Listen

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  • #31878
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    @geoffers

    at what point in twelve’s timeline will he go off to help remove the previously doomed gallifrey from the universe, as portrayed in ‘the day of the doctor?’

    When he’s finished the calculations on the chalk-board, of course. 😉

    #31879
    PhileasF @phileasf

    @Purofilion and @thommck – thanks for the welcome back!

    @raeyeth04 – Hi raeyeth04, I also assumed the young Doctor’s guardians were not his parents. I think you’re right — the reference to ‘the other boys’ strongly suggests he is in a children’s home, not among his own family.

    It seemed odd to me that a frightened child would want to leave the security of a house full of people to be outside, alone in the dark — but then I realised he’s the Doctor: that’s what he does.

    @Joehovah – The extra chair — brilliant spot! But listen to the scene where Clara first meets Rupert, and tells him he should have another chair, for visitors. Now I am ever more convinced that Rupert = Orson. And Danny. He took Clara’s advice and insisted there be a second chair in his bedroom/capsule.

    @TimeCahoot – The bear connection is interesting. Rupert is also a fictional bear’s name. It may have no significance to the arc, but I’m reminded that ‘bear’ is one of the primal concepts in European languages, and a surprising number of words are descended from words for bear. As I recall, Artie’s problem was that he could make his fears become real, which provides a possible explanation for the Thing Under the Bedspread, if Rupert is like Artie. It could also explain why Danny might still seem young a hundred years later, if he’s an alien pretending to be human.

    By the way, I couldn’t quite squeeze this into my mammoth first post… but I had several versions of ‘the dream’ when I was a child. They were such a big deal at the time that while I watched Listen my first thought was: When my parents watch this they’ll look at each other and the hairs on the backs of their necks will stand up.

    There was nowhere for monsters to hide under my childhood bed — perhaps my parents knew me too well — there were drawers filled with toys and schoolbooks. But one night I screamed, and when my parents rushed to my bedroom I told them that a hand had reached up through the bed and touched me. I don’t remember the touch itself, but I remember telling them about it a few moments later, and that at the time I believed what I was telling them. We eventually concluded that the culprit was probably a womble I shared my bed with — that I’d rolled over onto its nose. Probably.

    Another night I screamed, very very loudly — apparently people on my street remembered it for years afterward. For a while I was ‘the kid who screamed that night’. My parents found me standing alongside my bed, terrified, looking at the window. When they asked what was the matter, I said I thought something had come into my room. They asked ‘What?’, and I absurdly said I thought it was a fox. I remember having no idea what I thought it was, and being confused about not knowing, and the fox was just the first thing that came into my head while trying to invent an explanation.

    If Moffat ever writes an episode about the shadow people who walked along the walls when I was an infant I’ll be very cross. (I’m saving them for my own stories.)

    #31883
    Brewski @brewski

    There is a line that has been nibbling at the back of my mind for some time now.  After thinking about it,  it makes me ask this question:

    How do we know Danny is Rupert?

    Yes, Danny reacts to Clara calling him that.  But how does he react?

    He says “Are you making fun of me?”

    That’s a strange question! It’s apparently more important to Danny than “How did you know that?”  Because he drops that question in favor of “are you making fun?”

    So I double checked the name Rupert and find that wiki says it is a derogatory slang term for incompetent army officers.

    That is something that would make Danny bristle! Make him think he was being made fun of.  But not because it was his name as a boy,  but a mean Nickname when he was a young soldier.

    I think making us believe Rupert was Danny is a pink herring!

    #31884
    Arbutus @arbutus

    @geoffers     Hee hee. I guess the problem is there are many different kinds of triangle! In this case, it wasn’t really a sharing of information that we didn’t have, which I realized as soon as I watched. It just removed doubt about an issue that they clearly hadn’t expected us to question. And it only confirmed what I had already believed in any case.

    @purofilion    Beautifully put! I think this story was a bit like a work of art, where you don’t recognize the many layers of perfection until you start to study it.

    @bluesqueakpip     the last person you’d give a family heirloom to is the person who’s given/left it to you in the first place     This does make sense. Although Orson might not know the problems associated with two versions of Dan in one place. However, he does as you say know something, and it could well be more than the obvious.

