS A arrives with the Smith Doctor and Clara.

    She got the landing-point slightly wrong too. Or maybe slightly right, maybe she’s always known where her grave is as well.

    So she is now, apparently, TARDIS B. She’s there on the battlefield, waiting for her younger self and the Doctor to turn up. And while she’s waiting, protecting the Doctor’s time-stream, she dies.

    Now, see giant loopy thing in the theories about the 50th. The Doctor can’t change his own death. But someone else could, someone from outside the loop. To that person there will appear to be two pasts to visit. Past 1 – the time-stream of the ‘Fall of the Eleventh’. This never gets past the Eleventh Doctor, because someone manages to change it. However, since the change wouldn’t have happened if they didn’t know about that possible future, the loop’s always there.

    Think ________O______ with the capital O as everyone zooming happily around an alternate future.

    Past 2 – the time-stream where the Eleventh doesn’t die. Possibly because, as @Blenkinsopthebrave suggests, everything we’ve seen in the last 50 years has been happening inside the capital O. Instead of (say) the just-regenerated Doctor exiting Gallifrey for reasons that were caused by his future self, a bored just-regenerated Time-Lord – who decided Peter Capaldi was a much better look than William Hartnell – and his granddaughter Clara happen upon an unlocked TARDIS and decide to go for a spin…

    … just the one. Honest. They’re going to bring it back. And in the meantime, why is everyone calling him ‘Doctor’? Doctor Who?

    And we then watch the alternate time-stream for the next fifty years.

    The story of The Twelve Doctors, however, will be preserved in The Library – using a back-up copy of the Smith Doctor.

    We’re all just stories in the end.

    🙂

  24. @Bluesqueakpip I really like our discussion so I will stand my ground further:

    1. See my post at 22:05

    2.The GI stated how the Doctor supposedly dies.

    3. The Doctor says in the Pandorica opens that the engines automatically turn off if no one is INSIDE the TARDIS. The TARDIS did fly alone but there was Clara or someone else inside (Hide) or a protocol has been activated. (Blink)

  25. @Timeloop

    Re: your post at 22:05. The protocol the Doctor mentioned was in a situation where it was safer for the TARDIS to shut down after delivering Rose – and safer for her to shut down once River had left.

    The situation we’re talking about here is one where the TARDIS shutting down at anywhere other than Trenzalore would cause a massive, universe destroying paradox.

    The TARDIS has already seen her future self at Trenzalore – she has to return there (see Angels Take Manhattan – she’s just done the equivalent of reading her own gravestone). She’s an intelligent machine built by very smart people (no dress sense, dreadful taste in hats, but smart). I’m pretty sure the protocols available includes fail-safes like ‘but don’t shut down if it’ll cause a universe-destroying paradox’. 🙂

    On a side-note, that does rather hint that if someone caused the TARDIS explosion – they knew an awful lot about them. Like how big a time-paradox they could cope with, what fail-safes would take precedence, how to prevent a shut-down – that sort of stuff.

    Yes, the GI did state how the Doctor dies – and truthfully, it’ll probably turn out that the horrific final battle is tomorrow in the Doctor’s personal time-line. Which is why the window wasn’t fixed. BUT, you’re talking about the GI. Who has many qualities – but I don’t think being strictly truthful is one of them. Or rather, being strictly truthful and thereby telling massive whoppers is one of them.

    I said I’d feed you. I didn’t say who to.

    It was a minor skirmish by the Doctor’s blood-soaked standards. Not exactly the Time War, but enough to finish him. In the end it was too much for the old man.

    Read those lines carefully; where exactly does it say that the Doctor died in a battle? The GI says the Doctor dies in a ‘minor skirmish’. The Doctor’s been brought to a world where a major battle has clearly taken place, and he’s (and we are) carefully encouraged to believe that he died in that battle. The tomb is in the middle of a battlefield graveyard, after all.

    But he didn’t. He died in the ‘minor skirmish’ with the GI. Not in a huge battle with the Daleks, or the Cybermen, but in a run-in with a minor villain he fought four times – twice in the Troughton incarnation and twice in the Smith incarnation.

