Flatline

[Anonymous @]

@thommck   ahahahaeeeek. they weren’t slugs they were a strange type of god -awful brown caterpillar that dad burnt to death (a murdering monster: sorry pa). All I recall was that they were really quite wide as well as long so they didn’t look like caterpillars at all.

Today I searched for groups of slugs and got nada so when you posted the above link the light bulb (and the memory) went zing. I swear there were at least 200 all mushed up together and squirreling along right near the pool toward the house. I of course just squealed (as you do) while Dad went all Jesse Pinkman (Breaking Bad) and threw kerosene around furiously and then…the spade..  I feel a bit awful about that.

Yes, where’s @wolfweed ??

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@thommck

Great posts, great links!

(love the VFX blog one, and the caterpillars. (Can only imagine what the slug mat was like @Purofilion. Sounds like the stuff of nightmares!))

Re the background in the Missy screengrab from the end of Flatline – that looks very like a cyberman style eye to me (on the right). Does that rule her out for being a Time Lord?  What’s the detail on her brooch? Can anyone make that out?

She could very well be the WitS, and I agree it links in with the “feeling of being watched” and all the eyes that various people have pointed out. There’s also an underlying theme of “not seen” throughout this series, and various possible explanations – phaseshifting, teleporting, imagination, being 2D in a 3D world, invisibility bracelet. I did wonder about the optic nerve hack, but surely the Doctor would notice it. My fave at the moment is that she’s hacked Clara’s phone (ties in with the WitS, which is what brought Clara prime into contact with the Doctor in the first place (in Bells of St John).

Re a “thing” being a “thing” in this series… I think it’s just a thing! (And yes wasn’t the Thing thing a great thing!!)

@blenkinsopthebrave Love the Marco Polo pic (*sigh*). Ha! The TARDIS was frequently picked up and transported elsewhere in the old days. Don’t remember its weight ever being mentioned. It’s nice they’ve dealt with it now.

@juniperfish @bluesqueakpip

It was a great character development for 1 series (when they had no idea if there would be any more than 1 series) to have the Doctor responsible for the destruction of Gallifrey but when it started to leak into 2 regenerations later it was a bit limiting narratively. So it’s great that it’s been addressed properly, and sorted by the Doctor as soon as he had the chance. Although he must still remember that he would have pressed the button, when he saw no alternative, so there’s still an underlying darkness if the writers want to tap into it.

I’m wondering if the line in Deep Breath about doing something about the bad things he’s done was a reference to the events in Day of the Doctor – as 12 hasn’t done his bit yet, or at least, not that we’ve seen. I do like the idea that all the blackboard equations is him working out the calculations (for Day of the Doctor) by  the slow method.

[Anonymous @]

@thommck thank you once again for that incredible link. Still, our ‘caterpillars’ were moving a lot quicker -meaning maybe 10 layers instead of 3 or 4 which would fit the hypothesis? Oh, heavens, I shall go before I’m modded off. Sorry!! G’night

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@Purofilion

Too late! I now have a fixed image in my head of a large slimy mat of slugs 😈

Caterpillar tracks, LOL

[Anonymous @]

@scaryb you beat me to it! The brooch! I was thinking that too? Someone with wonderful IT skills on this site might zoom in? I still see a railing which reminded me of the one in 10’s TARDIS. Could our Missy be a left over artefact from the 3 Doctors in the 50th anniversary? I doubt it, but, well, runnin’ out of ideas.

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@Purofilion (hope you’re feeling better btw)

Managed to get a closeup of the brooch (just as she finishes saying “…chosen well”) but I can’t post it on here as it’s not an already online pic. It looks like it’s probably a conventional cameo profile – but, it could be Medusa (snake headed woman of Greek mythology who could turn people to stone (and no, I don’t see any significance in that! Although… Medusa was a Gorgon, 1 of 3 sisters, 2 of whom were immortal. And we did have the 3 women in Kill the Moon, deciding the fate of the moon dragon (but I thought they were probably referencing the 3 Fates)).

One thing I did pick up as I was slo-mo-ing through the previous scene – Danny phones, Clara rejects his call (interestingly she has an “at the cinema”, “in a meeting”, and various other options for rejecting a call – not a travelling with the Doctor one). She still has her phone in her hand.

The Doctor does his “goodness had nothing to do with it” line.

Then he says “You’d better talk to Soldier Boy”.

Clara immediately replies with “It’s not him”. Her lying is most definitely a BIG thing!

Is that the line Missy is responding to, that automatic lie?

As far as we can tell, Clara is till holding her phone. It’s a phone hack I tell you!

 

[Devilishrobby @devilishrobby]

Now don’t shout at me if this has already been submitted as a possibility but,;

Is there a possibility that Missy is the Moment. Well it is sentient and to a degree I think like the TARDIS it appears to consider the Doctor as hers ( hence considering the doctor as her boyfriend).

The Moment has shown that it does more than just destroy things so may have the ability to pull ppl into some kind of alternate reality.

I was never sure what happened to the moment after the day of the doctor, in theory if the two timeline theory is correct in one the moment is destroyed in the other not used so what happened.

Ouch my head is about to explode

[PhaseShift @phaseshift Time Lord]

@thommck

I’ll echo others and say there were some great links there. Mathiesons blog is very entertaining, and I love a couple of the stories – his joy about Janet being his first “Doctor Who kill”, because he loved her work in The Singing Detective, for example.

@mudlark @blenkinsopthebrave

On the TARDIS weight, the only time I can remember a figure being put on it was in the Tom Baker story Full Circle. Romana tells Adric that the outer shell weighs 5×10^6 kgs – 5000 metric tonnes. Which seemed ludicrous because I remembered UNIT soldiers manhandling it. 😀 I think that Romana had picked up the Doctor’s habit of airily proclaiming things as fact, when he’s making them up on the spot, at this point.

I kind of like that the TARDIS is very variable. In mass as well as inclination to get the Doctor to his desired destination.

[PhaseShift @phaseshift Time Lord]

@ixion

Welcome. @idiotsavon made a link to numbers occurring throughout the series which are multiples of 11, and 22 and 55 are more examples.

I think it’s interesting, and may play into the fact that the soldier motif is leading us to the end of the series just before Remembrance Sunday. The armistice for the First World War occurred at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Multiples of 11, if you will.

[Mudlark @mudlark]

@thommck

Perhaps she has been miniaturised into a cyberman (just like the Doctor in Into the Dalek)

M-m-m ..  I like that.  And perhaps she is using miniaturised devices – nanobots (or nanodrones, if you like) – to stalk or ‘bug’ the Doctor and Clara, which would account for his sense of being watched, of being not alone in Listen.  I was never convinced that this feeling was solely down to his experience as a child, having his ankle grabbed by an unseen Clara under his bed.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@scaryb

Clara immediately replies with “It’s not him”. Her lying is most definitely a BIG thing!

Is that the line Missy is responding to, that automatic lie?

Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!

Wildly bonkers theory:

Danny is a sleeper planted by the Doctor to foil whatever nefarious scheme Missy has for Clara, BUT Missy, knows this and possibly the Doctor knows that Missy knows and there’s a whole “Little does he know that she knows that he knows” thing going on.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Kursaal Flyers:

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@juniperfish

Interested to know what makes you think that this was RTD’s moral view.

