BBC approved Doctor Who series 9 spoilers and trailers

by

This is a blog where we can discuss official BBC production-team approved spoilers. It exists so that those who wish to be utterly unspoilered can avoid them.

Just to be clear, this is only for official info leaked by the BBC that will have been approved by Steven Moffat. Any other spoilers from any other source should be posted in the Spoilers thread found here: http://www.thedoctorwhoforum.com/forums/topic/spoilers-2/

As @Lisa and @fatmaninabox posted yesterday, the BBC has announced that Missy will be back!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/doctorwho/entries/6a78885d-e0b1-49a0-b7e8-cecba867a99f

@Lisa wondered if that is a vortex manipulator that Missy has on her wrist in the video.

NEW TRAILER PUBLISHED 9 JULY 2015

NEW TRAILER PUBLISHED 12 AUGUST 2015

AND A BRIEF TRAILER FOR EPISODE 1. ADDED 5 SEPTEMBER 2015


296 comments

  1. Just a plain odd way to annonuce Missys return. A god tactic to keep the fans occupied while the showrunners figure out what they actually are going to write though.

  2. @todeledo — well, it’s a bit of news that’s surprising absolutely nobody because Moffat and Gomez had already both said Missy was coming back. And while in an ideal world they might want to keep her return under tabs, these days that’s just not going to be possible, especially if location shooting is involved. I’m guessing the announcement is being made now because they’ll be shooting Missy footage imminently and it’s better if they ‘own’ that news story rather than Twitter etc doing so.

    And as to figuring out writing, I think Moffat has gone on record as saying that he’d started writing s9 several months ago. I think it’s fairly safe to say that most of the scripts are in the bag by this stage.

  3. @todeledo and @JimTheFish

    As Jim says, the only real spoiler is which story she’s definitely in. Now that we know who Missy is, which actress is playing her and what her costume is, they could only keep it all under wraps if they filmed at a high-security military base.

    Again.

    And much as the MoD love Doctor Who paying them to use the Welsh training estate, I suspect somebody in the production office reckoned releasing the information was cheaper. 🙂

  4. @todeledo

    “A god tactic” 

    Ah, you must know something, yourself  as God Complex and The Missy Tactic could possibly act as a wave on which to keep those damn show runners focused 🙂

    Blast them to slithereens  🙂

    Regards, purofilion

  5. I’ve been thinking about what is up with that apple? Is it a clue thing like the witch’s apple
    in Snow White? Well the second episode is the ‘Witch’s Familiar’ so maybe? The apple thing is
    so funny but it sure wont keep our Doctor away for a day or ever! BTW – I also wonder about some
    of the other characters that are returning because to me it implies something to do with Galifrey

    @Ichabod— I am a fan of TED talks for ages. I keep track of them thru YT and FB. But I do
    wish they would sub title some of the foreign language presentations.

    @Pedant– Don’t forget to label the boxes! It makes getting your head around the unpacking part
    much easier and last time I moved I used our clothes to wrap up breakables which worked out really good
    [as long as they weren’t filled with spillable stuff]

  6. @Lisa Sorry to be boring and all sort of adult, I hate it myself, but this is a sort-of spoilers blog and neither Ichabod or Pedant have visited or commented.

    I really don’t mind if you make multiple posts. Feel free to post multiple posts all over the forum. But I’d rather you didn’t @ people when they’re not involved in the discussion on a slightly spoilerish blog.

    Apologies, hope you get where I’m coming from.

  7. @Lisa

    I wondered about the apple as well. Is it planned, or did Michelle Gomez just spot it before they did the trailer? David Tennant once remarked that the Master was playing the role of the Devil in the Whoniverse, so are they going for that with Missy as well?

    Having failed with the direct temptation of the Doctor, is she going for tempting Clara – who’ll then corrupt the Doctor? Or is it simply a reference to her having planted Clara on him?

    The Witch’s Familiar. Hmmm. I was rewatching the 50th Anniversary Special over the half-term holiday (which, btw, really stands up well to rewatching) and in it, Clara briefly gets to play the role of ‘Wicked Witch of the Well’.

