Hell Bent
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14 December 2015 at 07:11 #49417
On the other hand — he demanded a neural block “compatible with humans” back in the extraction room, didn’t he? What for, if he didn’t have *some* plan to use it — on a human? And Clara is the only human at hand except for Ashildr (does Ashildr count as fully human any more?), and he doesn’t seem to have any cause to use it on Ashildr.
I’d doubt it would even work on Ashildr (I’d suspect it would work initially, but her Mire implant might well reverse its effects, like any other “damage” to her), and can’t see why he would have planned to use in on her in any case. I think he’s being honest about his plans to use it on Clara (so presumably plan A was to return Clara to Earth, memory wiped, but with a pulse).
14 December 2015 at 13:50 #49418@juniperfish @bluesqueakpip @puroandson @lisa
The problem with post-Modernism (and its Cleetus-The-Slack-Jawed-Yokel-like cousin, deconstructionism) is that it takes a perfectly sensible critique of structuralism (especially its obsession with the dual) and degrades it into a sub-6th-form (or to use the more useful American style, sub-Sophomore) debating club.
It is so patently self-invovled, so auto-anally-inserted, that it isn’t even much fun to take the piss out of it because real comedy is shouldn’t be that easy.
It, for example, allows such self-serving nonsense as this:
“convincingly argues is likely a multi-authored text, transitioning over time. So, to pin its “ultimate” truths onto Malory’s personal life or authorial intent (both common forms of humanist literary criticism) would be patently reductionist.”
It would help to known what reductionism means with far greater clarity than deployed here, because then the straw man hidden in it could be avoided. And more to the point it would save the trouble of wasting words on something that everyone else worked out years before. To use the old book review trope, it is both good and original, but the bits that are good are not original and the bits that are original are not good.
It is a deliberate obfuscation between method and stance: what is actually being accused is essentialism (and yes, @Juniprfish, I am blaming the original author, not you. It is his nonsense).
All artistic work is multiply authored – indeed even modern copyright law explicitly recognises this with the distinction between “publishing” rights (the original text) and the “mechanical” rights (the version, or interpretation).
‘Cos the thing is, nobody is arguing that the original author is the sole authority [hmm, consider the roots of those two words].
Indeed, the changes protested by Dead Authorists happen at a much earlier stage as well: at the transition from author’s mind to page: the simple act of transposition changes the idea. Does that make the page the author?
Also, of course, the author may change their mind – Arthur C Clarke went back to the basic idea that became Songs of Distant Earth many times before finding a version he was happy with. He was happy with. But then there will be his editors (only poor writers dismiss the need for a good editor – good being defined as one who helps the author find their own voice). And all the other changes that happen twixt thought and expression (the details differ but the basic pattern is the same for all media).
So at what point does the author cease to own it? The answer, of course, is that it happens at which ever arbitrary point is need to support whatever evidence-free interpretation they wish to cling to. But that is pure sophistry.
There is nothing wrong with reader imagination (well, duh) just don’t pretend the text supports it (I am happy to agree with Richard Schiff that, in the West Wing, Toby committed the betryal he did to protect someone else (CJ, probably). It is an idea that gives me comfort, given that Toby is perhaps my all-time favourite human character. But there is nothing in-text to support it, and I would never claim there is).
Of course, any interpretation is best left until the story is complete (as @bluesqueakpip discovered 😉 ), and I suspect there is still a little of Clara’s story to come. River Song may not be the most subtle character ever, but Alex Kingston is an actor of quite astounding subtlety and I am fairly sure that, at the meeting/ seance with Vastra, Strax and Jenny, River knew immediately and exactly who Clara was).
14 December 2015 at 14:23 #49420@ichabod @tardigrade
Would the neural block have worked on Clara without a pulse? In her time-looped state she might have just reset, or it may not have had time to work – it seemed to take several seconds for the Doctor to succumb to it. It depends on how much of Clara’s system is reset in her timeloop (she is her own personal traveling Ourobouros).Maybe thats another reason the Dr was so panicked about the plan.
Apologies for not responding to other points addressed to me up-thread, I’ve been laid up for a couple of days, and there’s so much here to catch up on!
@morpho I give in! On the question of who/what is most likely the Hybrid … I think I’ve decided on a ‘superposition of quantum states‘ interpretation, and I’ll leave it at that. IE there’s a certain probability to each of your well-argued theories, we can’t tell which is most likely, so I’ll just hold them all in mind as being potential solutions. Further down the road we may well have new information, and the theories will collapse into something more coherent. Unlike me after several glasses of wine where collapsing into coherence doesn’t happen somehow.
@jphamlore Thanks for your thoughts and theories re the Matrix and its possible nefarious plans to bend the Universe to its shaping. I simply don’t know enough of original-Who to argue the point. The TimeLords certainly come across as being generally a nasty bit of work (being polite) and if the Matrix takes their consciousness and general attitudes as its starting point, it could provide great material for future arcs.
(A counter to your argument might be Asimov’s more benevolent-minded R Daneel Olivaw who shapes Human culture over millennia.)
However, my feeling is now that Gallifrey has been found again, and we’ve seen it in its ruins at the end of the Universe, so maybe its urgency to the Dr is less now, and he’s free to off in other directions, less encumbered.
An aside: it doesn’t seem that the TimeLords have been off gallivanting in time and space since their emergence from the bubble. Surely they have been at liberty to do so, should they choose. There’s no evidence that they haven’t, but I dont get the impression that they have from what we’ve been shown. They seem pretty shrunken.
Another thought: Ohila and the sisterhood – I presume they’re immortal too? (apologies if this is known from original-Who) and have come the long way round, completely unchanged from all the previous times we’ve seen them. Or do they live ‘outside of time’ and can thereby manifest whenever they desire?
14 December 2015 at 14:53 #49421@pedant Wow!
I simply don’t have time or patience for that kind of analysis (and I mean firstly in a very practical sense). I’m an engineer – I’ve got problems to solve and solutions to create. [Next project: a sonic screwdriver – can’t be that hard…]
Part of my skill is in being very good at simplifying and seeing a bigger picture. The author creates a work. Editors / producers / script adapters / actors will all put their mark on it (I believe it was Heinlein’s creation Jubal Harshaw who said something like ‘of course I let the editor change my plot – he likes it better after he’s pissed in the pot’).
Then its down to us, with our life experiences, imagination, insights, to interpret it (if we wish to). The more rich and varied our life experience, the more likely that things will jump out that resonate with us, so we’ll attach more meaning to that part. In my own case over the last 4 years of very challenging life circumstances, the bits that really resonate with me have helped me to get through those circumstances. Its as though the characters onscreen are echoing part of my story. I’m not alone.