Pretty much the same thing that makes me think ‘dying isn’t a defeat’ is Moffat’s view: RTD’s had more than one character act in this way in more than one script, and he seems to approve it in other scripts where he was the showrunner. If he doesn’t personally believe it’s right, he does seem extremely sympathetic to characters who take it to its final conclusion – that you might have to be prepared to destroy your own planet.

There’s a very similar exploration in Children of Earth – people who are prepared to kill others (but not themselves or their own) for the greater good, versus people who are prepared to die themselves or kill their own – and he never has Jack escape from the ‘greatest good of the greatest number’. Um, and he also completely misses the essential point about martyrdom, but that’s another gripe. I rate Children of Earth as ‘really good up until the last episode’. That dratted problem he has with endings…

I agree that the Doctor isn’t and never has been a utilitarian.

[Juniperfish @juniperfish]

Hi @bluesqueakpip

I’ll go for this version “If he doesn’t personally believe it’s right, he does seem extremely sympathetic to characters who take it to its final conclusion – that you might have to be prepared to destroy your own planet.”

Rather than being sympathetic to utilitarianism, I think RTD is interested in pushing the idea of a “good man” to its limits. What he did with Captain Jack was even more pronounced than with the Who reboot, because we saw the choice fully on-screen. But I think the text was fairly clear that the sacrificing one’s innocent grandson was an absolutely unforgivable act (particularly as it was only necessary because the Captain had previously been involved in sacrificing other children to the 452) – and that Jack would carry that (and the loss of his relationship with his daughter) with him forever.

[Arbutus @arbutus]

Some great posts since the other day, really fun reading. @purofilion’s post about the Doctor’s “hero moment” is beautifully descriptive. And @juniperfish’s “he can be the slow burning fuse at the heart of something” is actual poetry!

@thommck   Loved your Missy post… I’m looking forward to the blog!

And Puro, I can only say Eww. With stuff like that in the world, I’m surprised scifi writers have to make anything up!

@bluesqueakpip    but maybe it’s a good thing for his remaining sanity that he can’t play God like that.  In my mind, I had connected that ending to the ending of Voyage of the Damned, where it is specifically stated that “That kind of power would make you a monster.” This interested me, as this episode, of course, has the Doctor literally naming himself as the one who stops the monsters.

@juniperfish   I always thought that The End of Time actually diluted the stark simplicity of the Doctor’s choice. It was implied early on that the Time War was wreaking such havoc that the Doctor felt it simply had to end. But in TEoT, we see that the high council was planning something apparently even worse than the war, and as the Doctor said “That’s why I had to stop them.” So it was no longer just about ending the war, but about stopping the Time Lords. I was never quite content with this change, and it seems to me that Day of the Doctor (and Night of the Doctor, for that matter) largely ignored it, moving back to the original motivation.

[geoffers @geoffers]

@scaryb – Re a “thing” being a “thing” in this series… I think it’s just a thing! (And yes wasn’t the Thing thing a great thing!!)

so, is this “is this a thing” thing… a meme? or a trope? 😉

if i’m not mistaken, a thing only became a “thing” in smith’s era, no? so, every “thing” is now a smith’s doctor’s “thing,” like jelly babies are a baker’s doctor’s “thing?”

!

[thommck @thommck]

@scaryb, @geoffers you are making my head spin with all the things about the thing!

@arbutus & all, my Missy blog is up now, enjoy

[Spider @spider]

Late to the party (again…but I brought booze, nibbles and circular pi…which may or may not be edible…om nom nom…oh! apparently it IS edible *spider says though mouthfuls of pi*).

Loved the episode, favourite bit (apart from the monster which was genius!) was probably Clara finding the tiny TARDIS ‘adorable’ (would have loved there to be a real ‘tiny Doctor’ idea, but obviously not feasible, or the point of the Doctor ‘lite’ ep).  All the chat here has basically covered mostly everything I would want to comment on it XD. Really can’t make up my mind about Missy now! And think there is just something bad coming up for Clara with all that has gone on, either a Clara has to decide between Danny/Doctor or they are put in a position where Doctor/Clara are working towards a different goal. Or…ARGH! Too. Many. Things. 😀

Also (and apologies if its already been said), explanation for changes in Doctor’s hair – when he’s in the TARDIS it’s just lost a dimension 😉

Have to go get more booze. Head exploding with all the bonkers.

(\(\;;/)/)

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

So no-one is biting on the Kursaal Flyers theory?

The disrespect for Essex rock would have Wilko Johnson turning in his grave if it wasn’t for the fact that he isn’t dead, thanks to the miracle of modern surgery.

 

[Anonymous @]

@pedant “when she saw my reflection in the chrome”  of course, The K Flyers: ‘I know she’s two-timing me, I know she’s cheating on me…I know that she knows that I know that she…’ (the rep reminds me (meme) of ‘the thing is a thing thing’)

Love the electric violins and the cymbals. Always 😉   The “reflection in the chrome”  reminds me of Missy seeing Clara on the ipad and stroking her picture rather lovingly. Creeps me out.

[Anonymous @]

@devilishrobby I agree . I believe that a few of us asked the question: “What happened to the Moment?” Did it have an ‘end time’?

Once the process begins, how does the sentient machine turn off? Is it left in some barn or does the Doctor store it away in the TARDIS somewhere, gathering dust?  Being a time weapon and sentient could mean it would continue to operate across dimensions. Could the Moment imprison others like Missy? I doubt it of course as we’ve had no hints that the Moment is ‘oot and aboot’ causing/not causing havoc!

[Melloyello @melloyello]

Ok, I said I wouldn’t watch DW as long as the Clara/Danny soap opera went on, but I’m just
too addicted to DW. I want to deal with two issues, 1. Missy 2. Clara

1. Missy – Do you guys REALLY want her to be the Master?? Really??? The Master has been
run into the ground. Any Dr Who with the Master is a “re-run” with cosmetic changes.
You would be watching a 40 year old episode. You could say the same thing about cybermen and daleks
but those are large populations and not just a single villain. But still, you see the same show, that
is, they show up, and get defeated. It is time for something NEW. A NEW threat. A NEW villain.
Could the Boneless be that NEW threat and villain. Could Missy be a Boneless?

2. Clara – She was diehard honest and now lies when she opens her mouth. She was diehard concerned for
life and now not too concerned if people die. She freaked out on “Kill the moon” and now she has no
problem being the Dr. REALLY????? Character development?? I don’t think so!! Is “the Clara” we saw
in “Kill the moon” the SAME Clara we saw in “Flatline”?????? She did split into multiple Clara’s.
How many? One for each Doctor? And why the reference of the leaf? Is Clara like leaves on a tree?
Then who is the tree? Of my knowledge, I’ve only seen two other Clara’s: 1. the dalek,
2. the Victorian Clara. (I’m not including the clips of the Clara’s helping the various
doctors, when she jumped into his time stream.) Point is, Clara has changed WAY TOO FAST.
Or is it that “the Clara” has changed?

