BBC Approved Spoilers

[jphamlore @jphamlore]

@ichabod: I wonder if a decision on what the next female companion should be like has already been made.  It seems to me the show lately has been going out of its way to reject candidates who have any technical competency from training.  Osgood is killed, O’Donnell is killed, the engineer from Mummy on the Orient Express rejects the Doctor’s offer.  I suppose the feeling is that a technical person would argue with the Doctor on technical matters which would be boring to a general audience; whereas a nontechnical person would argue on the limits of using technology, why technology can’t be used to help people at that moment.

In theory Clara is supposed to be this innate super-hacker but that seems to have been played down considerably in recent episodes.  In fact I think someone watching Clara who has never seen her before in her earlier appearances would have no idea how potentially good Clara can be at hacking.

The transition from Clara I think will be difficult.  I would have thought a year could be spent using guest companions like a revived Osgood, Kate Stewart, and even Missy.  I wonder what the reaction would be if they instead tried to go with a new Tegan with no technical qualifications whatsoever.

 

 

 

[ichabod @ichabod]

@jphamlore  In fact I think someone watching Clara who has never seen her before in her earlier appearances would have no idea how potentially good Clara can be at hacking.  The transition from Clara I think will be difficult. I would have thought a year could be spent using guest companions like a revived Osgood, Kate Stewart, and even Missy. I wonder what the reaction would be if they instead tried to go with a new Tegan with no technical qualifications whatsoever.

Clara’s tech-savvy — from her scene with Kate at UNIT in TMA, I think  you’d get a sense of tech familiarity (and the motorcycle riders I’ve known have all been tech enough to take their bikes apart to fix and clean them, and here’s Clara on her bike . . .

A no-tech companion seems like a poor choice to me at this point; the Doctor would have to explain things all the time, lots of technobabble, or else just hand-waving and gosh-that-looks-like-magic stuff.   And if the Doctor is busy explaining to a female companion, lots of complaints about the competent male having to explain tech stuff to tech-ignorant female.  With frequent charges that he’s sexist laid against Steven Moffat, I don’t think he needs *that* on his plate.

I’m inclined to favor the idea of taking Rigsy on and keeping him on for a while — he could start out as basically tech-savvy in the way most western young people are these days, eager to learn to complement his art skills (such as we’ve seen them to be in “Flatline” plus whatever expansion the writers want to give him).  Of course then they run the risk of being called racist, given a young black man learning from an older, much more powerful white alien . . .  it’s tough navigating the wilds of modern sensitivities about long-standing imbalances.

[lisa @lisa]

I’ve been thinking tpday about the BBC released pictures from the next episode and in particular
the wings on Odin’s helmet reminded me of the helmet of Mercury and I found this which speaks
to a relationship:
https://books.google.com/books?id=ZHnXAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA49&lpg=PA49&dq=what+is+the+connection+between+mercury+and+odin&source=bl&ots=RRLrci-BZ-&sig=tHRr8PIFP5GeVRJjKyd9fSVtHyw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CFsQ6AEwCWoVChMIn9652pzDyAIVFu1jCh2mJA9e#v=onepage&q=what%20is%20the%20connection%20between%20mercury%20and%20odin&f=false

So then I thought of the snakes in the first 2 parter and the wings coming up in the third 2 parter but
I haven’t been able to think up what could be the staff from our most recent 2 parter which if we
assemble together make up the Caduceus ( the symbol of 2 snakes a rod and wings) which was the weapon
of Mercury and represents the medical profession (Doctors)

Just wondering a bit about more odd crossover connections. Its a very twisty journey… 🙂

[lisa @lisa]

2Purofilion But it’s about those BBC released pictures I posted?
I don’t know where else to post 🙁 What to do Puro??

[Anonymous @]

@lisa

Do not worry! Not at all! It was a discussion you, me and a third party -Mr Jim the tulip were having over Maisie Williams on the Before the Flood thread.

Craig was fine about it and said “hate to say this but keep discussions about next week (and probably famous actresses -I actually don’t know her at all!) on the Spoiler page or the thread to do with ‘next week’s trailer’ only”

He was sorry about it -didn’t want to upset us, but asks us to understand that some people are spoiler averse and don’t want to know anything about M. Williams? I think you may have said something in response to Mr Tulip who may not know all the rules (and we have very, very few -because this is not one of those sites where there are endless expectations -it’s all fine -do not fear. We are loved and all will endure!)

Kindest, Puro x

[Anonymous @]

@lisa the above post looks fantastic! These BBC Approved Spoilers are fine and great by the way -it was just the stuff on Before the Flood where we happened to have a late night discussion on M. Williams character and Mr Tulip had understandably joined in.

All is well. Craig was, as usual, a gent, and totally fine about it all. He always is. Little errors happen and he’s not about barking at people.