Especially in recent Who where large gaps have been deliberately left so as to create room for us to insert our own mental fan-fiction, the author’s original intent is actually partly to open a space for us. So, no wonder we the audience go on collaboratively to create (bonkers) additional storylines filling in the gaps, and creating a multiverse of options. What an incredible buy-in! I think @bluesqueakpip said above that we might want to be careful about reading more into the story than is presented onscreen (sorry for potential misrepresentation, iIve already lost a post half written in going back to check something).
Then there’s all the cultural references both intended and less-conscious. Many things come out that the author may not have directly intended, but eventually our in-between bonkerising and interpretations have to fit the story as presented. Our interpretations also change over time and with rewatches, we see more, can read things differently especially in the knowledge of what we’ve read here. Also as we develop we can see the same story in a totally different light (Shane, or High Noon?)
Isn’t it wonderful? Hmmm. I should be working for my clients!
14 December 2015 at 15:04 #49422I should be working for my clients!
Bloody clients. Always getting in the way of the fun stuff!
14 December 2015 at 15:46 #49423I haven’t read anything since the page my last post was on, so I may repeat someone else’s novel ideas unknowingly. Anyway, I’ve thought of some things that make the plot better for me, as far as making sense of Me’s and Clara’s longevity.
The chip that the Doctor implanted in Me was originally installed in the armor of a Mire warrior, not in the warrior itself. It would have healed injuries incurred for some amount of time, but it wouldn’t necessarily do it indefinitely. Why do I say this? Because the Doctor sonic’ed it. I believe he said he did it to make it compatible with human physiology, but with his ineptitude with gadgets, he might have, in the process, altered it such that it retains its integrity and functionality by syphoning nutrients from Me’s body. That can handily and believably explain why Me is apparently many billions of years old in this episode.
And Clara…. I love this part: she needn’t die in the trap street encounter with the raven. Now that she has, in Seb’s paraphrased words from last season, “more time than she expected”, she is free to reprogram the quantum shade (if possible) or to make a new deal with it. Then, she goes back to Gallifrey and inserts herself back into the trap street encounter, and the raven only seemingly does its thing (perhaps that’s the reason for the flash of light on Clara when it enters her body). She exhales Raven Gas (TM), falls down, and is presumed dead by the Doctor, who then goes back inside the building. At this point, no main character of “Face the Raven” is there to view her body. She could just get right back up and leave. Maybe the deal was to take Me’s life, instead, or something different. In any case, she could actually survive the raven encounter, whether or not it qualifies as cheating death. Nice, eh? 🙂
14 December 2015 at 18:14 #49424Such a plot twist! Going in when the Doctor said he was going to wipe Clara’s memory, I thought that’s what he did. What I did NOT expect was both of them holding on to the memory wiper, a 50/50 chance. And chance stole the Doctor. Wow. At least he won’t be sad about it, right?
14 December 2015 at 22:02 #49426Of course, any interpretation is best left until the story is complete (as @bluesqueakpip
discoveredalready knew 😉 )Fixed that for you… 😀
[#47486
the production team has two episodes for me to make some dramatic sense out of this.
]
14 December 2015 at 22:06 #49427Anonymous @
14 December 2015 at 22:54 #49428Just a couple of replies (as I know naff-all about structuralism!).
@juniperfish – “Impossible Me” made me larf!
@winston – no worries about my moniker. Either it’ll auto-correct to a card-game or ‘whilst’ rather than the actual “shut up” that it is!
;¬)
14 December 2015 at 23:11 #49430mr @soundworld
good to see you back sir. This is Puro’s son as mum is having some rest. We like this:
It depends on how much of Clara’s system is reset in her timeloop (she is her own personal traveling Ourobouros..
How true!
I love engineers. My grandpa was one -a chemical and refrigeration engineer. It’s a lot of maths!! I only got 80% in maths -2 % off an ‘A’. so I don’t think engineering is something I can do. Then there’s science 🙁
The more rich and varied our life experience, the more likely that things will jump out that resonate with us, so we’ll attach more meaning to that part
Mum and I really like the above too. You have a really nice way of writing that is very equitable to all -not sure if that’s really the right word. Hope so. 🙂
@brainofmoffat
And Clara…. I love this part: she needn’t die in the trap street encounter with the raven. Now that she has, in Seb’s paraphrased words from last season, “more time than she expected”, she is free to reprogram the quantum shade (if possible) or to make a new deal with it. Then, she goes back to Gallifrey and inserts herself back into the trap street encounter, and the raven only seemingly does its thing
No I don’t think anyone has said this and it’s a great idea. So she doesn’t ever have to face the raven? Awesome idea!
@whisht Good to see you: you must be very busy. I was thinking of posting a song. I noticed that the @thekrynoidman isn’t around and has disappeared. I remember liking his songs. Hello Mr Krnoid come back and say hello. But I was going to post something about being a teenage dirt bag because mum called me that the other day as my room was a ….terrible mess. But it’s holidays, y’know? LOL
I don’t know anything about structuralism -I thought it was something you built, like lego or something. I am very behind. Mum said “for once that is a good thing”. No idea, but there you have it.
if you are new -then hello and welcome to you. Glad you were surprised by the whole episode. me too!
Son of P
14 December 2015 at 23:11 #49431that was @thebrainofmoffat above -sorry!
14 December 2015 at 23:16 #49432Mr P,
I love the west wing and I was probably about 11 when I watched that final season with Toby. Mum said it was a terrible reading of the text and completely re-engineered the character of Toby and did it wrongly, worse.
So yes, there’s nothing in the character of the text to support such behaviour and yet it was written to get him out of the show for awhile? I’m not sure.
I love Josh but mum loves Toby and Dad the president and leo. We all have our favs. I am a nerd for liking it the other peeps say but I don’t mind. Every Christmas we pull it out again. I agree – you need a text reason for the way a character is doing things and saying things. And it just didn’t make sense. Still, a great show with problems in the final endings maybe
S0n
15 December 2015 at 00:05 #49433Would the neural block have worked on Clara without a pulse? In her time-looped state she might have just reset, or it may not have had time to work – it seemed to take several seconds for the Doctor to succumb to it. It depends on how much of Clara’s system is reset in her timeloop (she is her own personal traveling Ourobouros).
Maybe thats another reason the Dr was so panicked about the plan.
Interesting idea- my take is that it stands a good chance of working. The time loop doesn’t seem to be stopping her laying down new memories, so it would seem her perception / memory isn’t “looped”. But without knowing how the TLs “cleverness” works, who can say? The extraction chamber wasn’t something that was intended to be used for any extended period, so maybe long term memories are “looped” and can’t be changed? Perhaps the Doctor himself doesn’t know if it would work- that could add to his agitation, as you posit.
15 December 2015 at 01:12 #49434@puroandson
No I don’t think anyone has said this and it’s a great idea. So she doesn’t ever have to face the raven? Awesome idea!