    @pedant    Two men, both once frightened and lonely children, reflected in each other through the eyes of a kind, but strong and decisive, teacher.      This is a lovely image!

    @scaryb    Fully agree with both praise of @bluesqueakpip’s lovely line, and preference for the jumper (sweater in my world) over the white shirt. And yes, I have forgotten boatloads of experiences from forty years ago, never mind two thousand!

    #31886
    Arbutus @arbutus

    @bluesqueakpip    I love the idea that the chalkboard is for him to work out those calculations for his appearance in DotD. I wonder if, at some point, he will just stop doing it, and then we will know it has been done!

    @phileasf   Great spot on the extra chair/Rupert/Orson bit. And those are some very powerful childhood fears. Mine (as I think I have posted earlier) was a bedroom floor covered with spiders. Oh, they were very real.

    @brewski   Great info about “Rupert” and incompetent officers, and it absolutely explains that response (because you’re right, it was the wrong response). But I still think that Rupert = Danny, because of Dan the Soldier Man. (Pink herring indeed!)

    #31887
    wolfweed @wolfweed

    Z
    David M Busian

    #31888
    Arbutus @arbutus

    @mudlark   Nice idea regarding the monsters as projections of the Doctor’s mind!

    It’s true that this kind of inward-looking story often seems very divisive. The other day I read comments on another forum about Midnight, and many people hated that episode. Personally, I loved it, possibly my favourite RTD episode ever. I think the reason that Blink is less divisive is because, while also beautifully done, it is less introspective. There is an identifiable (and very cool) monster, a bit of timey-wimey stuff, and some very nice guest performances. Easy to love. But I have read people criticize Listen for being boring, for lack of an actual monster, and for daring to add a tiny, teeny bit to the Doctor’s back story (apparently this is Moffat “messing with the continuity”).

    But it’s all part of the greater problem that some people have understanding that their opinion is only their opinion, not fact. They say “worst story ever” or “Moffat has to go”, rather than acknowledging “this kind of story doesn’t appeal to me”. It’s a pet peeve of mine, and I have even read arguments in which someone disputes someone else’s view that “the story sucked” and the original poster comes back with “I am giving my opinion”. No they’re not; they’re stating it as fact. I’m pretty religious about trying to use “I thought” or “I felt” or similar words, pedantic as that seems, because I really really don’t want to dismiss someone else’s right to hate something I loved, or vice versa! But a lot of people don’t get how important those extra few words are. I think there would be less angst on the internet generally (not just on fan forums) if they did.

    #31890
    Arbutus @arbutus

    I would also add, to those that are unhappy with Clara once again being so super-important in the Doctor’s life, that we don’t have any real evidence that her appearance at the moment actually changed his future. We don’t know that he wouldn’t have gone on in any case to the Academy, and so on. We can see it as having made a difference if we choose to, or not. Actually, as people have been saying, there are a lot of things going on in this episode that can be interpreted in different ways. So I would say, if you are unhappy with Clara having influenced the Doctor in his childhood, then she didn’t! She arguably influenced him in the present, in helping to see that the monsters were in his mind (maybe!), but that’s not destiny, that’s just being a friend.

    #31891
    Brewski @brewski

    @arbutus Rupert = Danny because of Dan the Soldier Man

    OR Danny is actually a DECENDANT of Orson and named after Dan the Soldier Man! :p

    Someone earlier (sorry, I’m on my smart phone and its being kind of stupid) suggested that Orson couldn’t have been the one Clara gave the Soldier to because she’d be the last one he’d give it BACK to.   I disagree.  It may be precisely because she gave it to him and its his way of saying it has completed its mission,  thanks.

    #31892
    Brewski @brewski

    Btw…. spotting the “extra chair”! Pure genius! Sorry I am not providing proper credit,  but again,  barely managing to navigate with this lousy phone!

    #31893
    DrBen @drben

    So happy to have found you all!  Until now, my Bonkers Theorizing has taken the form of talking to myself (or was I talking to myself? was someone listening?)

    @Joehovah, I love the connection between Rupert’s one chair and Orson’s extra chair!  It may simply be poetic storytelling, but who knows?