    The graveyard is misdirection. The battle fought there either has nothing to do with the Doctor, or ‘Trenzalore’ isn’t the planet’s real name. [For example, I think a few people have already suggested that ‘Trenzalore’ looks remarkably like the description of post-apocalyptic Gallifrey. A burning planet, covered in graves. ] He was tricked into coming there, and tricked into believing that his death wasn’t quite yet.

    But it’s his TARDIS that’s the tomb.

  26. Loved the trailer, got me very excited form the trip to the cinema!

    The vortex manipulator made me think of Captain Jack but probably River is more likely.

    My boys both shouted ‘Rory’ when they saw the horse coming out of the TARDIS but the freeze frame seems to disprove that unfortunately.

    The fact that Zygons are so prominent probably means we wont be able to trust anyone and could become a very convenient source for red herrings & twists. More doubles!

    I’m guessing the battle scenes are all on Gallifrey, and that soldier looks a bit like Matt in armour! Could we see a bit of the planet’s non-timelord underclass?

    I’m a bit confused about ‘the moment’, I can’t remember anything about that so will need to refresh my memory. I’m also confused about when this is set from 11’s perspective. I presumed it would be after NotD but after reading the other comments I don’t have a clue!

  27. @Bluesqueakpip okay if in your theory you demand the TARDIS will wander of on herself. That could work out.

    I had another point but it slipped my mind. Something with Hurt.  And the TARDIS. Can’t think of it now.

    I am not convinced but I can respect your view. Quite depending on the TARDIS. Really tired.  Picking this up tomorrow. Night night.

    @thommck the moment does not necessarily mean The Moment.

  28. @thommck The Moment was discussed by the Time Lords in The End of Time. “The Doctor possesses The Moment”. I tried to find a video clip but couldn’t.

    http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/The_Moment

    Stuff in the comics mentioned is probably not canon. But, basically, The Doctor ended the Time War by using ‘The Moment’. Is it the big red button? Only, ahem, time will tell.

  29. @Timeloop @Bluesqueakpip

    Paradoxes n stuff

    NotD

    Sorry, but there is a massive paradox in NotD. The TARDIS knows she shouldn’t go to the co-ordinates (provided by the GI) Eleven’s just given her. She knows that BOTH their graves/remains are there. The paradox of her trying to land there is so strong it causes the crack in the window. Apart from a few minor scuffs the TARDIS’s “skin” is usually impregnable. The TARDIS would normally self-repair damage like that as soon as she was out of the paradox zone. Therefore the big tomb-TARDIS with the cracked window isn’t from far in the future – it’s from NOW (ie at the time of NotD).

    What if –  the destination is selected by the GI for exactly that reason. And he knows where the Doctor’s grave is because he caused/will cause his death (he seems to know all about the “minor skirmish” – possibly because he was there/caused it (after jumping into the timestream). Or possibly the “minor skirmish” is what we see actually happening – ie it’s the tussle that goes on in NotD which is the skirmish which would have resulted in Eleven’s death – had Clara (not foreseen by the GI) – not immediately clambered in after him.  So – has that defeat now been turned into a victory? ie we know Eleven is still alive at the end of NotD, when he should be dead.  Which means that the big (future) TARDIS (and the now aborted timesstream) will disappear out of existence with only the normal (current) one remaining?

    Which would negate the implication of Clara saying she saw “all of you, all 11 faces” as suggesting there’s no more Doctors after 11. There wouldn’t have been (the timestream was Matt’s until he was killed by the GI) – until she jumped into his timestream to be split into the claricles – meaning he didn’t/doesn’t die at Trenzalore.

    (It’s only taken me 6 months to work that out, LOL.  Apologies if someone else has argued it before and I’ve missed it)

    In the Day of the Daleks the paradox is resolved by the Doctor because he isn’t part of the loopy timeline. He’s outside of it. Those directly involved in it can’t change it. So my suggestion is that the Hurt nonDoctor can change what Matt can’t, IF he’s a branch line of the Doctors and not in direct line of incarnations – leading to his redemption and rehabilitation into the line of Doctors. (The finale – a trinity of Doctors – Tennant, Smith and Hurt all come together in almighty explosion of regeneration energy aand produce the paradox-free regeneration-rich Capaldi to go careering footloose and fancy free around the universe 😀  )

    ::brain now tied in knots!::

    night night 🙂

     

     

  30. Having rewatched the trailer several times now I have turned my theory re the 50th on its’ head. In fact right now I think there are cartwheels going on in my brain.