The Matt Smith doctor set out, to find out, who or what Clara is. It hasn’t been discovered yet.
We know there are multiple Clara’s but how many, we don’t know. We know of Missy, but has it been
established she is a villain? The Boneless, you have a name now, which means we will see you again,
but in what way? Courtney Woods, IMO, the bright spot of this season. This is due to everything up
to this point being so bad. Courtney Woods – Mels = River Song. There is an obvious gap between the
little girl who escaped from the space suit and Mels. The little girl “escaped” but Mels is fulfilling
her duty to kill the doctor? Something had to have happen between those two points.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

@melloyello

Do you guys REALLY want her to be the Master?? Really??? The Master has been
run into the ground.

I am curious: in what system of discourse is expecting something to happen the same as wanting it? I agree with your views re the Master, and hope I am wrong. I just don’t think I am.

She was diehard honest and now lies when she opens her mouth. She was diehard concerned for
life and now not too concerned if people die. She freaked out on “Kill the moon” and now she has no
problem being the Dr.

Yes. It’s almost as if her addiction to things-Tardisy has changed her isn’t it? (See The Engineer’s given reason for not signing up. It has been lampshaded – a little baldly for my tastes, but there you go). It has been made clear that multiple weeks and adventures pass between episodes so I’ll take the “changing way too fast” complained as an outbreak of Short Attention Span Disorder.

[Melloyello @melloyello]

Some additional thoughts on Clara. My memory my be foggy, so chime in to correct
when needed.

Clara jumps into the Dr’s time stream and is split into multiple Clara’s.
We see the clips of her trying to help the Dr. When Matt Smith goes to
save her, she is with the war Dr. Matt saved “the Clara” in the War Dr’s
time stream. Clara says she has seen all the Drs but not the War Dr. (Red Flag).
She didn’t know who the War Dr was? Or maybe the party responsible for Clara
being with the Drs and training her, didn’t know about the War Dr. And why were
there “3”, yes “3” Clara’s in Matt Smith’s Dr time stream? And all 3 didn’t know
the Dr at first. She didn’t know the war doctor either. Did she forget who the
doctor was when she got split into multiple Clara’s? The dalek clara didn’t know.
The Victorian Clara didn’t know, The modern Clara didn’t know….or is she just
acting as if she doesn’t know? And was Matt Smith saving “the Clara” at the
war doctor an act of saving Clara or saving the War Doctor FROM Clara?
So, who is, or where is, the Clara in Calpadi’s time stream? From what I
have seen, we haven’t seen her yet. Capaldi’s Clara, if the trend holds true,
shouldn’t know he is the doctor at first either. The Clara with Capaldi is from
Matt Smith’s doctor time stream…….or various other Doctor time streams…hmmm…
As I stated in my previous post, it appears Clara’s are changing and not Clara herself.
So, who is or where is Capaldi’s Clara?

[Melloyello @melloyello]

Yet more Clara theory……sorry, but my mind is working overtime right now.

Here is what we have seen:
1. The dalek Clara, Victorian Clara, and modern Clara didn’t know the
doctor when she first sees him.
2. The war doctor clara didn’t know the war doctor when she sees him, yet
she knows Matt Smith’s doctor. She even admits to seeing all the doctors.
How???
3. We assume the dalek clara died. We see the Victorian Clara die. Matt Smith
tells modern Clara, if she jumps into the time stream it would kill her. Maybe it did,
which would make modern Clara just a copy also. Will the real Clara please stand up.
Something or someone had to be responsible for multiple Clara’s. Was it due to Clara
jumping into the time stream or does Missy have a hand in it?
4. The Clara traveling with the Doctor now (we assume) is the Clara from the War Doctor’s
time stream.
5. We have seen 4 different confirmed Clara’s: 1. Dalek Clara, 2. Victorian Clara, 3. Modern Clara,
and 4. War Doctor Clara.

So, have we seen the “original Clara” yet? When Matt Smith goes to save Clara, is it the “original Clara”
we have yet to see? Or was “original Clara” the modern Clara that jumped into the time stream, went to
Missy and THEN copies sent out? When Clara leaves the tardis and later travels with the Doctor, is
it the same one? When a “Clara” meets a new doctor, she doesn’t know him. Is she gaining information
on the doctor? Learning about the doctor? If Missy is Mels/River Song, who is suppose to kill the
doctor, collecting intel is a first step. As the doctor’s time stream moves forward, River Song’s
time stream moves backwards. River Song did say she was linked to Clara. Right now, there are two
possible ways: By Courtney Woods or by Missy. Clara may not know River Song’s other regens like she
doesn’t seem to know the Doctor’s at first. If Missy is River Song, then it is early in her time line,
which fits the pattern of the Doctor and River, because Capaldi is later in the doctor’s time line.
This would also lead people to assume Missy is the Master, another time lord. But River was time lord
as well.

[thommck @thommck]

@melloyello, My consensus (and I believe the general thoughts within the forum) is as follows

Their is Clara-Prime. This is the original, natural, completely ordinary 21st Century Clara that the Doctor found in Bells of St John.

In Name of the Doctor Clara-Prime jumped into the Doctor’s time-scar and was split across his whole time line. On the forum we call them Claricles.

Victorian and Dalek Clara are Claricles. They were born like normal humans and have no knowledge of their fate to try to save the Doctor from the Great Intelligence. The episode states that the Doctor rarely notices her. The Claricles are are bit mysterious and not fully explained. The episodes have led us to believe all the Claricles die at a young age while trying to help the Doctor. This was possibly imprinted on them by Clara-Prime’s original sacrifice of jumping into the time-scar

Clara-Prime is stuck in the Doctor’s time-scar, which is it’s own separate place. She can see flashes of all the Doctors running around her and sees the Claricles failing to help him.

The 11th Doctor (Matt Smith) then jumps in and saves Clara-Prime, taking her out of the time-scar, at which she suffers great memory loss.

She wouldn’t have seen the 12th Doctor (Capaldi) as the Doctor’s time-scar only went up to his death on Trenzalore (before the timelords saved gave him a new set of regenerations).

[lisa @lisa]

@thommck   perhaps also Missy’s “my Clara”  is another my claricle??

Like the theory that Missy is following Clara thru her phone since the woman in the shop thing occurred  [except that Clara isn’t always on the phone ] but if she is following her and if River is still connected to her and Danny is following her and the Doctor is mentoring her then why ???    a companion being so critical —hm ?

 

 

 

 

[thommck @thommck]

@lisa I don’t think she’s a claricle, in fact I’m willing to put money on it!

Also, I’m sure Clara called the TARDIS from her the Maitland’s home phone. She was only given a number from the WitS, which I always thought was just on a piece of paper

[Melloyello @melloyello]

@thommck
She wouldn’t have seen the 12th Doctor (Capaldi) as the Doctor’s time-scar only went up to his death on Trenzalore (before the timelords saved gave him a new set of regenerations).

That don’t explain how she didn’t know the war doctor, nor how she forgot Tom Baker’s doctor
in the museum. Someone is collecting intel on the Doctor, and Clara is the pawn
that is collecting it. Someone has gone out of their way to put Clara with the Doctor.
To help him out? That might be what Clara thinks. You’ve only heard her opinion on the matter.
We haven’t heard the Doctor’s opinion, nor Missy’s. Matt Smith knew something was wrong and that it
centered on him. Clara, in the time stream, I think, was a planned event. To kill the Doctor takes
a lot of planning and intel. Matt Smith called Clara after Capaldi become the doctor, to
explain to Clara the Capaldi doctor. Problem is, Matt Smith hadn’t lived it yet to know.
Which means, the doctor set Clara up to believe something, a lie, then the Capaldi doctor
lives out the lie, to hide his own intent. If the doctor doesn’t know who she is yet, it is
still something we will find out. Much like Matt Smith and Amy’s doppelganger, of living flesh,
Capaldi is playing along too. River had a link to Clara, that we haven’t learned yet. Missy has a
link to Clara as well. Same link? Clara showing up in the time stream seems very planned out.
If Missy is watching this Clara, then she has probably watched all the Clara’s around the doctor.