    Very badly. It’s obviously not her thing. 😉

    But it made me wonder. If Clara is the Magician’s Apprentice, is the Doctor the Witch’s Familiar?

  8. At least planned to the extent of distracting the viewer’s attention from the vortex manipulator she reveals very briefly on her left wrist at about 29 seconds into the video. Presumably this is how she escaped before being zapped by the Brigadier in the graveyard.

  9. @Bluesqueakpip – So I am fascinated by the apple — lol! {this sort of thing happens to me]
    There is all sorts of symbolism for the apple and if this was a deliberate plant then it might
    be associated with possibly the symbol of a rebellious act? Or it could be the Arthur fable? SM
    has been using lots of myths and fables in his recent story telling. In the Arthur fable the name
    Avalon means the isle of apples. Maybe the Doctor is Arthur and Missy is Morgana the witch?
    So does that make the sisterhood of Avalon like the sisterhood of Karn? Hm? no idea
    In any case apples have always been associated with magic in stories. So I think it was
    deliberate. But this is just how my mind works sometimes

  10. To follow up the apple, and on the assumption that SM does nothing without a reason and is happy to draw on movies for inspiration, I wonder if we are in Wizard of Oz territory and the Wicked Witch. Maybe even in Oz the Great and Powerful territory? There the character Theodora becomes the Wicked Witch when she is handed an apple.

  11. @Bluesqueakpip Does this then make Clara Guinevere and Danny as Lancelot if its the Arthur fable?
    There was a sort of conflict between the Doctor and Danny as in the fable. Then is there also a
    Merlin? Who could that be because Arthur and Morgana were Merlin’s students. Also could that make
    the Doctor’s screwdriver a kind of Excalibur? So just now I’m thinking there are some parallel
    features between the fable and the Doctor arc but I’m blaming this all on 1 apple 🙂 and my bonkers
    theorizing usually doesn’t generally add up

  12. @Lisa

    The Doctor is Merlin. That’s been established in the BG story Battlefield. Which was, also, the last appearance in the main series of Nicholas Courtney as the Brigadier. And Kate Stewart is coming back as well…

    Hmmm.

  13. @bluesqueakpip So I’m thinking Kate Stewart would be 1 of the knights of the round table
    and also Danny. There were lots of those knights and the Doctor does have many allies
    that would fit that. On the other hand I think that knights were also lords- like
    in Time lords? But maybe its not essential to be a Time Lord to be 1 of the Doctor’s
    knights?
    Then there is the Shadow architect which can also have implications if she is returning

  14. @CountScarlioni

    Presumably this is how she escaped before being zapped by the Brigadier in the graveyard.

    She’s not wearing the Vortex Manipulator in the graveyard (well, unless it’s up her sleeve. Time Lord sleeves, bigger on the inside). To be honest, I go with Steven Moffat’s comment that the Master always did have a habit of just saying ‘I escaped!’ to explain his I-got-chucked-into-a-volcano-but-I’m-fine-now returns. [He really could’ve taught Darth Vader a thing or two].

    From a characterisation point of view, why should Missy explain how she escaped being zapped? After all, she might need to pull that trick again…

  15. @Pedant I still haven’t seen all of the 6th and 7th Doctor episodes or the 1st and 2nd Doctors
    for that matter. Tonight I will watch Battlefield. I looked it up on Wiki and it seems interesting
    especially in light of the Merlin story and also the fact that is a army from another dimension
    [like Galifrey] Wonder if this is a situation of many threads being pulled together?
    Thanks for telling me about this story!

  16. Haven’t watched the trailer yet but it sounds intriguing. Ha! Being seriously spoiler averse I’d decided to avoid it then Twitter dumped a great big spoiler pic straight into my inbox.

    🙂

    Delighted to see Missy coming back though. Apples… to go with the tangerines in the Xmas special? A sign of dreaming/not dreaming?  Or a symbol of temptation.   Thanks @Lisa for the info about Avalon being the Isle of Apples, didn’t know that. But yes, if it’s Arthurian legends we’re revisiting (and the titles of the 1st 2 episodes could hint at that), as @Bluesqueakpip pointed out the Doctor has been established already as Merlin. (Be interested to know what you think of Battlefield Lisa, it has a mixed response from viewers).