    I loved this episode entirely.  I loved the ambiguities and the sheer restraint of it.  I hope that Moffat will be able to resist explaining things away later, although I am in the camp of those who believes that the Doctor will have an opportunity later in the season to go back and write “LISTEN” on that chalkboard.

    Here’s something I’ve been thinking about: There’s a pattern this season of the Doctor (a) needing to be right (e.g., needing to prove that there are no “good Daleks” even if it means death to those around him) and (b) often being wrong (e.g., Robin Hood is real, Hiding Monster is not, etc.).  This is quite a departure from the previous Doctors, who seldom seemed to be wrong about anything.

    Is it possible that his 800 years on Trenzalore took their toll on the Doctor’s mind?  It may very well be that there’s a big different between 1200 and 2000 when you’re a Time Lord.  In Shada, for instance (never finished, I acknowledge), much is made about Chronotis’ failing memory on account of his being quite old.  There’s no reason why the Doctor shouldn’t have a similar loss of faculties.

    Counterpoint: I doubt Moffat would go there, because it kind of hamstrings future Doctors, but who knows?

    #31894
    wcasey5 @wcasey5

    @brewski I was thinking the same thing. What if Danny and Rupert are descendants of Orson, not the other way around? Although I am partial that Rupert, Orson, and Danny are the same people, just changing their names. Maybe from different times, it may go rupert-orson-danny and they are just time displaced. Remember, fear can slow down time! 🙂

    But, how did Orson know what Clara looked like in the restaurant? Was it Orson in the suit in the restaurant, or someone else (like David Tennant! Same space suit).  We don’t know who saved the doctor, or who the mysterious waiter is!

    #31896
    nick1235 @nick1235

    @wcasey5 @brewski I don’t think that they’re descendant, Danny looks very upset when Clara told him that name, and hide the facts that he went to the past to met Rupert. + If they’re descendant it doesn’t makes sense, as Clara didn’t really have any connection toward Rupert, only Danny has the connection being his grand children. Right?

    #31898
    wcasey5 @wcasey5

    @nick1235 maybe, but a time line can stretch from the past to the future. The problem is where it starts. Could have been way back. And the tardis doesn’t always take you where you want to go, but sometimes where you need to go. But I like the idea that Rupert, Danny, Orson are the same person. + a monster 🙂

    #31899
    nick1235 @nick1235

    @wcasey5 it can do that? really? now my head is getting stretch and going to pop like daleks explosion lol. thanks for telling me that. Given if that Rupert, Danny and Orson is the same person that keeps changing name, that’s new, I’m sold to where Rupert and Danny is, if Orson is also Danny and he said that his great great gramps are also time traveler that means the Doctor would find a new companion, in this case, the great gramps of Danny which is a time traveler. This probably a pure bollocks, but hey, thanks for the discussion mate! Have a good evening!

    #31902
    Mudlark @mudlark

    @arbutus   Yes indeed!  People who refuse to distinguish, or perhaps cannot distinguish opinion from fact and/or who seem to think that assertion equals argument are one of my bugbears too, and one of the reasons I find it increasingly unrewarding to read the comments on opinion pieces on sites such as the Guardian.  Maybe I expect too much of people, but it still surprises me that so many seem to lack the objectivity to appreciate artistry and good writing independently from what appeals to them or engages them personally.  Moffat’s writing is, as several people here have noted, concise and economical and, at its best, deeply and richly layered, and it repays close attention and analysis and multiple viewings. I get the strong impression that the majority of those who do not like it and dismiss it as ‘bad’, are those who are uncomfortable with anything other than a straightforward narrative, or at least one which can be comprehended immediately without too much effort, and are impatient with too much timey-wimey complication.   But in a show in which one of the essential and foundational concepts is time travel, why shouldn’t a writer explore the paradoxes and possibilities implicit in that concept?  The whole beauty of Doctor Who is that the possibilities are almost infinite 🙂

    #31905
    Oblique @oblique

    Surely nobody really believes that the people who pen these stories really sit down and work out how it all fits together?