She’d still have to face the raven, but she’s clever enough to pull an Impossible Astronaut-type death stunt: rig the game so that you only appear to die. As Me said in Face the Raven, you can’t cheat death by the quantum shade, so either Clara could mess around with it before the timer hits 00 and her past self enters the street, or a new deal could be made with either the raven itself or with the Time Lords, who may have supplied Me with it in the first place. By the end of Hell Bent, Clara is still young, but Me has supposedly lived for billions of years. Perhaps she’s ready to die, and that could be the new deal with the raven.
I’m just trying to put things together such that they make me happier with the way the episode went. I just wish a hint of any of it had actually been given, because it could assuage many people’s problems with the immortal Me and the “immortal” Clara.
15 December 2015 at 21:39 #49443Hi everyone, been lurking for long enough. Decided it was time to say hello.
I have to say I really enjoyed this episode. I thought it was a truly novel direction to take a companion’s story in – her becoming her own version of the Doctor.
Regarding the neural block and how it worked, I wonder if the clue is in the name – neural block. It blocks rather deletes, which leads me to think it could maybe work in a similar way to a perception filter. In Last of the Timelords the Doctor used a Tardis key to create a perception filter. When he wore the key round his neck Martha could see him but her eyes wanted to look away. As I remember it if a person approaches an object protected by a perception filter, they would instinctively walk around it without being aware of doing so. Could the neural block be similar? Directing the Doctor’s mind away from his memories of Clara, while his subconscious mind instinctively reacts to them, enabling him to remain the person Clara helped him to become.
15 December 2015 at 21:56 #49444@puroandson (son) Thank you for your words, I’m most happy to be equitable in outlook. I aim to never put people down, and my nature is to always seek the best in whats happened – even if its ‘only’ a chance to grow and develop. You’re developing great insight and a good way with words and I’m glad you (the hybrid) are on these boards.
Seriously off-topic now: I’m an Electronics Eng, with Semiconductor Physics thrown in, although I never went on to work in that field. Yup, its all maths, with some extra maths thrown in on top for good measure. Luckily, I liked maths… Only 80% doesn’t sound too bad? If its something you’d like to aim towards doing and being, then if you set your heart on it and work towards it, I’m sure there’s a way. School systems like to pressure you into trying to decide what you want to do at such an early age. I did Electronics because I taught it to myself from book and home projects from exactly your age and built myself a home recording studio (basic!), and because I loved physics, but eventually as a career I’ve gone very sideways.
Now back to topic:
@thebrainofmoffat I don’t get that there is a problem with the ‘immortal’ Clara. She has to go back and face the Raven someday – and potentially has, what, 4.5 billion years to get to Gallifrey the long way round in order to be returned to face her death. Not a bad innings! Unless she gets tired of it before then. I agree that she could in principal work out a way to reprogramme or cheat the quantum shade – and from then on she’d be back to her ordinary human lifespan. That might be quite a choice.
15 December 2015 at 22:22 #49445hallo to you and welcome. Glad you are not lurking but staying.
Yes, The Hybrid (mum and I) said “hey it’s a perception filter” too and thought other than 10th Dr the perception filter has been used a lot in Smith’s era and even last year. Twelve is often saying “oh it’s got a perception filter on it”. Etc , so yes, we think so too!
Boards are quiet overnight .
@soundworld Oh I loved maths and used to get 95% (and A in Primary school which is silly) but now in High school? DIfferent story, the teacher was frankly mean and didn’t like the class a lot and didn’t show us formulas: “google it” were his words often
I’m glad you are so positive. It’s awesome.
The SOn.
15 December 2015 at 22:49 #49447@puroandson thanks for the welcome.
15 December 2015 at 22:53 #49449@puroandson A good teacher is just – irreplaceable. As the Doctor could have said to Clara. Oh…
16 December 2015 at 00:10 #49450I don’t get that there is a problem with the ‘immortal’ Clara. She has to go back and face the Raven someday – and potentially has, what, 4.5 billion years to get to Gallifrey the long way round in order to be returned to face her death. Not a bad innings! Unless she gets tired of it before then. I agree that she could in principal work out a way to reprogramme or cheat the quantum shade – and from then on she’d be back to her ordinary human lifespan. That might be quite a choice.
The method by which she gained “immortality” is the problem. It could be done with anyone, any number of times, and there is no condition given for how long a person could take advantage of it — we just know that they do return. But why would they return? Of their own volition, or what? Does the reason matter? YES! Because without these concerns being addressed, it turns into the mother of all get-out-of-jail-free plot devices. A deus ex machina. And even if they were addressed satisfactorily, there’s a person going around the universe whose body shouldn’t be able to do a single thing. It’s just as ridiculous as the moon-dragon-and-egg scenario from last year’s Kill the Moon. The extraction chamber is an overpowered plot device unless it has limits, and we’re given no indication that there are any. That’s why I have to think up stuff that Moffat didn’t write in order to satisfy my intellect. It’s fine to leave some things up to viewers’ imaginations, but in this case, the details are too important to not include.
Anyway, the tone in the above wasn’t so much directed at you as it was toward the director of Super Smash Bros, who just made some announcements that absolutely infuriated me. But between big disappointments coming from one of my favorite shows and one of my favorite game series, and with specific other insane happenings going on (that are far more important than a TV show and video games), my mood isn’t that great right now. Please take no offense at my venting.
16 December 2015 at 00:39 #49451@thebrainofmoffat No offense taken! No worries. I sincerely hope you make sense of all those other goings on.
16 December 2015 at 01:03 #49452A deus ex machina.
Sends lightning bolt in your direction.
No, it’s not a deus ex machina. Clara being ever so slightly dead may be a seemingly unsolvable problem, but one and a half episodes is not a sudden and abrupt resolution. The Doctor may be concealing the resolution from the Time Lords, and therefore from the audience, but he takes 4.5 billion years and then half the next episode to get himself into a position where he can order Clara’s extraction.
It’s not even a previously unknown character ability. The Time Lords have brought people back from the dead before – Rassilon even reminds us he’s been ‘resurrected’ in the episode. (They seem to have brought people back from the dead in job lots during the Time War). And they’ve certainly extracted people from their time streams before – the Five Doctors.
It could be done with anyone, any number of times, and there is no condition given for how long a person could take advantage of it
Well, it could – if you can get past the Gallifreyans, who know that taking advantage of the not-being-dead-ness of extraction could potentially destabilise the continuum. Then you have to stay on the run from them until they figure out that the universe already knows you’re going to take the long way round.