I think some people don’t even watch the trailer for next week. They want to be completely surprised although in Oz, it’s really hard to miss it, as they put on several trailers each day around the national news time!

[PaperMoon @papermoon]

I wonder if The Woman Who Lived will have taken place before The Girl Who Died, in a timey-wimey way? The Doctor’s always saying humans are so linear in their thinking.

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

@papermoon

A really interesting idea!

[PaperMoon @papermoon]

@blenkensopthebrave it would be interesting, I wonder if the bootstrap theory will continue to be a thing this season?

[Craig @craig Emperor]

And they’re now here – well, on YouTube.

Here’s the “Next Time” trailer

And here’s the official TV trailer, which is completely different and has a lot more Maisie…

[Craig @craig Emperor]

Oh, and I forgot to point out that there doesn’t seem to be any sign of Clara, but that may just be Moffat teasing us.

In this one the Doctor does seem to be the companion, or sidekick.

[PaperMoon @papermoon]

Hmm, I wonder why no one has been posting here.

It seems as if the sonic sunnies are back, and I still think they are related to the Doctor seeing something beyond what we can normally see. The theme of storytelling has been around for a while and now we have Ashildr the storyteller, is Clara, the English teacher, a storyteller, too? I also wonder if Gallifrey is exactly where it should be, and it’s the Doctor and Clara who are in a different place.

[nerys @nerys]

OK, am I the only one who watched the preview for next week and went “Squeeee!” at a returning familiar face? (Not sure I can say who it is, but said familiar face and name were clearly revealed in the preview.)

[Ozitenor @ozitenor]

@nerys – I literally said “squeeeeee” out aloud and started clapping.

[nerys @nerys]

I figured I wasn’t alone!

[Craig @craig Emperor]

And here are the two trailers for next week – the “Next Time” trailer and the official TV trailer.

[Anonymous @]

@craig

thank you for that! Good to see the Hon. Nicola Murray (or her Zygon twin, Rebecca Front) ‘fronting’ up with The Doctor (and his twin, Tucker)

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

“Any living things…could turn into a Zygon and kill me”

No resonance with current paranoias there. Nope. None at all.

[janetteB @janetteb]

My crazy bonkers theory for the week is that Clara is a Zygon. The Doctor knows hence the funny looks he keeps giving her. It would also explain the lying to Danny and her ability to ape the Doctor. As I said, crazy and bonkers. I don’t for a moment expect that it is going to be so. I do however fear that this two parter will be Clara’s final story.

I have a soft spot for Zygon’s. They were the first ever Doctor Who monsters I encountered. Terror of the Zygons being the first Doctor Who story I ever watched.

Cheers

Janette

[jphamlore @jphamlore]

I had the impression the Zygon original planet was destroyed because of the Time War.  Their presence on Earth is the fault of the Time Lords and maybe even the Doctor.

Also I thought the Zygons don’t even like current Earth, unless they have found more hospitable climate say closer to the Earth’s core.  They wanted to do some extensive terra(Zygon?)forming back in Terror of the Zygons.

All indications are the Zygons shouldn’t even be on Earth, so therefore I can with certainty predict some kind of pretext will be invented to explain why they have to remain.  But really they should go and terraform Venus.

[Anonymous @]

@janetteb I totally agree! I was thinking this same thing, last night

[ichabod @ichabod]

Thinking about Clara’s end. I think might be spoiler-y, so I’ve put it here instead of on The Woman Who Lived where we were talking about Clara’s departure:

Consider that bit of trailer with the Doctor standing in a very tall space with golden light streaming down, and then the close up — at the top of this page. I think that’s from Heaven Sent.  His hair is cut shorter.  He’s dressed “formally” in what might be his power suit, but maybe just a suit, and he looks strung tight as a longbow.  You know when you cut your hair short, in many cultures around the world?  When you’re in mourning.  I’m thinking that after lethal events in Face the Raven, the Doctor goes somewhere special, a place of power that he might ordinarily have nothing to do with, to plead a very special case . . . probably unsuccessfully, considering that there’s a following episode called Hell Bent.

Just doodling lethally, here . . .

 

[janetteB @janetteb]

Just re watched The Terror of the Zygons and I was struck by the fact that they say their original planet was destroyed by solar activity or something of  that ilk. (It was two days ago and they were a tad vague about it.) It fits however with the later claim that that their planet was destroyed in the Time War. I also noted that the current Zygon costumes are somewhat improved and the Loch Ness monster has to be one of the worst attempts in the show’s history. And the ARSE fans complain about electric eels. I was also surprised by what was essentially a reference to Global Warming, in the 70s. The Doctor objects to the planet’s reliance on oil and suggests that it is time we moved on.

@ichabod  I too suspect that this two parter will see the departure of Clara.