[Spider @spider]

@melloyello I think it has been explained why she doesn’t know the other Doctors:

As @thommck said Clara suffers memory loss after coming back out of the Doctors time stream so she doesn’t actually remember meeting any of the other Doctors? Although I can’t remember if this is established as a fact in the episode or just an assumption on our part because she doesn’t recognise other Doctors – so it might be possible she is lying / faking not knowing other Doctors (but I don’t buy that myself).

When we first see the War Doctor is that not when 11 jumps into his time stream to save Clara. So once they are out she doesn’t remember (cos of previously mentioned memory loss), but of course we the audience do as a nice big juicy teaser for the anniversary episode.

Also didn’t 11 call Clara after he had received the new set of lives and so knew there would be another Doctor? (Or am i misremembering) but I’m pretty sure he makes the call just before Clara finds the about-to-regenerate-11th-Doctor back in the TARDIS, there is a shot of her putting the TARDIS phone back on it’s hook just before she enters – presumably just after the 11th Doctor has called future-Clara.

However I totally agree someone has gone out of their way to put Clara and the Doctor together (Missy presumably but who knows), and is gathering intel, for what we don’t know (might be to kill the Doctor, might not) whether that goes back as far as setting up the whole time steam thing as well we will have to wait and see but my guess is it probably will 😀

What’s the River link to Clara? I don’t remember that – I’m not saying it didn’t happen, I’m just saying I don’t recall 🙂 can you (or anyone else) shed a bit more light on that cos that’s interesting.

(\(\;;/)/)

 

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@thommck

I agree with you, I think we’re done with Claricles.

I think they were “single-use” only. GI jumped into the Doctor’s timescar and changed whatever, hotly followed by Clara to rectify. Both split into “a million echoes” (paraphrasing) of the original. Then they’re done, and gone. They may not even go thro a whole lifespan – maybe they materialise at the crucial point in the timeline to whisper in the Doctor’s ear or whatever – they only think they have a backstory, it may just be an echo of Clara’s original life. Clara only got out because the Doctor went in to save her. And leaves carrying her (it’s his timescar, he should know his way around it 😉 ) I also agree that there was a bit of memory loss for her, after that traumatic experience. Or the Doctor did a recuperative memory wipe – we know he can.

She didn’t recognise the War Doctor because as Eleven said “he’s my secret” – the memory of a self which he buries deep in his subconscious in order not to think about what he (thinks) he did in destroying Gallifrey. (Eleven is “the one who forgets”). And Capaldi wouldn’t be in there, as you say, because the additional regen cycle hadn’t been granted then.

The fact that Series 8 Clara has been developing as a character surely suggests that she’s the original.

 

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@spider

Sorry – didn’t mean to repeat most of what you said – synchronicity (great minds and all that, heh heh)

Re River’s link to Clara – that was as a result of Vastra’s “sceance meeting” in Name of the Doctor. That’s how the Doctor knows Clara is still alive in his timescar, because River says she is still connected to her. I think that link has also long been broken. But you never know with River. (I live in hope of a reappearance 🙂 )

[Spider @spider]

@scaryb hee hee! No probs, great minds do indeed think alike 😉 Nice to have someone backing me up (since I wasn’t entirely sure I was remembering bits of episodes correctly).

Ah ok, cheers for the reference. I’m kind of torn about whether or not I’d want to see River again, on the one hand I’d like that story line to be finished but on the other I would love to see how Peter Capaldi and Alex Kingston played the relationship!

Hmmm,thats a point. Since the Doctor v1.13 technically ‘died’ and we have reboot Doctor v2.1 (new set of regeneration’s) does that mean he and River are no longer married?

And just to pull this post back on topic of Flatline, watched it again this afternoon and thoughrally enjoyed it yet again! As I think has already been said many times, I think Clara is going to be up for a very bumpy ride the next few episodes…

(\(\;;/)/)

[JimmyP @jimmyp]

@melloyello – what @thommck , @spider and @scaryb say is correct; Clara didn’t recognise War Doc, Tom Baker and indeed Tennant or anyone else because she lost most of the memory of her time in the Doc’s time scar.

This is established in Day of the Doctor (which I re-watched recently) when she meets WarDoc and TennantDoc in the cell.  To paraphrase:

Clara: (to MattDoc) So they’re both you right?

Matt: Yes. You’ve met them before, don’t you remember?

Clara: Sort of…

With regards to the general idea of Clara (Prime) changing too quickly in this series, I do understand where you’re coming from. On watching Day of the Doc (plus a few other eps from the last series) I was reminded of the dynamic between Jenna and Matt Smith, of what great friends they were, of the flirting and finishing each others sentences and hugging and high fives and so on.  Plus, as you say, Clara back then seemed simpler almost, less rough edges.

Perhaps losing ‘her’ Doctor is responsible for some of the change therefore. Or perhaps she’s growing up a bit (we’re meant to assume quite a long time has passed I think). Or perhaps the writers have just fleshed out the character a bit more, away from the ‘impossible girl’ and into a real person.

As I say I get your natural response to her, but personally I just think she’s so much more interesting now.  Plus I love that it’s giving Jenna Coleman chance to show off her acting chops much more!

And if she turns out to be a Missy sleeper-agent I reckon it’ll be another acting masterclass.

P.S. for what it’s worth, I too would prefer if Missy isn’t the Master, and I’ve got a feeling she won’t be (although I’m always bloody wrong about Who!)

[Spider @spider]

With Clara changing too ‘quickly’ for some, i agree with @jimmyp that there looks like there have been lots and lots more episodes than we have actually seen on screen and so more dynamic/change. Which personally I love because it leaves more ‘gaps’ for other novels/stories/fanfic to fill. So i think the timescales for it all happening with her going from being not so sure girl to ‘ i am the Doctor’ feel ‘right’ for me.

Also, for the record, I also do not want this to be a ‘Master is behind it all wa hahahaha’ series ending.I think that would be terrible at this point. NOT because I don’t like the Master (who i’m sure we will see at some point in the future), but it just wouldn’t fit the way this series has been going and what SM is looking to be doing (a dangerous assumption  i know) and how this series has been going and that would just be a MEH thing for me.

(\(|;;/)/) *not underneath the bed honest, that would be creepy…wouldn’t it? * 😉

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@melloyello

I’m kinda with @pedant – it’s not so much that we want the Master back as that a number of clues point in that direction. (Quite apart from the ‘Missy’ thing, the Master has a long-standing role as the Doctor’s very own psycho stalker – which is what Missy seems to be doing right now). I’m quite willing to discover that Missy is an original character, but the clues currently point towards a female incarnation of the Master. Clues will result in a bonkers theory: see our mission statement.

Any Dr Who with the Master is a “re-run” with cosmetic changes.