The Doctor had to shoot the General to get past the Gallifreyan guards – and half the audience noticed just how out-of-normal-character it was. So it could be done with anyone, providing anyone is prepared to become Lord President of Gallifrey, order an extraction, and then shoot their way past protesting Gallifreyans (who are probably going to place an even more heavily armed guard around any future extractions, especially if the Doctor is involved). Anyone then has to be prepared to steal a TARDIS and go on the run, and work out how to hide their not-dead companion from the Gallifreyans for the rest of their not-being-dead-ness.
They sound like one heck of a set of limits to me. 🙂
there’s a person going around the universe whose body shouldn’t be able to do a single thing
Uh, huh. And it’s mentioned in the script – as an official handwavium – that somehow, the Time Lords are able to do something ever so advanced with the 0.67 seconds between heartbeats that keeps Clara mobile enough to walk, talk and fly The American Retro Diner In Space. The script mentions, for example, that breathing is now a habit. She probably doesn’t need to eat or drink, either.
Do we know how this works? Nope. Are the Time Lords using such advanced science that we can apply Clarke’s Law? Absolutely.
Does Clara return to her death? Well, firstly, we saw her die. Secondly, Me, at the very end of time tells us that ‘Even the immortals are gone’. She’s the only person left. And Me, of course, is the only one of the immortals with a mortal memory; the one whose trillions of years of age is simply a story that she rereads in her diary.
She’s learnt wisdom. But she hasn’t got the crushing weight of all those years. It’s quite possible she saw that dying star being born – but she won’t remember that she did.
There is going to come some point, Moffat is saying, where even the Sisterhood, and Clara, and the Doctor, and all the other immortals of the Whoniverse – will decide that it’s time to be gone.
16 December 2015 at 01:16 #49453@soundworld @thebrainofmoffat @bluesqueakpip @puroandson
It occurs to me that it is not at all clear that Clara can leave the Diner!Tardis with get the “dum” bit of her last “ba dum” (and one could reasonably infer, from The Doctor making her stay inside at the end of the universe, that she can’t).
That could cramp her style a little.
16 December 2015 at 01:36 #49454She was wandering around Gallifrey without getting ‘dummed’, so I’d infer that the Doctor only wanted her to stay inside so she didn’t overhear his conversation with me.
There’s also the friendly American left to look after the Doctor, who’d probably have been a bit more startled if the diner had dematerialised around him.
16 December 2015 at 02:20 #49455True, but we have just been talking about perception filters (I take as read that anywhere in a Gallifrey city is pretty much a managed-time environment)
16 December 2015 at 03:14 #49456Don’t know if anyone previously mentioned this idea here so I will put it out although its
not mine (its from Reddit) but I like it. The Tardis that Clara has now was returned by
her at her end just before she goes to face the Raven. So she returns to Galifrey and that’s
when she meets the 1st Doctor and directs him to steal the same “knackered” Tardis all over
again. The Moffat loop!
I bet that’s been already posted someplace on the thread by one of you clever people but I didn’t
catch it.
Also, probably already mentioned wondering why Clara couldn’t try to clone herself ?
Whether or not her immortal condition still remains intact then it might be a way to get
around the Raven?
I also got 1 more crazy idea that Rassilon could be the Doctor’s son in law? If the Doctor didn’t
steal the President’s wife but his daughter then Susan could be that daughter. In which case
Rassilon could be Susan’s dad and this could be all in the family ? Talk about a dysfunctional
family! 🙂
16 December 2015 at 07:05 #49457I have been avoiding posting, partly due to time restraints partly because I made the insane decision to read everyone’s’ posts first. (I am only half way down page five.) But I just had a rather insane idea. When the Doctor says he ran away with the President’s daughter I assumed he meant as in “eloped with” not abducted and took gallivanting through time and space with, (ie Susan because that has dubious connotations). Missy we know had a daughter. Maybe at some time he/she was President of Gallifrey and it was her daughter the Doctor eloped with.
Anyway, back to reading all the discussion, not sure I will have anything to add after thirteen pages other than some truly bonkers theories. I am sure eventually the posts will slow down and I will catch up.
Cheers
Janette
16 December 2015 at 08:42 #49458When the Doctor says he ran away with the President’s daughter I assumed he meant as in “eloped with” not abducted and took gallivanting through time and space with, (ie Susan because that has dubious connotations). Missy we know had a daughter. Maybe at some time he/she was President of Gallifrey and it was her daughter the Doctor eloped with.
Early in the series Missy referred to the Doctor running off with “the president’s wife”. Seems an odd mistake for her to have made in any case, but more so if it was her own daughter, and she’d also have been referring to her past regneration as “the president”, i.e. referring to herself in the 3rd person, in that case. Plus I don’t know that the Master/Missy was ever president material, though I guess could have gained the position by subterfuge :-). So I don’t think that’s a likely explanation. Perhaps it is Susan referred to, in which case neither an abduction or elopement (in a romantic sense) sit very well.
16 December 2015 at 12:16 #49460@bluesqueakpip @thebrainofmoffat
Oh boy I hope the lightning bolt was your blog on what a DEM actually is.
I think Son knows by now.
I do get concerned that everyone is thnking DEM all the time
Puro solo
16 December 2015 at 17:05 #49461I have in no way caught up with all these posts – got too much going on! -, but have rewatched Heaven Sent and Hell Bent – the latter on my tv instead of my tablet, yay!
Further things that have sprung to mind in the meantime/more thoughts I’ve had…
I like the way last year had Clara betraying the Doctor over Danny’s death while this year had the Doctor betraying himself over Clara’s death. Right down to the ‘I am owed’/’The universe owes me’ lines.
Also last year started with the Doctor begging Clara to just see him and this year ended with him not seeing Clara.
Wondering if all the seeming hints that the Doctor knew something was going to happen to Clara is connected to the dreamcrabs where he saw her as an old woman – possibly a sharp reminder of her mortality and also put the thought in there that if she carried on traveling with him she was unlikely to make it to a ripe old age?
I liked how quickly Rassilon and the high council were dealt with, reading opinions in various places, I know some aren’t.
I don’t think the Doctor recognised Clara, but I wonder if he didn’t have that little niggling feeling you get when you can’t remember something but feel that you almost can.
Still want to know what Missey did to the confession dial. I wonder if we’ll ever find out.
@thebrainofmoffat I scrolled up to see what was on this page at least and this caught my eye –
we just know that they do return. But why would they return? Of their own volition, or what? Does the reason matter? YES! Because without these concerns being addressed, it turns into the mother of all get-out-of-jail-free plot devices.
I thought if Clara didn’t go back the whole universe could end (or at least have major damage caused to it), and she knows that, so will go back after as many detours as she wants to make – or possibly, if it’s anything like the Doctor’s, until her Tardis decides Gallifrey is where she needs to be.
16 December 2015 at 22:19 #49462@lisa – I love that idea that Clara (finally) goes back to Gallifrey to give ‘her’ Tardis to the Doctor, running away with the President’s daughter (Susan) to save her from [insert fate-worse-than-death, like marriage to a Sontaran in a peace deal; sitting pointless exam; going to the Ambassador’s Ball in terrible dress etc etc).