    #31906
    geoffers @geoffers

    @bluesqueakpip – good answer! 🙂

    but, i thought all the calculations were done by the sonic, in the 400 years between the war doctor and eleven? i had been thinking the chalkboard stuff is twelve’s way of trying to find a way to bring gallifrey back into the regular universe, till i got hung up on this question of when did he pop off to aid in it’s hiding! maybe it’s one of those cases, tho, that since his regeneration, he only knows that he will have to go off to hide it, but not necessarily when? i believe the actors call it a “moffat loop,” in the ‘extra?’ and, oh, how it fills me ‘ead with timey-wimey!!!

    @phileasf – excellent spot on the extra chair! i’ve watched it three times, now, and didn’t make that simple connection! but that’s why i love this forum… so many other eyes watching, and ears listening! and this is an example of why i consider the writing for the show to be of the highest quality. not only is it subtle and nuanced, but it allows (maybe even encourages?) our rampant speculating…

    🙂

    #31907
    geoffers @geoffers

    @wcasey5 – maybe, the doctor gave orson a simple description of clara? big eyes, wide face, and a very nice black evening dress? 😉

    more likely, tho, he showed him her face on the console screen, just as he and clara later watched the doctor open the locked door…

    🙂

    #31908
    Oblique @oblique

    Nice humour. Nothing laboured.

    I don’t know the sequence in which the episodes were shot, but I think we saw Peter’s Doctor getting into his stride in this one. Dr Who has always done scary, very well. The first half of the Listen played like a Tennant story.

    #31909
    geoffers @geoffers

    @oblique – re: post 31905 – to every last detail? of course not. (and they do throw in stuff just for effect, here and there.) but with a general, overarching story in the background? absolutely. they are professional writers, and i (at least) believe they do a stellar job. i also believe moffat may have had some of this stuff in mind for years, now…

    #31911
    Oblique @oblique

    The trouble with the writing is exactly that geoffers: ‘they do throw in too much stuff, just for effect here and there.’ And yes, they are professional writers and they should be making every minute count in the time they have to tell the tale.

    #31912
    Oblique @oblique

    They’re far too complacent about their successes

    #31913
    Spider @spider

    Although  a nice idea about Orson insisting on a second chair for his ship…it would never happen that way (him asking for another seat). The bean counters would never allow it in a design. You are sending one man to do a mission. You build him a one man  ship.  Everything else is just extra expense (this happens, with everything now, and I’m sure this will not have changed 100 years into the future!).  He doesn’t agree? You find another pilot.

    But then that still, DOES leave the question of (given that it seems to be just him…I’m going by the brief news scene in the episode which seems to indicate this) WHY there are two seats..someone earlier mentioned a crewmate who must have disappeared. Ohhhhhh. That thought is getting me the more I think about it!

    Am loving all the discussions (so wish I’d found and joined this forum years ago!). Have to say, for the Listen episode, my favour note so far is definitely from @pedant    “Two men, both once frightened and lonely children, reflected in each other through the eyes of a kind, but strong and decisive, teacher.”   I really like that 🙂

    I still want to know who (or what it was) boinked the Doctor on the head! That’s still niggling me!

    (\(\;;/)/)

    #31917
    Anonymous @

    @mudlark yes I agree with your comments re some of the flamers at the ‘paper’. We have the same here on various ‘spaces’. Best to never look. To not even blink!  Thank you for the compliment. No-one else agreed 🙂 🙂  No, for sure this space is for Bonkers Theorising (copyrighted now, I see, or TM) and I wasn’t doing enough of that. I wanted to pull in all the bits and pieces I felt about it all together.

    As for the writing on the ship seen at night. I agree, it’s simple: Orson wanted to open it. He knew he shouldn’t/musn’t but was sorely tempted. As to surreal, I quite agree (again). Also, I recall a monster in the first of a trilogy -Alien – it was barely seen and very frightening for it. It made millions.

    Kindest, puro.

    #31919
    Anonymous @

    @brewski the situation with the Dan Doll was argued well by @bluesqueakpip I think.

    The Rupert name was brilliant. That makes a lot of sense!

    Boy oh boy, yet another night and I wake up to 125 posts or something. As for @oblique what are you going on about? Of course it fits together! We make sure it does 🙂

    #31922
    Anonymous @

    the thing with the chairs? Sorry, are we speaking about the two ‘space’ seats? Wouldn’t there always be two seats simply built into it, even though there’s one astronaut?