    The Knights of the Round Table having parallels with the Timelords is intriguing – high ideals brought low by human frailties.

    So who is Arthur…?

    I think Danny’s gone for good, but I’m still holding out for the possibility of Orson.

     

  17. @Bluesqueakpip

    From a characterisation point of view, why should Missy explain how she escaped being zapped? After all, she might need to pull that trick again…

    Or the scriptwriters might need to pull that trick again…

    @lisa interesting idea re’ the Knights of the Round Table. It would be nice to have an Arthurian theme again. I hope you are right but I suspect the apple is more just a Wicked Witch reference, more Snow White than Morgana le fay.

    If Lisa is right, then Orson as King Arthur or an entirely new character? Maybe a Time Lord or some such.

    @ScaryB

    I think Danny’s gone for good, but I’m still holding out for the possibility of Orson.

    Me too. That Toy soldier requires an explanation and I thought Orson was definite companion material. (as opposed to poor Danny who carried the weight of too much damage.) I note in the official list of guest actors there is a Dasharn Anderson. A relative of Samuel Anderson’s maybe??

    My SO had a theory that maybe there is a Danny in every one of Clara’s realities. Somehow he also gets splintered across time and space so wherever there is a Claricle there is Danny/Orson. I would add there must also be a toy soldier. I thought it was an interesting idea.

    Cheers

    Janette

     

     

     

  18. @janetteB

    I suspect the apple is more just a Wicked Witch reference, more Snow White than Morgana le fay.

    Yes, that was the reference that occurred to me first; the wicked queen with her half poisoned/half wholesome apple.  Should we start thinking of Clara as Snow White?

    As for Morgan la Fay, I have always assumed that she was derived at fairly long remove from the Morrigan, the shape-shifting Celtic goddess associated, among other things, with war, and believed to hover over battlefields in the form of a crow.  Perhaps I’m mistaken in this, but the Arthurian legends, stripped of High Medieval embellishments, are Celtic British in origin.  Missy is no shape-shifter, but in some other ways she fits the bill.

  19. @Mudlark

    the Arthurian legends, stripped of High Medieval embellishments, are Celtic British in origin

    You certainly find Arthur and his knights in the Mabinogion. However, they’re very different stories from the strand that developed from Geoffrey of Monmouth. And while my Welsh isn’t exactly brilliant, ‘Morgan’ and ‘Morrigan’ aren’t from the same root word. Morgan is from ‘mor’, sea. Morrigan is from Moro and probably means nightmare. Maybe.

    However, there’s no reason to think Steven Moffat might not decide to riff off The Morrigan, the Serpent and the Wicked Witch in Snow White, just as I’m fairly sure RTD riffed off both Satan and Shiva (in his destroyer aspect, not the creator one) for the John Simm Master.

  20. @Bluesqueakpip

    Yes; once I really thought about it I began to suspect that linking Morgan la Fay and the Morrigan was a bit of a stretch, given that the Morrigan belongs to the Irish tradition (The Tain etc.) and the etymology was likely to be different.  I have seen various different alternative meanings of Morrigan – ‘great queen’ or ‘phantom/nightmare queen’ being the most likely. The ‘sea’ root has also been suggested, but I think that is generally discounted.

    On the other hand, there is archaeological evidence and, in the case of Highland Scotland, linguistic evidence also, of links between Ireland and western Britain from prehistoric times onwards, and there is both archaeological and documentary evidence that people from the south of Ireland migrated to Dyfed and Cornwall in the fifth century CE and settled there, so there could be a few Irish threads in the tapestry of the Arthurian legend, as well as Welsh, Cornish, Breton and North British; who knows (nose) .