What, you mean like ‘Doctor meets monster, Doctor fights monster, Doctor wins against monster’? 😉 But there are things you could do with the Master that wouldn’t be a cosmetic re-run. We last saw him discovering that Rassilon was the real reason behind his insanity – and as a result, he ends up saving the Doctor’s life.

It’d be justifiable to change the ongoing characterisation from that moment – it’s almost as angsty a backstory as blowing up Gallifrey. Actually, for the Master, it’s probably more angsty than blowing up Gallifrey. 😈

Anyway, what could be more scary than an insane Master trying to torture the Doctor?

An insane Master trying to be helpful, in the Master’s own, inimitable way. ‘Cause they love each other really. 😯

[Anonymous @]

@melloyello  you know -patience? 🙂  Wow, talk about questions!  Questions are the  stuff of life but it could be the way they’re presented on screen here? With gaps in the middle of sentences & that confuses even me! 🙂

Many of your questions have been answered in posts for the 11th and 12th Doctors. If you listen to the dialogue and watch the end of the series starting with the Bells of St John, you may infer that Clara’s memory is deliberately wiped, in effect, to heal her. Also, the GI’s involvement with the whisper men as his minions, shows the motivation for Clara’s leap into the timestream to save the Dr thus undoing the work of the GI. I believe that was the ‘arc’ of that season and thus is complete.

So, despite my little theories, I think Clara Prime is not a claricle in this season. I’d like to think she’s more of a Clara Prime Plus (as @mudlark wrote about at length -her posts are wonderful & very clear) but in my way of looking at it, she’s a ‘plus’ because she’s simply matured as an adult. She’s got a teaching job, a permanent residence, she’s travelled with the Dr many times off screen and is getting into normal human scrapes trying to contain this ‘excessive life style’. @jimmyp stated this really well.

@melloyello

“The Boneless, you have a name now, which means we will see you again,
but in what way? Courtney Woods, IMO, the bright spot of this season. This is due to everything up
to this point being so bad.”

Just because the Boneless is named does not mean we will see this villain again. But Flatline, and its end, was the ‘Doctor’s defining moment’.

The speech, the undoing of the jacket to show the satin red lining, the sonic passing from Clara to the Doctor and the statement “this plane is protected” are indicative of this Doctor fully taking on his mantle; by naming a previously unheard of monster, we have that moment underwritten and significant; from just ‘playing doctor’ – as Clara was doing (and brilliantly)  -to ‘being the Doctor’ the writers intended this to be an acute and fully loaded finale in Flatline.

If you dislike this show so much and truly believe that a sickly little girl wanting to go home when she’s on the moon is the bright spot of the season, then I’m worried (mind you, I’d want to go home too)! You claim “everything to this point being so bad.” Really? Rigsy. Bad? The train machinist in The Mummy. Bad? Surely not! I could go on naming the extraordinary cast this season has produced. Robin Hood played so well by Tom Riley; the sheriff of Nottingham…and on and on…

As others up thread have said with a great deal of patience and excellent prose (@ScaryB  and @thommck ), the Claricles are probably done and dusted. And whilst we are all fond of River Song, I suspect her story after so many episodes on screen is finished too. If you claim that having the Master materialise is boring as it’s just “one villain” then it follows that having River return is also “a re-run”.

As @pedant succinctly stated, what we want is not the same as expectation and anticipation. Is Missy Master? Probably.  On balance, as we haven’t seen the Master written in by Moffat, it’s time for a clever re-write of this villain. Also melloyello, he isn’t “just a villain”. The Master, like one Dalek, can cause ruin beyond compare. As @spider maintained, I myself would prefer Missy not be the Master but….’wanting isn’t reality’.

Certainly in your post you have some great ideas about the way the link between Missy, Clara, the Doctor and others could work. I like the Flesh Doctor mention. This is something that could be re-visited shortly. I’ve always wondered about that myself.

I hope you find something to really like about this season. For me personally, it’s one of the best seasons of Who I’ve ever seen. It’s consistent; the companion has a serious role but is comic and well fleshed out as a character -but she’s not immutable; this Doctor hit the ground running; we have drama within the characters; we have intriguing and yet confusing stories and connections surrounding names -Pink/Blue/ Orson/Danny. We have stories like RHood that are living legends, much like the Doctor has become within this plane of ours. We have new threats: the Boneless and call backs to earlier series (without undermining the production) such as Girl in a Fireplace and an opening- Deep Breath – which was richly textured and gorgeously produced. Cinematography has been top notch. Even the ‘cheaper episodes’ were clever and relied on the audience to think, reason and evaluate. What season has had all this and more?

I hope you get around to reading this post @melloyello and responding. I’d like to know what you do like about this season!

Cheers, to you,

purofilion

 

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

I’m still disappointed at the lack of take up for the Kursaal Flyers theory : *stares at @scaryb *

[Anonymous @]

@melloyello I can see the confusion that might arise across several seasons about the capture of the Doctor, as it were.

If my above response was a bit sharp, my apologies: too much back log at work.

So, in one season -stretching into three, we have River as assassin who then pays for her crimes. Then, the GI’s plans are ultimately foiled because of The Impossible Girl which problem Smithy was attempting to solve.

After the time stream ‘edition’, I believe something else happened to Clara. She’s able to open the TARDIS, hang onto its door whilst it’s travelling to the Dr and then the subtle “I was born under a clock tower” phrase. Is Clara a pawn at that point, or is the constant travel through time streams and her own propinquity to the ‘Crack’ changing her somehow?

Clara’s personality manifestations are justifiable due to many journeys in the TARDIS, I assume, as well as meeting new life forms on her travels.

Clearly, the one substantial fact we have is Missy and her choice of Clara. When that choice occurred is debatable as @scaryb suggested. So, perhaps what you’re saying (and I may have this wrong), is that there’s an overlap between seasons regarding the changes we perceive in Clara.

Are those changes (which you said were “WAY TOO FAST”) purely due to travelling and managing an odd lifestyle or are they subtle indicators of a hidden puppeteer?

Also, @bluesqueakpip -her concise recollections and conclusions make for superb reading.

On the issue of Clara not wanting people to die and then having a “diehard” ex-belief in their “dying”, I would add she’s simply fallen into the same situation that befalls the Dr every time a ‘monster’ rears its head(s).

It’s not a personality change, it’s a reaction to a situational problem. She’s very smug at one point: “I’m alive” and the Doctor’s reaction: the way he looks at her, suggests he may be thinking there’s an outside force taking an ‘interest’. Of course, dramatically, we know this as fact. I wonder what @oblique thinks of this? Did you believe the Doctor was seeing things in Clara that could be interesting/useful to another person/multiform?

Kindest,

puro

[Arbutus @arbutus]

@bluesqueakpip    Anyway, what could be more scary than an insane Master trying to torture the Doctor? An insane Master trying to be helpful, in the Master’s own, inimitable way. ‘Cause they love each other really.

No kidding. In fact, if they cast the right person (I’m assuming a regen), this could be brilliant. We could potentially have the best Master-Doctor pairing since the classic Delgado-Pertwee (which was always the best in my view). As @purofilion suggests, it’s hard to imagine that Moffat wouldn’t want to put his own stamp on the Master at some point. But I must admit that I stand with those hoping that it isn’t Missy, because her character seems just a little too camp for what I would be hoping for, and because when we finally learn Missy’s secret, I really, really want to be surprised!