“Hey – take this one! Two careful owners and we really didn’t turn the clock on it back…”
17 December 2015 at 02:34 #49465The extraction chamber is an overpowered plot device unless it has limits, and we’re given no indication that there are any.
Agreed. I also had much the same issue with the teleporter spitting out an infinite sequence of Doctors in Heaven Sent. The explanation given there likened it to a copy being 3D-printed from a template on the hard drive. That left it far too open for my liking for a modified teleporter to be used to clone / restore to life anyone. And teleporters are a much more widely distributed tech than TL extraction chambers. You could argue that the confession dial was in some way a subjective experience, but the Doctor was using the teleporter as known real-world tech. So I’d have appreciated clearer limits being placed on that also.
It’s not even a previously unknown character ability. The Time Lords have brought people back from the dead before – Rassilon even reminds us he’s been ‘resurrected’ in the episode. (They seem to have brought people back from the dead in job lots during the Time War). And they’ve certainly extracted people from their time streams before – the Five Doctors.
The term “resurrected” suggested to me that Rassilon was actually “dead” and restored to life, rather than cheating death. Given the episode revived the concept of TL consciousnesses going into the Matrix after death, it seemed more likely to me that it was that consciousness being restored to a cloned body with a big dose of regeneration energy (or something along those lines) that was used to resurrect Rassilon & the Master. If that’s the case, there’s no time paradox involved, even if it is yet another deus ex machina. That’s three ways to bring people back from the dead in one two-parter (not counting Me’s implant, or normal TL regeneration). So it’s definitely been an overused plot device. Characters need to stay dead sometimes, especially when you have time travel as a major premise of the series, which used without limits can “fix” anything.
“Five Doctors” type-scenarios have never been entirely satisfactory either for me. But there were limits set on those- it seems it wasn’t something that could be maintained forever, and those regenerations pulled forward couldn’t remember it afterwards, so the paradox is at least unwound in those cases. “The Day of the Doctor” is actually a much worse example because historically established highly important and hence presumably “fixed” events (the end of the Time War) are changed, though since that required the Moment’s influence, that’s not (easily) repeatable.
17 December 2015 at 06:45 #49466I have read the information on DEM (Mum suggests youll know the abbreviation!) and also on the concept of ‘lazy writing’. I find the concept “overused plot device” is like saying something has lazy writing. If you were to ask a 100 Doctor who watchers what the extraction chamber is I do not think many people would explain it correctly. Would they Dalek? Cybermen? Perception Filter? Black Holes? The eye of harmony? I think so.
So, on balance this chamber is not an overused plot device.
It’s a clever piece which did exactly what was explained. It was not a “death eater” or death cheater 🙂
Rassilon arrived in the End of Time on earth and the Master was to complete that process. In this way he was resurrected -he had not died in the usual way. Then, he had regenerated. I also think this is one way of saying Rassilon is a false-ish prophet -bullies others into thinking he is the ‘resurrected’ -“I Robot you Jane” type of thing which, btw, mr @pedant we re-watched last night (a whole Buffy re-watch is happening and at the end they say “we are doomed”. I never paid attention to that before – chills)
Thankyou from
Son
17 December 2015 at 07:43 #49467Wow, you guys have been hard at it. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Confession Disc. Clara Faces the Raven due to a Conspiracy of Timelords. There has been much eloquence and many interesting ideas since last week. Several things that made me laugh (Satan’s fungus, @pedant?) I have just spent several hours following @countscarlioni’s dictum to not post until I’ve caught up. I even took notes so I could remember what I wanted to say. Now, where to begin?
I think I will start with the script vs. film vs. viewer discussion. I had a relatively brief career as a playwright, during which I wrote a few imperfect, bizarre plays and produced them for the local Fringe. It was a blast. One thing that I vividly remember is the read-through, which was the moment when the characters ceased to be the people I had created and became something completely new. Actual humans other than myself reading those lines made such a difference and I always found that hugely exciting. I don’t recall ever correcting an actor’s interpretation of the lines in any serious way, because it all seemed perfectly legit to me. Just not always what I had imagined, not my head-canon. 🙂 Now, while I would imagine that Stephen Moffat would have been quicker than I was to assert his view of the story (with good reason), I think his respect for the actors is such that their take on the characters would definitely leave a mark.
The problem with having presented the Doctor in the past as the “man with the plan”, as in “I knew it all along and was ready for you”, the Doctor lies, etc., is that people are then tempted to apply that kind of thinking even when the creators didn’t intend it. So people choose to dismiss things that were said and done because the Doctor was lying, acting, or in some way tricking someone.
On a related note, I was once taken to task by a music history prof for my interpretation of a Schubert lied, which was based on the singing on a particular recording. She disputed my interpretation, and when I supported it with musical ideas from the recording I had used, she dismissed my argument with the statement that the singer was wrong and I should be careful which recordings I used. I have to say that we agreed to disagree. My view was that if the singer could make that interpretation convincing, then why should he (or I) have to defer to the views of scholars on the intentions of a poet dead for 170 years? Which is admittedly different from a contemporary writer explaining his own work by saying, “No, I actually meant something else.” Moffat, in particular, clearly has no problem with his audience re-writing the stories to their own satisfaction, otherwise as people have commented, he wouldn’t leave things so open-ended!
@ichabod I can only imagine that the writers who really “let their characters take over” the writing process, don’t do much critical editing afterward? That would usually be the time to put those characters firmly back in their places. 🙂
17 December 2015 at 07:53 #49469@puroandson Puro Solo posted a lengthy and articulate discussion of the Doctor’s motivations re Clara and the hybrid, and I especially liked this: I presume the Doctor is now released from his increasingly heavy duty of care. This is significant. Therefore Missy has no power over him and other species who want the Doctor will not ‘read’ his memories and locate his “thing of greatest weakness.” And I absolutely loved your comparison to Rochester. Wow. That’s a great comparison, of the Doctor’s feelings for Clara that are so dangerous to the universe, to Rochester’s obsessive, unhealthy, unrighteous love for Jane. They both forget for a time that there are limitations on what is allowed, even for love.
@tardigrade @ichabod I wonder if part of the Doctor’s problem with Clara was also that he had come to feel that he needed her… to hand him cue cards, to care so that he didn’t have to, to help him be the Doctor. She saved him so many times and ways, that he somehow felt he couldn’t manage without her. And perhaps what the neural block has done has been to remove that dependence. This dependence was the real issue, not his “duty of care”, which frankly is never something he seemed to care much about before, and felt more like an excuse than a truth. Freed from it, he can properly be the Doctor again.