Cheers

Janette

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@doctordoctorwho

Is this ‘BBC Approved’? Because there’s kind of a big hint about that in the title of the forum.

If you want to natter about ‘my mate saw something while they were filming,’ that’s not BBC Approved. BBC Approved means ‘it’s on the website, or it’s a cast/crew interview.’

You need the Spoilers forum.

@phaseshift or @fatmaninabox or @jimthefish, can you do your deletion stuff? Ta

[Anonymous @]

@bluesqueakpip – have moved that post to the Spoilers thread.

@rorysmith – as you replied to @doctordoctorwho ‘s post, I’ve moved your post as well just to maintain continuity.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

Teaserette from the Beeb:

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

So the Doctor’s alive, some version of Kate is alive, but we’re only seeing Jenna Coleman play Zygon Bonnie. They are teasing us, aren’t they?

[jphamlore @jphamlore]

I refuse to believe the human Osgood would have ever agreed to have created a device to have threatened humanity.   Martha Jones’ willingness to even consider using the Osterhagen Key is my in-story reason why she is no longer worthy of appearing at the Doctor’s side.  An Osgood who would do such a thing is no longer worthy of ever stepping in the Doctor’s Tardis as a companion, the one thing Osgood wants.

I’m going to guess this Osgood box will simply strip the Zygons of their ability to hide among humans.  Then we, humans and Zygons, will be face to face and will have to simply deal, one way or another, with living beside each other in openness forever.  This is a sort of Br’er rabbit and the brier patch:  Can’t force the younger Zygons to give up an ability that is their birthright, but if their leader chooses to do so and grant what they have stated is their deepest wish, to live in the open as they are, then so be it.

[CountScarlioni @countscarlioni]

Is anyone else confused by this image released yesterday by the BBC from The Zygon Inversion? Is this Tardis blue box really the Osgood box we saw at the start of The Zygon Invasion? It was difficult to see the designs on the box on the desk in front of the Osgoods but it did look distinctly brown. Are there two boxes in play??    

[geoffers @geoffers]

@countscarlioni

it is brownish in ‘the zygon invasion.’ perhaps there are two osgood boxes… one for each osgood, with opposite properties?

or (more likely), look at the lights on the floor, and the lit surface of the table, in that pic. perhaps the lighting in that room (the black archive?) just gives everything a blueish tint?

[lisa @lisa]

Oh wow! Cant wait for Saturday after seeing this!

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

@lisa. Thanks for uploading

“I’ll see what I can do.”

So Clara has the ability to mentally force the zygon Clara to reveal her form…

OK, this seems to give Clara powers I was previously unaware of…hmm.

[toinfinityandbepond @toinfinityandbepond]

Is Osgood’s box the new Amy’s crack?

[toinfinityandbepond @toinfinityandbepond]

@blenkinsopthebrave,  Oswin  had the mental strength to defeat the daleks

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

@toinfinityandbepond

My recollection was that it was her superior computer skills that her allowed her to hack the Daleks so that they would forget the Doctor, rather than her mental strength. Of course, it’s been a while since I saw “Asylum of the Daleks”.

 

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

OK, since I do not believe Clara has hitherto shown exceptional mental powers, is this clip suggesting that she may be…a hybrid? Is this what Osgood meant when she refused to answer the Doctor’s question about which one she was…because the creation of the zygon copy means that the original inherits the powers of the zygon, and they are, to all intents and purposes, identical?

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@blenkinsopthebrave

It was definitely mental strength in Asylum, and also in The Snowmen (remember how the Snowmen did a speed melt when Clara imagined them melting?). She runs through the Well in Hide, and it starts to smoke then turns into a full on portal. Probably other things as well, but that’s off the top of my head.

Osgood and Osgood does suggest that there’s a mental link between a Zygon twin and their original – and it’s a long established thing in AG Who that a door once opened can be travelled through in both directions. So if Zygon Bonnie can wipe Clara’s mind, Clara can stomp right in to Zygon Bonnie’s mind.

This might explain why Missy used lies, trickery and outright persuasion to get Clara to do what she wanted instead of using the Master’s rather well known powers of hypnotism. She didn’t want anything like a mental link with Clara.

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

@bluesqueakpip

All good points. Yet there is still something that makes me hesitate. Perhaps because I tend to separate the pre-Claricle Clara from the post-Claricle Clara. And perhaps because if she is bubbling with all these powers, why aren’t they in evidence more often?

I am also still pondering the significance of River’s line about maintaining a mental link with Clara.

[CountScarlioni @countscarlioni]

@geoffers     Here is a close-up and slightly different shot of the box (in this one, Bonnie’s coat is buttoned up a bit differently to the earlier one). If we are dealing with one box it seems to be able to change colour. But I like your idea of a box for each of the Osgoods!