@pedant    Regarding the Kursaal Flyers theory, we haven’t seen Missy at the laundromat with her unmentionables, so there’s that problem, but otherwise, I’d say the theory is sound.   😉

[zeitgeis @zeitgeis]

Thanks @purofilion for your lucid accounts of what is going on in Doctor Who this season.

One thing  that has me worried it’s what plans Missy has in store for Clara. Her smile at the end of this episode was quite chilling. But one thing I am sure of is that should Missy capture Clara and begin messing with her she will tell Danny that things are fine should he call her. She is a consummate liar. 🙂

 

[JimboMcMaster @jimbomcmaster]

@Bluesqueakpip

On General Time Travel Stuff

When I say the Doctor doesn’t have the option to change his past, I don’t mean he literally can’t do it, but that if he did do it he’d end up creating more problems than he’d solve (paradoxes and suchlike – what I think you refer to as Churchill on a Mammoth) – thus making it not an option ever worth choosing.

It’s like somebody might say ‘you can’t divorce her, you’d lose all your money. That’s not an option.’ That doesn’t mean that the person couldn’t apply for divorce, just that the consequences effectively forbid it. Similarly, it’s not that Rose literally can’t save her dad in Father’s Day – but it’s clearly not a viable option. So perhaps I should have been a bit clearer about what I meant there, but I think essentially we agree on that.

In the quote of mine:

‘The fact that the Doctor very rarely goes back to change his past should tell us that he doesn’t have the option to do that’

‘very rarely’ refers to the fact that outside agencies can effectively make the Doctor change his past (regardless of whether he wants to or not) by making him meet himself. But those very rare occasions are not evidence of him having an option to change his past, as they do not involve him choosing the option ‘Change My Past’ – he is given the ‘opportunity’ to do it (without creating Churchill-on-a-Mammoth scenarios) against his will.

Your interpretation of my sentence rests on the assumption that the Doctor changing his past entails the Doctor choosing to change his past – when actually there are occasions where he doesn’t choose it (eg the very act of meeting himself in, say, the Three Doctors).

What I’m trying to point out in that quote is that if the Doctor had the option to change his past (ie without causing Churchill-on-a-Mammoth) when he wanted, he would change his past a lot more often than just those rare occasions when somebody (eg the Time Lords) makes him do it. For instance, he often tries to save lives, but then fails, much to his disappointment. A memorable example is when Kylie Minogue’s character dies. If he could save her without turning the universe inside-out, then he would.

 

 

On The Day of the Doctor and the Doctor’s Morals

               Me: that does not mean that he thought it was a mistake to do it.

Oh, he didn’t think it was a mistake. He just thought it was wrong.

What do you mean by ‘mistake’ here? When I said ‘a mistake’, I meant ‘the wrong choice’, as opposed to, for example, ‘an accident’. So a rewording of my sentence would be: ‘He felt terrible as a result of being the one to do this thing, but that does not mean that he thought he made the wrong choice’.

            Tennant Doctor: Because what I did that day was wrong. Just wrong.

So he fairly obviously does think he did the wrong thing.

He says that. But here’s why I’m not convinced by the conclusion you draw from it:

• Not long after he speaks those words he joins the War Doctor at the button that will destroy the Time Lords, puts his hand on it, as does the Eleventh Doctor, and together they prepare to push. If you saw your past self about to make a choice that you think is the wrong one to make, surely you wouldn’t show your solidarity with your past self by helping them do it, even if you thought you couldn’t do anything to stop them doing it?
•        At this point, the Tenth Doctor says: ‘What we do today is not out of fear or hatred. It is done because there is no other way’. This suggests he doesn’t think it is the wrong choice to make, even if he thinks the act is in and of itself immoral. If you watch that scene, it is clear they are sad about it, but they are still very consciously (and ‘not out of fear and hatred’) choosing to do it – they all think it is the right choice to make.

 

• In The End of Time, when the Doctor is telling the Master about the final days of the Time War, and the fact the High Council of the Time Lords were planning to destroy Time and become beings of consciousness, the Doctor says ‘I had to stop them!’ This suggests that the Tenth Doctor doesn’t think it’s the wrong choice to press the Button (to the extent that he didn’t even consider himself to have a choice in the matter).

 

• Also in the End of Time, the Doctor actually sends Gallifrey (and all its children!) back into the Time Lock, effectively to await their destruction by the War Doctor. The escape of Gallifrey from the Time Lock would have been a great chance for the Doctor to rewrite his past ‘wrong’ of destroying the Time Lords, as you claim he sees it. He could have enacted a different solution to the problem posed by the High Council, and perhaps another solution to end the universal destruction being caused by the Time War.
•         But no, he once again makes the judgement that it is better for the Time Lords (including the Time Tots), and the Daleks, to die than for the rest of the entire universe to suffer from their war. This act is essentially the Doctor confirming that he thinks he made the right choice by pressing the Button.

So there appears to be an inconsistency in the evidence we have, which is particularly stark in the latter half of the Day of the Doctor. What makes most sense, I think, is to interpret the quote ‘Because what I did that day was wrong. Just wrong,’ as part of a persuasive technique on the Doctor’s part to convince Kate Stewart not to enact her plan. He wasn’t satisfied that there wasn’t a better way to solve the problem (it’s extremely rare that he is).

As it is, I believe that, in the first timeline (where the War Doctor destroys Gallifrey) the Doctor thought that it was the right choice to press the Button. Or rather, he didn’t think he had a choice. As the Tenth Doctor says: ‘there is no other way’. Of course, once Ten and Eleven have joined the War Doctor, the Moment does a wonderfully subtle job of making him second guess himself, causing him to realise the new possibilities that now exist with there being three of him.

 

This is getting long (apologies), so I won’t deal with the other points you bring up. Although I think you’re probably right in what you say about Flatline.

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@jimbomcmaster

thus making it not an option ever worth choosing

Well, it obviously is an option sometimes worth choosing, because he’s chosen to do it. Shall we agree that sometimes he decides it’s not worth it and sometimes he decides that it is?

He can choose to do it without meeting himself. I realise that most people heartily loathe The-Movie-We-Do-Not-Mention, but he changed the past there to save lives. He also changes the past (to save lives) in The Big Bang. And in Waters of Mars. And in minor ways at places like Pompeii … as he says in The Day of The Doctor, he does it all the time.

But not always.

At this point, the Tenth Doctor says: ‘What we do today is not out of fear or hatred. It is done because there is no other way’. This suggests he doesn’t think it is the wrong choice to make

Yes, he does think it’s the wrong choice to make. But the alternative choice is even more wrong. I don’t quite understand why you have a problem with this, since you were the person who wanted the Doctor to have a ‘no right choices’ dilemma. This is it. This is your story about the Doctor facing the impossible dilemma. There were no right choices – he thought. Just a slightly less wrong one.

2.7 billion children versus billions of billions dying over and over again. There is no right choice; just two wrong ones. Whichever one he chooses, he’ll be a murderer.

Until the Moment, and Clara, intervene.

In the real world, Steven Moffat decided (correctly, I think) that it’s far better for us all to understand that a hero is someone who always struggles to find that ‘third way’ – rather than accepting that life will sometimes hand you a choice between two bad options.