    #31924
    Anonymous @

    apologies mods I’ve posted 5 in a row, but I understand @spider comment about re the seat building -but the whole ship didn’t look very ‘organised’ and sleek, did it?

    Anyway, I guess, I should be reading more carefully all the posts thru the night. But being bitchy and without coffee this morning, I will say this: could people read other people’s posts before saying ‘I have this great idea’ when this great idea was stated 40 posts before. Just sayin’ 🙂 Kindest, really, puro.

    #31927
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    @oblique – Karen Gillan remarked that whenever she thought Steven Moffat had put in a line just for fun, it turned out to be a plot point three or four episodes later. 😉

    Yes, there’s sometimes padding. However experienced a scriptwriter is, you’re never quite sure that time on the page will equate to time on the screen. It’s more usual to go over and need to cut something, but sometimes it happens that the script runs under. That’s usually when you get the exciting exiting scene of people arguing about leaving the TARDIS. 🙂 In desperation, one actor may exit first in a huff and then the remaining two argue about the first one having left. 😀

    Alternatively, you get the alien warrior race that equip their soldiers with the ability to remotely operate old typewriters. I think Moffat’s still slightly embarrassed about that scene – but between only having two actors allowed to speak and no props available except the typewriter, there really wasn’t much he could do. 😈

    #31928
    ScaryB @scaryb

    @oblique

    They’re far too complacent about their successes

    I’ve not heard any interviews where Moffat or any of the creative team sound complacent.  The fact that Moffat’s scripts “unpack” to the detail they do suggests to me that there’s a lot of thought gone into all his work. Different writers write in different ways – some build from characters, some from stories, or a big visual idea, or a grain of a concept. But the current team are all fans of the show, Moffat more than most – complacency doesn’t come into it.

    Doesn’t mean everyone has to like everything, and people have different opinions of course.

    @spider – Re cost-cutting design – you build a time machine – you expect to re-use it, so you build it for more than 1 person, for future use. Maybe you modify and existing capsule design. (But only use 1 volunteer for the test run. Unfortunately he gets it lost and breaks it!)

    @Purofilion Just made a big pot of deep roasted java – want some? 🙂 (Not at all sensible from my end at this time of night but got some late night deadline stuff to finish) 🙂

    #31929
    Electrolyte @electrolyte

    @handles  Also, again concerning the Doctor’s memory: Assuming all three pieces of evidence I mentioned in my last post are true instances of memory loss, could it be that the Doctor has at least one other personality? Could the Master possibly have been hidden inside the regeneration energy the Doctor received on Trenzalore (because the Master can do weird stuff like that — consult the 90′s movie and the End of Time two-parter)? Might the Time Lords who made the decision to gift the Doctor with more lives have built something strange into said energy (doesn’t make a lot of real world sense, but this show takes plenty of liberties)? Maybe something that would prompt the Doctor to find Gallifrey ASAP (e.g. forcing regenerations at an ever-quickening pace, with bad memory being a symptom)?

    Hmm, I like where this idea is going. I had thought multiple Doctors based on the extra regen energy, but another Timelord coming through with that energy has some great implications as well. Whether it be The Master, or someone else, that could explain some of the things we’ve seen that look odd (the word listen, the open/closed doors in Robot of Sherwood etc.). Interested to see if there is someone else living in the Tardis!

    Also, I’m pretty sure we have not seen the last of Orson Pink… I’m almost wondering, with the number of characters that seem more important than normal one shot guest stars, if we’re headed for some sort of Good Man Goes to War scenario, where the end of the season sees all of them showing up again to help fight the big bad at the end.

    There seems to be a lot of theorizing about Clara meeting her end sometime soon. I think, even if she doesn’t die, she may well be on her way out of the Tardis. If you look at the history of companions (especially AG companions) it seems like they end up leaving around the time they come into their own as time travelers. When Donna got super timelord smart she was done, when Amy & Rory had settled in to living in the Tardis and could hold their own (Amy could operate the sonic on her own etc) they were done, Rose even got to the point where she could jump from world to world and was going Dalek hunting, and then her arc ended. It seems like Clara can handle herself (against the Sheriff of Nottingham, against HFM etc…) I think she may be heading out…

    Hmmm… I thought I had some other ideas to toss out there, guess my brain is winding down for the day. If I remember, I’ll be sure to toss the ideas out here later…

    Take care all!