    Whether or not we are on the mark, it is fun to try to spot the possible sources and inspiration for stories in Doctor Who, and you are right that Steven Moffatt could be – and probably is – referencing all that you mention above, and more. Any story teller draws on a vast tradition of earlier tales and themes and (to extend the tapestry metaphor) is free to reweave the strands of his or her choosing into something new and strange, and Moffatt is a master at that.

     

  21. @Mudlark I think that all of the Missy/Master regenerations could count as shape shifting.
    There is an 8th Doctor novel called ‘Shadows of Avalon’ in which the Galifreyans created
    a place called Avalon. But I’m not suggesting it has any significance. I just tend to
    sometimes get obsessed with a notion from time to time. 🙂

  22. @Bluesqueakpip

    Continuing on the subject of the origins of the Arthurian legend (and I realise that I am beginning to stray well off-topic here, but it is a subject which I find fascinating); the problem is that the few early tales and passing references which survive in the Mabinogion and elsewhere are undoubtedly chance survivors of a much larger and richer oral tradition which was never written down or, if it was, has not survived.  So to what extent was Geoffrey of Monmouth drawing on that otherwise largely lost tradition, and to what extent did he himself expand and embroider it?

     

  23. @lisa

     I think that all of the Missy/Master regenerations could count as shape shifting

    Indeed! as could all Timelord regenerations, though not, I think, to the extent of regenerating as a crow 🙂

    I wasn’t aware of the novel you refer to but, as you and several others have already observed upthread, there have been recurrent Arthurian references in Who over the years.  Speaking for myself, I’m a purist, and prefer my Arthur and Merlin to be rooted in their fifth and sixth century origins, though I acknowledge the glamour of some of the later accretions (using ‘glamour’ in its original sense, with connotations of enchantment or spell binding).  But Timelords, of course, had access to the earth of the fifth and sixth centuries if they so wished!

  24. Good ol’ day can’t wait for another Season of the Doctor, I don’t know that if it’s possible though but see the ring Missy wore, I’m still not quite sure yet, which one, but it is there, on the both of her hand, I think it’s the left one, ( perspective right ), is the ring that was used by the Cult of the Master ( Disciples of Saxon, or so they were called ), was used to not “regenerate” but to resurrect the Master, I’ve look in to the detail through the last 3 Master regeneration, PYana, HSaxon and Missy, and I believe that they used it to resurrect it.

    The theory goes, Master CAN die and be resurrected, it is possible. Saxon didn’t want to regenerate at the palms of the Doctor, and therefore he died, but then he was resurrected. This also a possibility that can happen to Missy, and to quote Martha Jones in her confrontation with The Master : A gun in four parts, scattered across the world. I mean come on, did you really believe that?

    Cheers,

    Nick

    PS: Happy Lunar Year to all of us, may the year of the Goat bring us meat and milk. 🙂

  25. @Nick1235 – On your idea about resurrecting the master– this reminded me that during the
    4th and 8th Doctors there were stories around a renegade time lord known as Morbius. He tried
    to resurrect himself but he was thwarted with the help of the Sisters of Karn. They had a lot
    of back stories with Morbius and now one of these sisters seems to be returning into the series.
    It appears to me that SM is bringing back threads from the past series and Morbius I think
    is still one of those lingering threads too.

  26. Additionally, @CountScarlioni — so why a Jagaroth? this was a 4th doctor episode
    the “City of Death”
    Scaroth the Jacaroth and his time vortex experiments
    the vortex was created by the time lords

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

    I think this suggests the Capdoc is searching for Galifrey is the first episodes?
    Also read in wiki info about the Master/Missy having had many experiences about the
    time vortex too

  27. Is it a possibility that Galifrey and the time lords have splintered across space and
    time in the time vortex in the same way that the Jagaroth have? Of course this is all
    based on only 1 leaked tweeted pic — any one else have any conjectures?? need a lot
    nore leaks !! just saying…

  28. @Bluesqueakpip – I thought this was a spoiler place too? and that this would be the right
    place since this was where I saw all those Count Scarlioni posts but Ill just use the other
    place from now on for everything regardless of what it is

  29. @Lisa

    In reply to Lisa, I use CountScarlioni because I love `City of Death,’ with, it seems to me, great cliffhangers, Tom Baker in top form and Julian Glover delivering a wonderfully villainous performance as the last of the Jagaroth. I’ve used CountScarlioni since I joined the forum about 16 months ago. It’s definitely not an attempt to offer thoughts on the forthcoming series! (Knowledge of `City of Death’ though was certainly handy in working out that the Impossible Girl arc in Series 7 was the result of Clara being split along the Doctor’s time line in the manner of the splitting of Scaroth).