@ichabod It would be an interesting thought experiment to re-imagine all of the stories of Series 7.2, 8, and 9 as if they didn’t have Clara in them, but a nameless Companion who doesn’t have Clara’s history. I’d bet that we could re-engineer most of those stories to make some sort of sense (although not the satisfying emotional drama that we were given, obviously). But something like those re-imagined stories is presumably what the Doctor remembers. And this, @puroandson, I really like: I think he’ll recall the lessons but not the teacher.
I have many more thoughts about hybrids and so on, but it will have to wait for tomorrow as it is long past my bedtime now!
17 December 2015 at 08:07 #49470dear miss @arbutus
Hello says we!
I like what you wrote there. So the neural block was healthy -it restored his neural connections and blocked out the unhealthy stuff. It was neural medicine so he could move on because he had to -he might have died otherwise. He already broke all his hearts and that’s not natural. We are not islands but we can’t all be sea either.
Son
17 December 2015 at 08:38 #49471@puroandson
I didn’t mean to suggest that the extraction chamber itself had been overused- more that the number of ways to cheat death was mounting up over the last two seasons, and as a theme that had been used more than I’m comfortable with. I wouldn’t want to see a descent into comic book logic, where anyone regardless of how thoroughly dead can be brought back to life with impunity. If you pull out a new way to cheat death each time, then it risks looking like a deus ex machina solution. In the context of Doctor Who, where the tech is supposedly sufficiently advanced to invoke Clarke’s law, a certain amount of handwaving is acceptable, but it can easily be taken too far. It’s also why I railed a bit against “reversing the polarity” as that’s also a DEM device.
I’ll need to review better how Rassilon was “resurrected”, since I’m not at all sure how that went down if that’s really ever been explained – admittedly as you note that term is Rassilon’s, since that suits the narrative he prefers to spin of himself as a semi-mythical figure. I thought The End of Time is post Time War though, so can’t relate to Rassilon’s or the Master’s “resurrection” during the Time War, can it?
17 December 2015 at 08:44 #49472@bluesqueakpip There is going to come some point, Moffat is saying, where even the Sisterhood, and Clara, and the Doctor, and all the other immortals of the Whoniverse – will decide that it’s time to be gone.
Yeah, you don’t get to unfix a fixed point, do you — not even by taking the long way round. For me, this is why the whole DW series, the basic idea of it, is dark. Going darker just means dipping a little deeper below the surface of action and banter etc. It’s always there, implied and looming: endings.
@arbutus . . . the read-through, which was the moment when the characters ceased to be the people I had created and became something completely new. Actual humans other than myself reading those lines made such a difference and I always found that hugely exciting.
I think I know what you mean here — I had a similar experience, which led me to gladly give up any idea that I was in control in any way. I got it that letting go and just riding the ride was the best possible thing I could do for the play, the performers, and for myself, and boy was I rewarded! Watching the actors re-invent everything (and making it better) just blew me away. The Director encouraged them to try different approaches, pacing, bits of business, etc. until it all began to take shape, after which his job seemed to be to help make that shape firmer and more coherent. He was amazing to watch; he’d done some directing at the Met, so maybe his experience with singers and opera added to what I saw as great, and very effective, delicacy with his cast of four.
Coleman said, way back, that Capaldi is “absolutely fearless” and will “try anything”, including settling with her on just how they would play a bit, and then improvising something different in the take that (sometimes, I assume, not always) was better, and that kept her on her toes in the best way. I doubt that Moffat, or the various Directors, would interfere much in that process between these actors, once it was in motion. I get that from seeing how happy, energized, and willing these actors seemed to be, on set and off — but of course, they’re *actors*, so who nose, really? Moffat does seem to enjoy leaving that openness and ambiguity. Thank goodness.
I can only imagine that the writers who really “let their characters take over” the writing process, don’t do much critical editing afterward?
In fact, the person I’m thinking of most centrally on this issue used to refuse to do a second draft, on the grounds that the characters had already told it right the first time, until editors stopped letting her get away with this. She’s had a very good, long run, though, albeit producing novels that are too wordy for my own taste.
17 December 2015 at 09:00 #49473@puroandson Son of Puro: He already broke all his hearts and that’s not natural. We are not islands but we can’t all be sea either.
No; not while we’re still inhabiting bodies, anyway. Nicely put; have you come across the concept of the “oceanic feeling” that deep meditation is supposed to (sometimes) produce? I’ve touched it from time to time, while studying zen Buddhism. It’s a great feeling, but IMO nobody can *live* there. Certainly not the Doctor!
@arbutus something like those re-imagined stories is presumably what the Doctor remembers.
Oh, yes — I think so too. He might be a bit baffled, though, about just why *he* did certain things — e.g., would he have impulsively resurrected Ashildr in Girl against his own better judgment, if he hadn’t been shoved into it by his fear of the future impact on himself of Clara dying?
I do like the idea that he’s also unhealthily dependent on Clara’s counter-balancing his awkward social and emotional alienness; figuring out what to do, but not knowing how to *be* with people.
17 December 2015 at 10:27 #49474Oh right yes, thanks: I was talking with mum (she hasn’t been too crash hot at the moment) and she knows of this. She used to teach many years a go a small course in relaxation and light meditation at the Relaxation Centre in our city. It wasn’t real heavy meditation -as you need serious qualifications but relxation which helped a lot of people and she did this with me when I was doing some soccer trials. I could get my heart rate down real fast on field because of that but anyway I see what youre saying -we can’t live like that all of the time we need people -that’s a song? I think too.
@tardigrade Oh I see what you are saying. I am sorry. Thing is, a DEM is well, a DEM so if it is, it is but it has to have various criteria so I think saying it’s a solution that’s over used might be the only way to describe it. Hmm, quite a few people have died -all the people in the Under the Lake episode or several anyway died. Danny died, the zygons eps had ‘real’ people killed. Then last year in Into the Dalek and also Deep Breath? Cass died with Dr 8 in the minisode so I think lots have died and not all ‘red shirts’.
On principal we know River is dead the Doctor regenerates and Amy and Rory were teleported back to early NY and never saw the doctor again so in a show where the companion hardly ever dies, where the doctor doesn’t either then you’re going to have a show where not many people die .
I think 🙂
Son
G’night Play Station calls me. I have a diamond gun. 🙂
Thankyou
Son
17 December 2015 at 16:31 #49476I think Rassilon will be the Minister of War mentioned by O’Donnell this past season. I speculate Moffat will use themes from Shakespeare’s play Richard III. I am thinking in particular that the vibe could be similar to the Ian McKellen 1995 film version of Richard III that brought that play into an alternate Britain of the 1930s with fascist overlays.
As it happens, Benedict Cumberbatch apparently will play Richard III in an upcoming film by BBC.