    #31930
    Spider @spider

    @Purofilion  very true. The rest of the ship design is not very cost cutting for one man in space!

    @scaryb  Good point…although you build an experimental machine, actually would expect to lose it (its a huge risk), so you build it for 1…if it does come back then  you build a machine for 2.

    Hmmm…ok, so thinking about it more then I have just probably invalidated my own argument – that at this point we are further into the design/test stage and at the what if we build a time machine that can hold more people  (i.e going from Mercury Capsule to Space shuttle) . I think it’s just that from the feel of the episode, this felt like a first complete prototype test with only one person, not 2.   But the more i think about it, the more it makes sense this mission would have had 2 people and something sinister has happened to crewmate #2! (as has been mooted before). Ohhh! I’m going to have to go back and watch this again with that idea in my head XD

    #31931
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    @geoffers

    but, i thought all the calculations were done by the sonic, in the 400 years between the war doctor and eleven?

    That’s what the Smith Doctor thought. But he also said the Time Lords would be trapped in a single moment (according to Steven Moffat, via The Doctor(s)). Yet in Time of The Doctor (written by one S. Moffat), the Time Lords can pretty clearly do stuff – which implies they’re not.

    Which implies he may have got his calculations slightly wrong. Never mind; he’s got a time machine and he is a Time Lord. He can figure it out, given a blackboard and a lot of chalk. 😉

    #31932
    Spider @spider

    I love the blackboards and the chalk 🙂

    #31933
    Electrolyte @electrolyte

    IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan

    Ah, but the secret of good Bonkers Theorising(TM) is that it is bold in sweep and recognises that the redness or blueness of bow ties (or surnames) is much more important than the genetic relationships.

    Speaking of color changing costume items, I’m very curious why The Doctor was dressed in all black in Listen (and apparently in the upcoming Time Heist) and if this means anything. (Doesn’t The Master usually wear all black?)

    #31934
    Anonymous @

    @brewski the idea of him being called ‘Rupert’ in a derogatory way is negated as he says clearly “I haven’t used that name in years”. Nice idea, though.

    @scaryb I know, thank you, I shall graciously accept the offer. But we have someone above who said there could be more than one doctor; or ‘hidden companion’. Yes, this has been said already by lots of others…And so, at least building on from that point could be more illuminating than repetitive. So, I shall shut the hell up now and go to work 🙂  Kindest, puro.

    #31935
    Electrolyte @electrolyte

    Ah, just thought of what I was trying to think about earlier, re: the Listen Monster…

    The episode starts with The Doctor theorising that a lifeform that is the perfect hider could have evolved. Then The Doctor goes looking for it, and comes across the path of a monster that is right out of his nightmare (or maybe no monster at all)… The episode wraps up with a scene that shows that Clara may have inadvertently created the deep seated nightmare in The Doctors mind. A lot of us have made the assumption that The Doctor’s nightmare was just a nightmare and that really there was no monster.

    What if though, there IS still a perfectly hiding monster out there, and The Doctor’s (and everyone else’s) nightmares are about a real monster. The Doctor just may not have FOUND the monster. I mean, I’ve had bad dreams about being chased by non-monster scary things, i.e. angry dog, angry human person etc. The dreams weren’t about a SPECIFIC dog or person, but that doesn’t mean dogs and people don’t exist. I think perhaps The Doctor may have just given up his search too early… keeping looking (and listening) I say!

    Cheers, take care all!

    #31936
    TheBrainOfMoffat @thebrainofmoffat

    @electrolyte That was my post you quoted, btw, not Barnable’s. 😉

    Before Series 8 started, I had actually been musing about what would happen once the Doctor brought Gallifrey back. It’s not a very likely story, due to how the Doctor’s interaction with Rassilon ended in The End of Time, but hear me out on this and let me know what you think.