    When Hurt Doctor says he is looking for the Dr TEnnant does not appear to recognise him but Smith does, possibly because for Smith what is happening is his past as well as his present whereas for Tennant it is purely present. This implies that the Hurt Doctor is a future incarnation whom Smith can speak of in past tense because he met him when their paths crossed in the Tennant incarnation.

    I have always liked the idea of the Doctor meeting a future version of himself. That future version could either exist in an aborted time line or be so far in the future that it doesn’t matter than we never encounter that incarnation. It would have been nice for Capaldi to make an appearance in the 50th.

    Not sure how this works after reading @ScaryB excellent post above, as I think there are some very good points make. (still catching up on the “day shifts” contributions.. I am certain that once I have read through a few more mental cartwheels will have occurred.)

    Cheers

    Janette

  31. @craig Thanks for The Moment pointer, that seems likely that what the button is & Bad Wolf is coaching him saying its all going to be OK

    However, if that is the explanation it would mean 9 & 10 always knew Rose’s fate, which puts a bit of a different view on things.

    @timeloop, @bluesqueakpip, @scaryb – I don’t think Trenzalore is in 11’s near future. The crack could just appear every time the TARDIS lands near it’s grave site. I’m more concerned with how they will deal with Clara and the Doctor getting out of the timeline & leave Trenzalore behind. Maybe that is what the prequel will be about?

     

     

  32. So – predictions:

    The 50th will start with the voiceover as in the trailer (not necessarily with exactly the same visuals, but some of them); a lot of what is in the trailer will happen in the first 5 mins.

    We are definitely not still in the timestream – the decaying timestream/scar tissue is no more. It doesn’t exist any more, because Eleven no longer dies at Trenzalore. That’s why it was fast falling in on itself. (Well it kind of does, but only as potential. The Doctor’s travels are still causing scars in time, but at the moment that scar tissue is still embodied in Matt, until he dies, then his body will transmute into the sparkly scar tissue). But the timestream/scar tissue at Trenzalore is now an aborted timeline, which is decaying/has decayed away.  The big tombTARDIS has gone because now it never existed. The devastation we see in the background at Trenzalore is irrelevant – misdirection.

    Amendment to paradox theory (See my post (o1.34) above) – the TARDIS doesn’t want to go to Trenzalore at the time co-ordinates Matt gives her, because she knows that is the DATE, TIME and PLACE of his (and her) death.  (Not sure if that is a paradox or just a date with destiny. Maybe it would cause a paradox if Matt dies there because the actual date/location of the Doctor’s death is somewhere/when else.  So the TARDIS gives Clara a mental jolt causing her to remember things the Doctor thought had been wiped from her memory, so that she will understand that she is “born to save the Doctor”.

    ::waves good morning @JanetteB::

    I like your idea re Hurt nonDoctor could be from far future for Tennant, but past for Matt (need to think that one thro a bit more).

     

  33. I’m afraid I haven’t been eating the ‘Super-Food’ of the week because @ScaryB and @Bluesqueakpip, your Tardis posts last night melted my brain slightly.  🙂  I think I got the Capital O part though – illustrations always help with me.  😉

    I think we need a flip chart and some marker pens for the pub night – we could map out all our predictions (or just play rude Hangman, depending on the alcohol intake!).

  34. @thommck – “However, if that is the explanation it would mean 9 & 10 always knew Rose’s fate, which puts a bit of a different view on things.”

    My immediate thought on reading that was, when Rose is first sucked into the alternate universe and 10 is reaching out, screaming ‘No!’.  If he ‘always knew Rose’s fate’ it doesn’t make that moment less poignant – just differently so.  He’s thinking ‘No!  Not yet!  Not now!’ rather than ‘No!  I can’t believe this is happening!’

    Also, it makes me think about poor River Song – always knowing what’s going to happen in the future is awful.  She has to be a very strong person indeed to know the bad things that are coming, yet still enjoy the current moments she’s living right now.