    @Nick1235

    @Lisa

    O.K., back to some earlier posts on the Master/Missy….

    As I understand it, in 2007 the Master regenerated, then in 2009 he was resuscitated/resurrected as he did not actually regenerate. Before Missy turned up, the Master was last seen in a blur of bright white light along with the Time Lords. As far as I can tell, we did not get an explanation in Dark Water or Death in Heaven of how the Master (or had the Master already regenerated into Missy?) escaped from Gallifrey. Or did I miss it?

    We know Missy is “unzappable” but we `saw’ her zapped in Death in Heaven. So, Missy will need to be  resuscitated/resurrected or she was not actually zapped and she escaped the Brigadier’s blast. SM could get away with putting Missy on stage with no explanation as it was years since we’d seen the Master.  But in story terms, could SM really get away with zapping Missy at the end of Death in Heaven, skipping the Last Christmas, and then bringing Missy back in the very next story with no explanation at all, however feeble??

    As to the possibility of not actually being zapped, @Lisa‘s point that the vortex manipulator seen on Missy’s wrist in the recent video is not visible in the graveyard scene in Death in Heaven is well taken.  What though about the teleportation system Missy used earlier in the episode? Is that a possibility?

  30. @CountScarlioni

    No explanation was given as to how Missy escaped from Gallifrey/The Time War but a possible escape route would be through the crack at Trenzalore.

    While the Papal Mainframe was the first ship to arrive at Trenzalore, the ‘question’ had already been broadcasting since the dawn of the universe. Missy would have had ample time to get through un-observed. Now, the Time Lords were hesitant to come through until they knew…

    a) where it led to
    b) was it safe?

    … but I doubt Missy would have been so cautious and would have risked it just to escape the Time War. Remember that The Master had previously said that he ran away as soon as he’d been resurrected. Chances are Missy would do the same.

    As to Missy’s escape at the end of Death In Heaven – keep a close eye on her umbrella. She descends gracefully from the sky and then casually tosses it behind a gravestone – the same one that later, when she realizes that it’s ‘game over’, she quickly runs and stands by.

    Is it really just an umbrella or a TARDIS with a fully functioning Chameleon Circuit?

  31. @lisa — Yeah, e.g. Morbius, those “threads of the past” would fit very well with “many mistakes — time I did something about that”, wouldn’t it?  I really want more pay-off from that line than “I’m not your boyfriend”, particularly since I think the collision of fixing mistakes and the complexities and constraints of time/space travel could be extremely rich ground for new stories with depth and resonance as well as wit and flash-bang.

    @FatManInABox — The Scary Poppins umbrella as a Tardis?  I love it!

    As for Magicians, Witches, Apprentices, and Familiars, I think I see the Doctor as Missy-Witch’s unwilling “familiar”, as they are old enemies and older friends.  On the other hand, if M/M is the Witch and CapDoc is the Magician, Clara could well be the monkey in the middle, pulled toward both being one’s Apprentice and the other’s Familiar.

  32. @ichabod – I think I suggested (probably in the Death in Heaven discussion) that with Clara having been inveigled into the TARDIS by Missy, and then discovering that she caused herself to be born to save the Doctor … her ‘Space parents’ are essentially the Doctor and Missy. 😈

    Space Dad and Space Evil Mother (both the Doctor and Missy refer to her as ‘My Clara’). The question is, which ‘parent’ will Clara ultimately take after?