 

[Anonymous @]

@lisa OMG that is amazing! What a wonderful little peek into the next episode -I hadn’t even seen the one Mr P had placed up a few days ago with Bonnie saying, in a slightly whiney voice “I don’t care”.

Not bad at all.

Please Harness: make it a good one. It has to be really, really good, otherwise, God knows, knowing the BTL’s, there’ll be death threats for Harness and Moffat.

[Anonymous @]

@lisa love those words: “there’s nothing better on the other side.”

Not, “the other channels” but the “other side”.

Very interesting -more careful choice of words bringing on the debate about ‘what IS on the other side, after death’? Or, is there another universe? Some other place/plan/E -space again??

Very reminiscent of Dark Water -which terrified the hell out of the whole family I might add.

[lisa @lisa]

@purofilion I keep thinking about her voice mail when she says “I’m either in the tube
or in space” and then she ends up in a tv ‘tube’. Is that a thing?
Yes, the other side of what?

[Anonymous @]

@lisa yes, that’s interesting. I’m so used to ‘the tube’ being the train that I didn’t think of anything else. I suspect you guys say The Subway? We just refer to ‘the train’ in Oz. Or the tram -but there’s few of those left (new ones are appearing at the Gold Coast, however, right outside our fav hotel but I suspect it’s to take tourists to shopping areas and worse, the bloody casinos, erupting all over the place. Ah, I remember when the Gold Coast was a few hotels, crap shop, great restaurants and miles of unspoiled beaches. Well, that’s evolution for ya).

But the ‘other side’ is interesting. I recall in Kill the Moon when the Capt was about to press the Red Button for Destruction that she said “see you on the other side” and we know she was referring to that unknowable place -after death. Seems Moffat likes to play around with concepts of Death and After Death quite a bit in his episodes -even in Silence in the Library where River was reunited with her colleagues including Miss Evangelista and also in Voyage of the Damned, as Astrid Peth goes onto live amongst the stars, as it were.

[lisa @lisa]

@purofilion There are 2 Osgoods and they both seem to be reasonable and level headed.
They both also call themselves Osgood. Then we get 2 Clara’s but 1 calls herself Bonnie
and is a dark copy of the original. Now is that because of the Zygon or could that be
from something that’s been lurking inside of Clara and shows up in the Bonnie version?
Interesting thing about that clip is that I’m not sure if Clara is really in her flat or
if she is dreaming that scene in her head while she’s trapped in the pod? Maybe its her
way of trying to break out of the pod?
I’m probably just stretching things again.

[janetteB @janetteb]

@lisa That is a lovely clip. Thanks for sharing. It seems to take place before Clara is snatched or maybe she is rescued?

I think “tube” refers to the Underground as LCD screens don’t have tubes. (I think anyway.) Tube could also refer to the container she is contained in underground or the tunnels themselves which may connect into some of the unused tube lines running under London. It is such a network of tunnels under London that I sometimes wonder how the ground supports the weight of the city. (Actually when I am in Britain I always feel as though the entire island is sinking under the weight of it’s human occupants and their concrete monstrosities, which is in fact almost what is happening only it isn’t humanity to blame other than for the rising sea levels of course.)

Sorry digressed a little there.

Cheers

Janette

 

 

[Pufferfish @pufferfish]

“What’s on the other side?” is colloquial British for “what’s on the other channel?” but I suppose it’s also there as bonkers catnip (and very effective it would seem to be, too).

There’s a call-back to Asylum of the Daleks here, with that Claricle’s mind in a room of her own, making soufflés, while her body is otherwise dormant and imprisoned. It’s an illustration of the mental link between Zygon and human counterpart. I’m wondering if Clara can watch other events unfold in front of her as if they were on the telly in this room, and thereby see what Bonnie is doing. I don’t think she has any ‘new powers’ in her mind prison; it’s just showing tenacity and the AG Who convention of  being able to push back when something opens a door between two minds.

[Mudlark @mudlark]

@purofilion  (and everyone else worried that the next episode might not live up to expectations)

Please Harness: make it a good one.

The omens are favourable, if the preview blurb in the Radio Times (dead tree version) is to be relied on.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@purofilion

love those words: “there’s nothing better on the other side.”

That’s English idiom (we say “turn over” rather than “change channels” too!)

[geoffers @geoffers]

@countscarlioni

it’s a very nice shade of tardis blue, innit? maybe it changes colour due to the proximity of whoever/whatever is handling it?

@lisa

don’t doubt yourself so, i saw the same thing. it appears clara is maintaining her own reality while trapped in the pod. and successfully striking out, thru the telly, at zygon clara! i immediately thought of dalek oswin when i saw what was happening, though i imagine clara is in more of a dream state in the pod, than a fighting-against-being-dalekized state…

:   )

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@geoffers @lisa

And bear in mind that Clara may well have been upgraded with some Dalek nanotech.

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