  35. @pedant It’s almost as if I knew you would bite on that

    Fish bait huh? Wicked you 🙂 <continues to hear tweeting birds in head>

    Re everyone’s wild and wonderful theories above…

    What if Hurt Doctor comes before the 9th Doctor, but he meddled with his own time-stream in order to win the Time War, so he created “The Moment” using something from his future. “The Moment” IS Rose-as-Bad-Wolf (symbolised by the rose sceptre).

    Hurt Doctor creating and using super-Rose as a weapon in the Time War is definitely dark enough to have earned repudiation from the other Doctors. Nine probably had some of Hurt Doctor’s memories blocked (by Hurt Doctor) so he himself met Rose in all innocence (that probably being an essential “ingredient” of Hurt Doctor’s plan).

    We do know Rose-Bad-Wolf can dissolve daleks and time…

    It’s timey-wimey, it’s rather deliciously dark, it’s Moffat messing with Doctor-Rose (and he does love to troll the fans) but in a way which preserves Rose’s heroism and maintains the innocence of her relationship with the Doctor, because he didn’t know at the time. Ten maybe found out near the end…

  36. @janetteB – “the Hurt Doctor is a future incarnation whom Smith can speak of in past tense because he met him when their paths crossed in the Tennant incarnation.

    Nice.  Very concise, and addresses the whole verb tense debate from The Name of the Doctor thread.

    But … not knowing the previous multi-Doctor stories (although having heard lots about them on this site), it still does my head in to think how different incarnations of the same being can be in the same place at the same time.  I know intellectually that it’s all about time not being linear, but a ball of timey-wimey stuff etc.  But then there’s also the whole thing of the Doctor not crossing his own timeline for fear of dire consequences.

    Assuming Moffat, in the 50th, is gunning for the casual viewer, the new viewer, the post-AG viewer, in addition to the life-long fans of the programme … what are people’s predictions for how Moffat will explain to ALL those viewers how 10 and 11 (and indeed, Hurt) can be talking to each other, deriding the ‘redecoration’ etc etc?

    And what are the consequences for 10 – are we now to understand that his entire time as 10, he always knew he’d meet his 11th self (and the Hurt self)?  All that ‘I don’t want to go …’ business upon his regeneration, and 11’s reaction immediately upon regeneration (‘I’m a girl!’)  is now different if viewed through the lens that 10 knew exactly who he was going to turn into.

  37. Just a couple of post espresso morning reflections.

    I am actually surprised that the trailer would seem to indicate that Moffat is drawing on so much RTD (instead of himself) in the 50th. I am totally revising my assumptions/predictions.

    I was explaining to Mrs Blenkinsop what “the Moment” was, and her reply was: “Ah…Omega 13” (from “Galaxy Quest”).

    I think that also captures my…well…ambivelance…about a story by Moffat built on the ideas of RTD.

    I am sure this is but a momentary concern that will be banished by the next espresso.

     

  38. @shazzbot

    slightly off topic, but I wanted to comment about this:

    Also, it makes me think about poor River Song – always knowing what’s going to happen in the future is awful.  She has to be a very strong person indeed to know the bad things that are coming, yet still enjoy the current moments she’s living right now.

    Whilst I’m not the best comment on the tangled River arc, but is there anything that particularly makes you think River is actually aware of her fate ? Of course the Doctor is, which is why I find this comment seems to apply to D11 more than River and tells us something about his psychology (which may or may not have bearing on the River/Susan/Clara point.

    Whilst were speculating about River, we have no idea just how long her “Human TimeLord” nature means in terms of an individual incarnation lifespan. It seems to me that she could literally have lived hundreds of years in her River guise, which (for me anyway) puts her relationship with D11 (and later D’s ?) into a different light.

    cheers

    Nick

  39. @blenkinsopthebrave – if anything’s from the End of Time, we can’t presume that it actually was RTD’s idea. At that point, Steven Moffat was gearing up for lead writer and chatting to RTD about ideas he wanted. He might, for example, asked for ‘The Moment’ to be put in.

    As I recall, ‘The Moment’ is only one line; similarly, while Elizabeth I is a gag in The Shakespeare Code, it wasn’t until End of Time that it was specified when the Tennant Doctor met her.

    I’ve heard vague rumours that the original script breakdown had the Eccleston Doctor in it – Moffat might be using ‘Bad Wolf’ Rose to replace Eccleston.

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