  33. @Bluesqueakpip — Yes, there’s a fairly delectable symmetry there . . . would Clara get kidnapped and forced to revisit the Doctor’s errors by and with M/M?!  While he’s trying to rescue Clara, and also fix mistakes?  Holy moly!  Okay, look, these people are all high-strung and hotter than firecrackers.  If we’re going to have them in *any* configuration for any solid length of time, I see a really, really important job opening in Series 9: somebody has got to be the steady one, the holder of the through-liine, the cautious but capable one that has a chance of keeping the others from just igniting one long continuous explosion.

    Me, I nominate — Perkins the engineer, from MotOE.

    Seriously; I really *liked* that character, and I’d love to see a sensible, skilled, but also imaginative working man on the scene at least part of the time, a character that reminds me of Whusisname from Neville Schute’s wonderful novel, “The Trustee From the Toolroom”.  An old book, and a good one, celebrating the courage and capacity of the solid guy who rises to a great and dangerous challenge for reasons of loyalty, and when the job is done, retires quietly to his “real” life again, hobbling in the garage.  A Wilf, if you will, but somewhat younger, and bringing down-to-earth tech skills and knowledge to the party, along with steadiness.  And I’m not the only one who spotted Frank Skinner’s character as something special either,  as many comments on MotOE showed.

    Here’s my reasoning: no mere human can measure up to the Doctor in intellectual quickness, depth and breadth of experience, or sheer nervous energy (and probably a dab of manic-depressiveness in there too).  But a steady man (or woman — Perkins suggests himself because he’s already shown up) with dogged common sense and a slower but perhaps sometimes truer talent for insight and invention seems to me to be really crucial to keeping the trio of headstrong (and semi-magical) Clara, semi-Wild Man CapDoc, and Totally Loopy M/M from flying off the rails together into hysterical chaos.

    Thinking about this while making a huge pot of chili stew — we’re liable to be snowed in here tomorrow, so . . . best to be prepared.  But you don’t want *too much* hot chili powder or curry powder, or you dish will be inedible . . . some salt of the earth could bring a delectable note of strength and practicality to the mix . . .

     

  34. @ichobod I like the suggestion of the engineer as the “grounding” character. I too certainly hope that he will be a recurring regular. (I suspect the actor would not want to commit the time to being a full time Tardis traveller.)

    I used to love Neville Schute novels when I was young. I am not familiar with “The Trustee from the Toolroom” but many of his novels did feature “everyman” type characters. He really is a forgotten writer now which is a shame.

    Cheers

    Janette

  35. @janetteB — I didn’t notice bad proofing, except in my post above, which the self-correct here wrote “hobbling in his garage” from my neologism, “hobby-ing in his garage”.  That’ll teach me to make words up.  Schute was good, but unless you’re Shakespeare you end up forgotten sooner or later anyway (remember Thornton Wilder’s novels?  John Masters’ wonderful books about colonial India?  Oh, a ton of fine tale-spinning, all faded into the sunset now).  And even Shakespeare had his dimming-out periods, but was re-discovered a couple of times, I think.  You go into this “art is long” business with humble expectations, or you burn up like a comet out of sheer envy and desperation, or with a hollow victory that lasts, with luck, a generation, and then blip, your work slips beneath the waves.  That’s nothing, compared to the ephemeral achievements of dancers, say, or athletes.

    I’d take Skinner’s Perkins on an intermittent basis in an eye-blink.  Maybe I’ve just had my fill of pretty young thing companions for a while . . .   Quasimodo would make a nice change.  I read someplace that Skinner would have instantly snapped up a steady gig on DW, but maybe that was just the usual weightless spume that flies off such conversations.  Still, Don Quixote needs his Sancho Panza, and Clara is no longer fitted to that role.  The spot is open . . .

     

  36. I’ve been thinking about the title ‘Witches familiar’. Could this mean if Missy turns out to be
    the witch does it imply she gets a companion and if so I want Seb back please! Also if Kate is
    coming back is it because UNIT has the Nethersphere? We still don’t know the purpose of why Missy
    collected all those people into the Nethersphere either. A rather large dangling bit of thread.