Yes, sometimes life does hand you a choice between bad and worse. But a hero is someone who never accepts that, never gives in to that, will continue searching for the third way even if they are continually having to make ‘bad vs worse’ choices with the limited time and materials at their disposal.

What makes most sense, I think, is to interpret the quote ‘Because what I did that day was wrong. Just wrong,’ as part of a persuasive technique on the Doctor’s part to convince Kate Stewart not to enact her plan.

Yeah… that’s a bit of an alternative reading. Well, actually, it’s a lot of an alternative reading – because it ignores the point that the very reason the Moment has sent the War Doctor to this precise problem is so that he can see someone else getting it wrong.

Incidentally, as I recall the End of Time, the Doctor gets his arse handed to him throughout much of the story and ends up crashing through the ceiling armed only with an elderly service revolver – before his Mum sighs deeply and nods in a significant manner towards the link her idiot son has to destroy. I agree that he can’t think of a better option at that point. I can’t either.

However, the fact that I can’t think of a better option than shooting the lunatic who’s about to burn down the orphanage doesn’t make it the right choice. It is still wrong. Just wrong.

[EchoOmega @echoomega]

This episode was absolutely amazing, and I loved the advance in Clara’s knowledge of the Doctor and what he does. I also feel very sorry for Danny, but the urge to laugh at Clara’s pre-written text excuses was just too strong. 😀

[JimboMcMaster @jimbomcmaster]

@bluesqueakpip

shall we agree that sometimes he decides it’s not worth it and sometimes he decides that it is?

Yes. I think it was just a slightly badly worded paragraph from me (sorry), but I was just trying to put right a misunderstanding between us that arose from my previous post. Yes I agree he does it from time to time.

I don’t quite understand why you have a problem with this, since you were the person who wanted the Doctor to have a ‘no right choices’ dilemma. This is it. This is your story about the Doctor facing the impossible dilemma.

My initial statement (which sparked the discussion with ScaryB that you eventually came in on) was that I was glad that Season 8 was dealing with themes along the ‘no right choices’ lines, and that I felt it was something the show had lacked, to my knowledge, up to that point. Although the Day of the Doctor is one of my very favourite stories, perhaps I didn’t feel my itch for an impossible dilemma had been scratched by it for the same reason it’s such a fantastic episode: that a third, Good, way becomes available to the Doctor. While the moment where the Doctors celebrate the fact that they are finally about to save Gallifrey is one of my favourite moments of Doctor Who, it most assuredly moves the end-of-the-Time-War dilemma outside of impossible dilemma territory.

However, I wouldn’t be surprised, given one of the themes of this season, if perhaps the Doctor is going to have to face another impossible dilemma in the finale. Although, I wonder what the Doctor would choose this time, given that he’s only recently escaped from the terrible weight of having killed the Few to save the Many? I won’t deny that, once it gets too late to continue searching for the third way, it’s possible that he may not be able to bring himself to become that man again. That would be understandable on an emotional level.

 

Me: What makes most sense, I think, is to interpret the quote ‘Because what I did that day was wrong. Just wrong,’ as part of a persuasive technique on the Doctor’s part to convince Kate Stewart not to enact her plan.

You: Yeah… that’s a bit of an alternative reading. Well, actually, it’s a lot of an alternative reading – because it ignores the point that the very reason the Moment has sent the War Doctor to this precise problem is so that he can see someone else getting it wrong.

But how do you explain the scene where the three Doctors put their hands on the Button, ready to push ‘because there is no other way’? This happens very soon after the Tenth Doctor says doing so was ‘just wrong’. To me, the barn scene says a lot more about what the Doctors (Ten and Eleven) think about their past decision than what Ten says to Kate Stewart.

I don’t think my interpretation of the Doctor’s words is at odds with the Moment’s plans. My understanding of the Moment’s role in the Day of the Doctor is:

1) She enables the Doctor to save Gallifrey.

2) She causes the Doctor to second-guess himself (or a-millionth-guess himself, as he clearly wouldn’t consider using the Moment without a heck of a lot of thinking) so that, by the time she makes the Gallifrey-saving solution available to him at the end of the episode, he stops and realises that it’s there (though you could wonder why she doesn’t just outright tell him).

And, I agree, part of this plan involves showing him the situation Kate Stewart puts herself in with the Zygons, and how Ten and Eleven deal with it. But I don’t think that that is at odds with my interpretation of the Tenth Doctor’s persuasive words as something he doesn’t fully believe. The Moment is showing the War Doctor that even in the future he always strives and strives against the odds for the Third Way, in this case (and most cases) successfully. Ten saying what he says is part of that striving, but that doesn’t mean that he’s definitely being honest. Whether he’s being honest or not, this general moment in time serves the Moment’s purpose. She is trying to give the War Doctor the extra hope that, if he just stops and thinks again, a third way might exist – because she is about to arrange one for him, in breaching the Time Lock.

Besides, if the Moment is suggesting Ten is being truthful when he says ‘What I did was wrong,’ it completely backfires when he effectively joins the War Doctor in destroying Gallifrey ten minutes later, because ‘there is no other way.’

I don’t see the Moment as the Absolute Morality of the Doctor Who Universe, the lens to the Truth that There is Always a Third Way. She is essentially providing the Doctor with a solution to the problem and manipulating him, in more ways than one, so that he stops and sees this solution. She doesn’t want to be responsible for the deaths of the Time Lords any more than he does.

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@jimbomcmaster

But how do you explain the scene where the three Doctors put their hands on the Button, ready to push ‘because there is no other way’?

Quite easily, because I don’t have a problem conceiving of a situation where I can decide to do something ‘wrong’ because I can’t think of anything ‘right’. I can, for example, tell someone else that what they’re about to do is ‘wrong’ and what I did was ‘wrong’ even though I still can’t think of any alternative.

The fact that I can’t think of an alternative doesn’t magically transform something into the ‘right’, ‘moral’ thing to do.

The Doctor: And it is done in the name of many lives we are failing to save.

Which quote really doesn’t sound as if The Doctor is exactly saying ‘yay, this is the right decision.’ Sounds more like he thinks he’s failed. They’ve failed. They know, when they press the button, that they should have saved those lives – but they can’t work out how to.

he stops and realises that it’s there

Actually, Clara stops him. If you watch Day of the Daleks you’ll realise that Clara is probably the only person who CAN stop him. Not the Moment, not the later incarnations of the Doctor. I did suggest in a blog post on this that the Moment’s entire intervention is based around Clara being available.

it completely backfires when he effectively joins the War Doctor in destroying Gallifrey ten minutes later, because ‘there is no other way.’

If you believe that there is a situation where the Doctor has a choice between two ‘wrong’ options, why do you think he doesn’t realise that both options are ‘wrong’? There is NO inconsistency in his believing both that a) he has no choice but to destroy Gallifrey, because that’s the least worst option available and b) that option is, morally, utterly wrong.

It’s genocide. It’s murder. And if you want a real life equivalent, it’s the decision that you relive over and over in your head and can never find an alternative to – but which you know hurt people terribly. And yet, if you went back in time – you’d do the same thing again. Because the alternative is worse.