    The Doctor manages to find Gallifrey and return it to its universe of origin. He is then summoned to take part in the Master’s trial and sentencing (since the Master could be said to have committed treason by helping to return Gallifrey to the time lock; of course, the Doctor is also guilty of this, which is a hole in my story idea, but whatever). As the Doctor follows the Master’s escort to the latter’s execution, accompanied by Rassilon, the Master attemps to take over Rassilon’s body by shooting his essence at him (again, the Master can do magic-y things, as we have ample evidence for by now). Rassilon deflects with his gauntlet, and the Master ends up in the Doctor’s body. The immediate result of this action, however, is that the Doctor promptly regenerates, and rather violently (but nothing like his Trenzalore regen). Under pursuit, he manages to escape Gallifrey. The rest of the season would be concerned with dual personalities, a condition the Doctor doesn’t know about, as he thought the Master just tried to go for a death blow. He would constantly be trying to figure out why he has gaps in his memory. The Master would, now and then, take over the Doctor’s body for his own reasons, all the while trying to hide the change in personality from the Doctor’s companions, should he be traveling with any.

    The Master’s purposes, however, are to give his younger self the rest of the Doctor’s lives. For some reason I never devised, his target would be the sixth Doctor, and the story would be woven into Trial of a Time Lord, with the Doctor-Master being… the Valeyard!

    Of course, the possibility of any of this happening was destroyed once I learned that the Valeyard’s history and fate had already been written/shown.

    ————————————————————————————————————————

    On-topic, I’ve seen some people mention the toy soldier being involved in some kind of time loop that takes it from the Doctor to young Rupert. Is that right, or am I remembering incorrectly? Anyway, it doesn’t strike me as very likely, as the toy soldier would be infinitely old — an object having no beginning and no end. I really just think that its timeline starts with being manufactured and being obtained by Rupert, and ends, as far as we’re currently concerned, with having been in the Doctor’s possession, presently or not. In other words, I’m convinced it’s Rupert/Danny to Orson to Clara to the Doctor, with an open ending after that.

    #31937
    Electrolyte @electrolyte

    @thebrainofmoffat you are right, sorry about the mis-quote there  🙁

    #31938
    geoffers @geoffers

    @purofilion  -but the whole ship didn’t look very ‘organised’ and sleek, did it?

    having gone back for a look, it looks more like an actual time capsule, than a full-blown space-faring ship. no rear engines, or “wings,” that i could discern…

    what i do notice, however, is a panel-like structure in the distance, out beyond the ship, and a furrow leading to it, as if it crash landed! (and some sort of panel arrays closer to the foreground, and to the front, with what looks like a smashed up nose/debris field?) so, did orson (and/or a companion traveller) go outside at some point, and put those things there? or is that all debris from a crash?!

    i guess i’m so used to the tardis materializing all the time, that i think any time-travelling ship should just come into existence without actually moving! so, upon reflection, i now think his ship had to travel through space and time, and therefore crashed there.

    as to organized, i think the state of dis-organization is a result solely of the six months he’s been stranded there, (presumably) alone?

    er, maybe that’s all well beyond the scope of your post, but my brain is searching for any clue! and once i’m on a scent, my nose has to follow till my brain is satisfied… 🙂

    #31939
    geoffers @geoffers

    @bluesqueakpip – ah, i think i see what you mean. he calculated that gallifrey would be placed into stasis (like the zygons were), but in actuality “saved” it to a different (pocket) universe, entirely (behind the crack, on trenzalore)? so now his blackboard calculating is simply to reinstate gallifrey to our known (prime) universe…

    thank you, i think that serves quite well as an explanation, for me!

    #31940
    lisa @lisa

    @thebrainofmoffat —  the toy soldier was taken out of a box that Clara found  to give to Rupert- so that’s the bit where I am confused

    — when and how did it get to the box

    #31941
    Anonymous @

    @scaryb – I am keeping my fingers crossed that you are right.

    Twelve could already have done the thirteen Doctors at Gallifrey thing – there have been gaps between every episode so far. In fact his obviously reflective mood at the beginning of Listen could suggest he’s just come from there!

    That would not bother me at all, since we have already seen what happened once. There really isn’t a need to see it happen again. I believe Gallifrey is already inside the paintings.  So unless a serious Moffat curveball is coming (that never happens) 🙂 , I can still believe that even if we revisit DotD. 