  37. I’d be happy for more Seb, myself.  As for the Nethersphere, I thought M/M shoehorned them all into CyberSuits, no?  In which case the they’ve all burnt up (she had them salted all over the world, remember, which means lots of them; and presumably all of them joined the mass ascent under CyberDan’s command).  I think this conclusion is supported by what Danny told Clara while delivering Afghan Boy to her care — that the Nethersphere was dying (because, I assumed, it had been emptied of Cybermen and Missy hadn’t shown up at that point to do something to keep it going).

  38. @Ichabod – I thought all the Cybersuits came from the graves/cemetaries? Really not sure if
    the nethersphere still doesn’t have a lot of the digitized lives even though it was shut down. Its
    a machine so I thought that it was possible to ‘resurrect’ it. Maybe – I’m still curious about
    that Dr. Skarosa dude as well. It all fascinates me!

  39. @Ichabod @lisa I thought it was both -the cyber ‘rain’ ‘infected’ the graves -so the Matrix contained the essence of the Cyberman-type which was used to create ‘death’ from graves

    – well, metaphoric death, as in  death to humans or any planet of ‘people’ the Dr wished, which presumably, now that I think about it, wouldn’t be earth as he wouldn’t need an army -actually an army of any kind for any reason, which was also a metaphor….I don’t want to expl all that, but you know what I mean. About the first bit anyway?

    Yeah, I’ll go for a walk.

  40. @Lisa, @Purofilion, @Ichabod
    The nano-wotsits in the Cyber rain took any remaining DNA from the remains in the grave. Skeletons, probably.

    They then built a cyber-person from that. However, as we saw in The Empty Child, if you don’t have an exact repair pattern then what you might get is a living ‘shell’. There’s no mind left to go inside the living body.

    So the Matrix downloaded virtual personalities to control the shells. However, in the Whoniverse as imagined by Moffat, virtual personalities are tricky things. Their ‘soul’ might decide to fight their ‘programming’.

    I agree with @Lisa – there’s no particular computing reason that the virtual personalities in the Matrix should have been wiped on download (though the Matrix versions may have been deactivated to avoid confusion), and there’s no particular reason that the backups (with memory update) can’t be reactivated and re-downloaded after a cyber-body has been destroyed. I think that it’s just a case of Missy not choosing to keep the Matrix going after she’s lost that particular game.

    Entirely in character, and saves the writer the problem of what to do with all those deceased characters who are now living virtual lives.

    However, I do wonder if Cyber-Brig is still around. 🙂

  41. @Bluesqueakpip @Ichabod @Purofilion Hi ! So- Cyber Bing and Dr.Skarosa – Hm? I’m recalling in the
    ‘End of TIme” Davros figured out how to put all those planets 1 sec out of time – remember tiny pocket
    of time? Is that in any possible way linked to that Dr. Skarosa[Davros?] and possibly with why he is
    ‘resurrected’ and hanging out with Missy? Galifrey in a tiny pocket of time maybe? More reaching
    too far probably. Would be so interesting if Cyber Bing and Dr. Skarosa were to find themselves at odds
    again too. Geeze-louise my imagination is running away but they have been sort of at odds previously.
    So at this point just wondering if we aren’t done with the nethersphere in spite of UNIT having it
    Missy still might some control control of it?

  42. @Lisa

    Dr. Skarosa[Davros?] and possibly with why he is ‘resurrected’ and hanging out with Missy?

    It depends whether Dr Skarosa is a producers joke/clue to us, or whether it’s an in-story/in-character joke from Missy to the Doctor.

    In Last of the Time Lords, the Master called his fake aliens ‘Toclafane’ from a Gallifreyan fairytale. Unfortunately it wasn’t a Gallifreyan fairy-tale that the gentle viewers could possibly have heard of, since it first appeared in that story.

    So it may just be that Moffat’s repeated the idea that the Master/Missy is using names for his/her fakes that the Doctor should recognise as being from the history of Gallifrey – but this time, picked a name we fans can also recognise.

    If we get reminders of Dr Skarosa in S8, I’ll take it as a clue. 😉

Comments are closed.