Not that Doctor Who can get Cumberbatch, but there are many other fine actors who can play Richard III and translate various elements to the character of Rassilon. I am thinking if Moffat wanted to be experimental, he can have Rassilon somewhat speak to the audience, or at least explain some of his thoughts, similar to Act I of Richard III. Of course there might be a great disparity between what Rassilon thinks of himself and what he actually is and does.
18 December 2015 at 00:22 #49479The teleporter (and its limitations) already appeared in Forest of the Dead and was very clearly an information-reconstructing teleport.
But I’m afraid it’s a standard philosophical question about teleports, because the types that work by reconstructing information (rather than some mysterious disassembling, transportation and reassembling of our actual physical atoms) are basically a clone/resurrection device.
You may not like it, but that’s what that type of teleport does. If it works by information transfer, it can clone you. Or reconstruct you after death. Letting an information transfer teleport into your fictional universe (rather than dissassembly and reassembly after a short and possibly rather exciting trip through a wormhole) implies all those things.
I think you misunderstood me; ‘resurrecting’ people and extracting them from their time lines are two separate things – but in combination, it does rather suggest that the Time Lords are able to return people from the dead six times before breakfast.
even if it is yet another deus ex machina
It isn’t. Time Lords doing Time Lord-ey things like Time Lords do is never a deus ex machina. DEM is not shorthand for ‘plot device I don’t like’, or ‘method I think is overused’. 😉 If you want to check out my blog on the subject…
Characters need to stay dead sometimes
It’s actually really, really difficult to have someone stay dead in a fictional universe with time travel, shape-shifting, cloning, and virtual reality – River, for example, as Son of Puro pointed out, has been dead (and staying dead) since her first two episodes. However, her many appearances have involved either meeting her earlier in her time stream, or the use of her ‘virtual reality’ afterlife.
So if you kill off Clara, how do you keep her ‘dead’? She’s got a zillion Claricle-clones wandering around, there’s no particular reason the Doctor can’t visit her after she’s died (in fact, we were speculating whether that was what had happened in the Zygon two-parter), and we’ve seen teleporters used to bring people back from the dead if their information had been recorded and stored. The eventual solution used an idea first seen in 1983; that the Time Lords can scoop people out of their time stream.
But you’re talking about a TV programme that can have Marcus Aurelius playing bass guitar in the Doctor’s band. Virginia Woolf can be on the Doctor’s bowling team. The Doctor’s planet is living billions of years in our future – as Clara says in Hide, we are ALL ghosts from the Doctor’s point of view. We’re all dead; everyone from 21st Century Earth is just as dead as Marcus Aurelius. But the Doctor has a time machine…
The last episode pretty much explores the idea that the Doctor has to let people stay dead. He’s got all these ways to bring people back to life – but the rules say that he has to not use them. What we see with Clara is what happens when he goes all Time Lord Victorious – and realises that nobody can make The Doctor obey the rules except The Doctor.
And the universe, of course. Moffat’s very fond of demonstrating what happens when you break the rules that the universe runs by.
It’s always there, implied and looming: endings.
Yes, but Steven Moffat takes a different view than RTD. RTD has the remnants of humanity running in terror from the end of time; Steven Moffat has Ashildr sitting watching the last stars go out and thinking that it’s sad … and beautiful. Summer is great; winter has its own beauty.
One producer is saying that endings are terrifying; the other says that endings are part of the shape we make of our lives. Moffat’s famous for ‘everybody lives’, but in fact, he kills off his characters quite frequently. He killed off Amy and Rory, for example. But we don’t notice, because when he kills off the regular characters, it’s never the end of their story.
18 December 2015 at 00:45 #49482even if it is yet another deus ex machina
It isn’t. Time Lords doing Time Lord-ey things like Time Lords do is never a deus ex machina. DEM is not shorthand for ‘plot device I don’t like’, or ‘method I think is overused’. If you want to check out …
@bluesqueakpip thank you for mentioning Son of Me when discussing this. I believe @tardigrade he had a point -a pretty good one for 14, and that is, that the Doctor lives and that frankly “not everybody else lives” is the second idea: we know from the re-boot with Eccleston that he said “let everybody live. Give me this just once.”
As Blue above, said, and so did Son, Amy and Rory are dead -not just teleported away but their gravestones are visible and they’re old. And that is the point, to the Doctor, everyone is already dead so to suggest that Moffat doesn’t kill anyone is kind of “pret a portay” (Son said this and he had no idea what it actually meant!). DEM’s are funny things. The biggest one is the blue box I would think 🙂
There really are almost no DEMs in Who: everything has a consistent motivation and the teleporter or reanimator or whatever it could be called is given plenty of back story. Generally, I think what Son was suggesting is that there are three fav topics of fans/not fans:
The first is a) lazy writing. The second b) overused plot devices and c) the DEM. This is how a lot of people critique Who and it’s a problem because on these pages and I mean all of last year and the year before, the discussion of these elements was very varied and well explained. The blogs on these matters do highlight the crucial definitions of say, a real DEM as opposed to one ‘created’ as critique. But look, that’s my opinion and ‘fair do’ as everyone has their likes and dislikes.
I get that, at least 🙂
*it’s Christmas*
Puro solo
18 December 2015 at 00:57 #49483EW! The Bloomsbury Group and the Doctor. How to make such a script work? With Virginia and
Vita and all the other Bloomies? Maybe Ashildr/Me disguised as 1 of them? In fact, after writing
all those journals thru the centuries I bet Me could write a fairly good novel.
I’d like to see something like that 🙂
18 December 2015 at 00:58 #49484Well, I’m jumping back in after another working week filled to the brim!
I appreciate your writerly perspectives very much and celebrate you both for being able to allow the next layer of creatives; actors and readers, to add their layers to the creative cake without needing to drag everyone, screaming and kicking, back to the “truth of the author”.
@pedant Hmmn – well, there are intelligent critiques of post-structuralism… but, to be honest, amalgamating some very diverse and complex thinkers into a pastiche of the field is not one of them. The key thinkers who are grouped under the umbrella, Derrida, Barthes, Butler, Foucault, Kristeva for instance, all offer breath-taking insights into thinking critically about culture. They opened my mind and changed my life forever when I was a graduate student. It’s not that I worship at the shrine – indeed, developing nuanced critiques of each (although, I don’t have enough of a philosophy background to be truly up to the task in Derrida’s case) was the next phase, and another point of revelation on the journey.
The fact that a fashion for writing in an imitative convoluted manner swept, in the wake of these thinkers, like a tidal wave amongst a bunch of second rate scholars, was… unfortunate (if absolutely fascinating as a phenomenon in itself). This led to a populist hack contempt based on a very superficial understanding.
But, this is all rather a digression from the original jumping off point, which was your assertion that you’d found the truth of Hell Bent in Moffat’s script, and as I think has been satisfactorily established in subsequent discussion here, the script is only one element of the text.