[Oblique @oblique]

@purofilion

Did you believe the Doctor was seeing things in Clara that could be interesting/useful to another person/multiform?

The Doctor is usually one step ahead of the game, and he’s reaction was one of surprise and he didn’t recognise the Clara Oswald he thought he knew. To nudge thinks along the Doctor has been speeding up her evolution so that Doctor and companion are almost indistinguishable; he’s training her for something… or he could have been upset ?

Since her fairy tale quest commenced and she climbed from Victorian London up a staircase and into the sky she’s  been completely at home. So why is that? I’m sure he was aware that the ease to which she took to space and time was unusual.

The Doctor is assisting Clara, somewhat blindly of the consequences, but is prepared to take the risk by developing her attributes.

As for Missy (in the guise of a cosmic Disney Maleficent) I’d say she’s make a good Black Guardian, but where is the White Guardian and if he was behind Clara, then we would have had a clue or clues seeded elsewhere. The Master? The Rani? Odds on favourite is the Valeyard, missing entirely from the 50th Anniversary  incarnation debacle… personally I’m all for a new villain, 21st Century style.

Kind regards,

Oblique

[Oblique @oblique]

@Purofilion

But as I didn’t watch anything beyond Clara’s debut, then I’m probably not in a position to surmise…

Oblique X

[PhaseShift @phaseshift Time Lord]

@oblique

..But as I didn’t watch anything beyond Clara’s debut..

But here you are, boring me already. Go away…watch this series, the one you’ve been commenting on, the ONE WITH CLARA, and then report back.

Christ. Possibly on a bike. Tell you what. Stop attempting to bait people – come and PM me direct, and explain that last comment in your oblique way. Talk staight. I live in Yorkshire. We likes it like that.

Phaseshift XX

[Oblique @oblique]

@phaseshift

But here you are, boring me already. Go away…watch this series, the one you’ve been commenting on, the ONE WITH CLARA, and then report back.

Because I wrote:

But as I didn’t watch anything beyond Clara’s debut, then I’m probably not in a position to surmise…

The line to which you take offence is an adjunct, something I overlooked in my post 34288 answering a question put to me by Puro. If you’ve read it, and I’m sure you have, then you’d understand that taken in context my post reads that I’ve seen Clara’s debut story but see any other stories until this season and I’ve watched them all, therefore I feel though my knowledge of the character is limited, I can still hazard an answer based on what I’ve seen…. without needed to watched the missing season before taking a punt on an answer for Puro.

If my opinions about production, the writing, the edit, etc. clash with the views of other people then surely this makes for interesting dialogue? I’m not here to bait members at all. Maybe I’m championing a show I very much believe in.

If you don’t like me and your not alone, and  my posts upset you,  THEN STOP READING

As for explain my comments to you in PM? Excuse me?!*

I find your hostility offensive and your sarcasm desperate

[JimboMcMaster @jimbomcmaster]

@Bluesqueakpip

Everything I’ve said so far is based on the idea that there’s a difference between performing an act and making a choice. Hopefully I can show you why:

Killing 2.7 billion children is wrong. Letting 270 trillion children die is wrong. As acts they are both wrong.

But, in the sense that I’m speaking, if you have to choose between one or the other, between two wrong acts, and there is no other choice, then the least wrong choice is by definition the best choice (because it’s better than the only other alternative) and is therefore the right choice. The two choices aren’t equally good choices; one is better than the other. There is no other choice to pick from. But you have to make a choice: action or inaction. You obviously aren’t going to choose the worst choice. So you obviously are going to choose the best choice. This is logical. The act that choice entails is morally wrong in and of itself. But, regardless, it’s still the right choice to make, because the other ‘act’, inaction, is morally even more wrong. Therefore in this case, a morally wrong act = morally right choice.

(I apologise if this seems obvious, but I really want to make this clear because it appears to be at the centre of our differing views. Actually, now I’m not sure if we have differing views or whether it’s simply our wording which is different.)

This is the sense in which I am speaking when I say that the Doctor thinks that destroying the Time Lords and the Daleks is the ‘right choice’. He’s obviously put a lot of thought into it. And he is choosing to press the button. Therefore he thinks it is the right choice. He clearly knows this means committing a morally wrong act. But he still thinks it’s the right choice.

You may be intending different meanings by these terms, but I just wanted to confirm what I mean when I use them.

I appreciate that, when the Doctor faces a choice between Bad and Worse, you think that he should, and normally would, always try to find the third, Good, way. I almost completely agree. My favourite aspect of the Doctor is that he always strives to solve problems with non-violent means, fighting bad with good, instead of more bad.

But there is a reason I initially expressed approval of the idea that the Doctor may find himself in situations where he has to do the Bad to prevent the Worse, and it’s the same reason I think he would consider doing the Bad as, very occasionally, the ‘right’ choice. The reason is that I think that sometimes a Third Way would not be available to the Doctor and I think the (very) occasional acknowledgment of this makes the show a deeper, more well-rounded thing. Because the unavailability of a third way is not just to do with the goodwill of the Doctor – it also is affected by the constraints he faces, particularly of time in which to find that Third Way and act it out.

So when I talk about the Doctor only being able to choose between Bad and Worse at the end of the Time War, it’s not that I think a good person wouldn’t search and search for that third Good way to stop the war, that they wouldn’t seek as much advice, and do as much research, and calculate as many probabilities, and perform as many experiments, as they possibly can to find a Third Way. What I think is that there could come a time when it is too late to do any of those things any more, and, knowing that, the Doctor cannot delay ending the War forever. If he does, there could well come a time when more people have died than he can ever save. By then, it would be too late. He would have failed. He can’t look for a third way forever because, by neither using a Good Way or the Bad Way soon enough, he will have allowed the Worst ‘Way’ to have occurred.

He clearly knows the situation, he clearly knows what can happen, he clearly knows what’s at stake. In that situation he considers himself to have a responsibility to try to save as many lives as he can, even if it’s not a certain choice. That to me is what makes the Doctor a great man. He doesn’t stand to one side when lives are in danger and then, when they are lost, simply hold up his hands and say ‘Well, it wasn’t me.’ I’m sure, to some extent, you would agree with that.

So essentially what I’m saying is that I think we can refer to the Bad choice as the ‘right’ one if literally the only other alternative is the Worse choice. If there is a Third Way available: great. Then that is the right choice. Of course it’s the right choice if it’s available. But at the end of the Time War time is running out and it appears that a Third Way isn’t going to be available for the Doctor (until the Moment’s intervention). So which out of the available choices should the Doctor choose? As I’ve said, the correct answer to that question, by my definition, can be called the ‘right choice’. And I think that’s where, at least to some extent, a lot of this discussion has arisen from: we are simply using different definitions. It’s almost become a matter of semantics, not morality.

 

           he stops and realises that it’s there

Actually, Clara stops him… I did suggest in a blog post on this that the Moment’s entire intervention is based around Clara being available.

My original sentence was:

She causes the Doctor to second-guess himself… so that… he stops and realises that [the solution]’s there.

So actually I think we agree on this. Part of the Moment’s plan involves getting Clara to the Doctor at the moment he’s about to press the button, just as part of it involves showing him Kate Stewart vs the Zygons. Both things (and possibly more) are in aid of causing the Doctor to stop and realise the other solution is there. And I agree that Clara is pivotal in this.

 

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