The joy of the play in a text, was something the post-structuralists were very good on – the absolute delight to be had in following the multiple meanings in a work, embracing and holding contradictions and allowing them to deepen both one’s understanding and one’s pleasure in a work. The Doctor Who Forum, at its best, is very much in that tradition – taking delight here, in the playful multiplicity of interpretation.
18 December 2015 at 01:18 #49485yes but you’re saying -quite openly -that if people disagree wholeheartedly with the narrative of post structuralism and lit crit then it’s a “populist hack contempt based on a superficial understanding”.
I don’t lack a superficial understanding of it! 🙂 Do I? After all, there was that obscure quote from Frederica in a book which addresses this entire argument (over a quartet of novels) in sufficient detail. 🙂
Mind you, I could have it all wrong and I’m fine with that!
Still, to me, the author writes the text -such as in Hell Bent, so his/her interpretation and meaning is more significant than the other, possibly lesser, interpretations. I know this is going to offend people but I can’t, in all honesty, really believe that all “interpretations are as valid as the original text itself.” I don’t assume that the other interpretations are foolish or are not particularly “fun” to play around with, but in the end, surely, the writer holds the original intent.
I also concede that writers and playwrights can hear/see/feel a different interpretation from what they originally concluded. They may even change their minds about their original text “belief” -and yet it is that change, that new foreshadowing, which may shape a text still theirs to own and “concede.” For example: “when I wrote this, I thought that this character is this_____. I believe he was communicating this feeling: ____ and it is this conclusion I stand by”.
If others read something else into this text, that is their opinion and that opinion can be valid or invalid but in no way does it mean that this new ‘reader’ belongs to the text or owns the text through their interpretation.
Certainly, I agree, the world of the post modern is an eye-opener. It can alter people’s original view of text creation and re-creation. In Historical studies and in Musical ones, the problem became one of a lack of evidence to support the “new valid reading” and from this, careers were damaged and hearts broken. It’s difficult for me to get on board -and not drown.
Kindest,
Solo Puro
18 December 2015 at 02:04 #49486@puroandson (son)
Hmm, quite a few people have died -all the people in the Under the Lake episode or several anyway died. Danny died, the zygons eps had ‘real’ people killed. Then last year in Into the Dalek and also Deep Breath? Cass died with Dr 8 in the minisode so I think lots have died and not all ‘red shirts’.
On principal we know River is dead the Doctor regenerates and Amy and Rory were teleported back to early NY and never saw the doctor again so in a show where the companion hardly ever dies, where the doctor doesn’t either then you’re going to have a show where not many people die .Danny died, but didn’t quite, since he was still alive in the matrix slice and could have returned to life, except for his sacrifice. So he had in fact cheated death. River died, except she didn’t because she ended up in the library computer, so cheated death at least to some degree. The others you mention I’d regard as red shirts (introduced for one story and killed).
I’m not suggesting more need to die- a mounting body count isn’t essential to good drama, and I actually liked seeing different solutions to “losing” companions (Rose, Amy & Rory, Donna)- I’ve just noted that death has consistently not been final. FWIW, the total death count in AG Who is significantly negative- with the destruction of Gallifrey at the end of the Time War being undone, so even red shirts have done OK 🙂
Just out of interest I pulled from the BBC website a list of all the recurring characters I could find over the last 5 seasons who have died – every one has cheated death, at least temporarily:
Doctor (regen, new regen cycle, teleport)
Master/Missy (regen – multiple cycles , ressurrection, teleport, etc)
Davros (resurrected by Daleks)
Clara (extraction chamber)
Ashildr (Mire tech- immortal)
Rassilon (resurrection, regen)
General (regen)
Osgood (Zygon clone)
Danny (matrix slice)
River (library computer)
Rory (auton with his consciousness, restored to human)
Brigadier (matrix slice)I think I could have extended that back to the start of AG Who, picking up more methods, like Captain Jack’s immortality, resurrection gloves in Torchwood, parallel universes (Rose’s father, Micky/Ricky), and struggled to find a dead recurring character who stayed definitely dead.
18 December 2015 at 02:13 #49487You may not like it, but that’s what that type of teleport does. If it works by information transfer, it can clone you. Or reconstruct you after death. Letting an information transfer teleport into your fictional universe (rather than dissassembly and reassembly after a short and possibly rather exciting trip through a wormhole) implies all those things.
I recognise that this is at least consistent with the use of teleports earlier in the show (in fact it seemed that Missy allowed her “source” body to be destroyed by a dalek weapon while successfully teleporting out early in the season). And yes, it is an uncomfortable thought that the device will literally kill you when you step into it, and (with luck) reconstruct a version of you at the other end. My discomfort with that type of teleport being in the narrative though is that it gives a means of cloning / bringing back the dead, seemingly without limit and available to any moderately technological society (teleport tech seems widespread), not just the TLs. If it really is that simple, then (1) it does make cheating death way too simple for my liking and (2) it should have had an impact in earlier storylines with clone armies being cheap to make, and leaders being unkillable. In short, if that was possible, everyone with the means would have a copy of themselves stored in case of misadventure / peasant uprising. I’d have preferred that the Who explanation of teleportation was more like a physical transport of components, since that avoids such issues.
Time Lords doing Time Lord-ey things like Time Lords do is never a deus ex machina. DEM is not shorthand for ‘plot device I don’t like’, or ‘method I think is overused’.
Agreed on the second part- but I can’t give the Time Lords a completely free pass to perform “magic” and accept that was part of their established capacities as a technologically highly advanced species. To do so would be awfully close to having a writer paint themself in a corner and finish the story with “then God fixed it and they all lived happily ever after” and denying that’s a DEM, by virtue of God being a character that had previously been mentioned and established to have unlimited power, hence that action being consistent with known capacities of known characters. I will however extend the TLs a good deal of slack 🙂
18 December 2015 at 03:38 #49488Wrong again dudette. 🙂 Sorry, mum taught me that phrase and I’m taking it out for a drive. Apologies but it’s a bit fun. OK. Moving on:
I think River is dead? -just because we see her doesn’t mean she isn’t dead. It’s time travel man!
Point: “how’s Danny, still dead, Clara?”
Clara: “yes, Missy, he’s still dead”.
Therefore he’s dead?
And so is Rory. These people didn’t cheat death. They died. It wasn’t “blech, blood and slump” but a far more sinister thing: we saw gravestones and the implication of that is inherent.
Still, I’m 14 and waddaIknow except that Wiki is something my teachers tell me to avoid 🙂 I know it was the BBC website but having listened to Capaldi and Moffat in Sydney with the Uncle, I’m going to place their opinions on these matters on a different level.
Still, an interesting and convenient list.
Thankyou for reading,
Son
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