    @electrolyte – your theory of Master in the RE makes a lot of sense; especially with all the talk of slithering lately, because the Master was a snake thing in the movie.

    I am in the minority on believing who was behind the crack in TotD. I still think it was Bad Wolf instead of the TLs, so I can’t believe a TL crawled through the crack at the same time. But that doesn’t mean that Bad Wolf couldn’t have put something in the RE? So that part I can agree with.

    Your evidence supporting Clara’s limited time on the Tardis is very strong. I have to hope against you on that too, but I am probably just wishful thinking. I would hate for Clara to leave right now, when I think she is at her best and could get even better.

    Re: Orson Pink – Danny Pink hasn’t been my favorite story line so far, but it became a lot more interesting to me now. I think there are many possibilities to the story now. I can’t wait to see what happens next. For now, I’m going with what I think the writers want me to believe, Great Grandson. (If they trick me again, I usually like when that happens), 😉

    @geoffers – TY for the info on the extras (First and Last Night). I’m glad I watched them even though it did make me miss River and 11 again. I could have watched a whole hour of just them two talking to each other.

    #31943
    lisa @lisa

    –cont —I mean with in the timey whimey scheme the young Doctor would have gotten the soldier first before Rupert – so how did it get from the Doctor to the box- its the exact same broken soldier and there is a lot of empty story hanging there

    #31944
    TheBrainOfMoffat @thebrainofmoffat

    @lisa I’m not sure why it would need to get from the Doctor to the box, though. Its origin is in the 20th century, it was kept in Rupert’s/Danny’s family into the 22nd century, then it time-traveled with Orson to the [almost] end of the universe, then it went with Clara to the young Doctor. That’s from the toy soldier’s perspective. The only thing we don’t know about it is what happened to it after Clara gave it to the Doctor. It won’t make it into Rupert’s/Danny’s toy box again because that would make it infinitely old and getting infinitely worn.

    #31945

    @oblique

    The trouble with the writing is exactly that geoffers: ‘they do throw in too much stuff, just for effect here and there.’ And yes, they are professional writers and they should be making every minute count in the time they have to tell the tale.

     

    They’re far too complacent about their successes

    Ah, the old lazy writing meme given a fresh new coat. Moffat may be many things, but lazy (or complacent, how ever one wants to troll it) he isn’t. To assert as much, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, is the epitome of lazy critique.

    Surely nobody really believes that the people who pen these stories really sit down and work out how it all fits together?

    Of course Moffat and his fellow producers sit down and map out all of the major plot points and themes for the series (they are shot in a single block, so have no choice) but individual episodes are left to the writers to complete and the directors to create. Producers ensure that plot points for the season/ character arcs are delivered in the right episode and in the right amount of detail.

    Of course, things don’t always go as expected. Sometimes it’s money – Joss Whedon managed to blow so much budget on Once More With Feeling that he didn’t have enough left over for decent Willow Tries To End The World special effects at the end.

    Sometimes it is genuinely uncontrollable. There is a scene in Veronica Mars where Keith busts her doing something behind his back and said “I’m not sure I can trust you anymore”. It was sold with so much conviction by Bell and Colantoni that everyone thought it would be a major plot point. Trouble is, from the producers PoV, only when the show was edited did they see how potent the scene was, by which stage it was too late to reshoot – and it was never followed up because it was never meant to be that big a deal.

    Writing serial drama is complex. And with the amount of cruft Who has gathered over the years, it is doubly so. I think both RTD and Moffat have done a pretty decent job of blowing away some of that cruft without diluting the show and, indeed, also adding to it mythos

    #31947
    janetteB @janetteb

    Whew. Have just spent the past two hours cleaning cat hair out of the keyboard so I could type..

    Firstly @mudlark Your comment at post 31902 re Guardian comments was spot on. I rarely venture there now, because some of the comments make me feel distinctly anti-humanist.

    @spider, Your post of 31913 re’ the second chair. Maybe he hoped to find or collect someone. He was intending to acquire a passenger, ie to rescue Clara. This ties back to the Orson & Valentine myth I referred to earlier. In that story they rescue their mother, here it might be Clara that Danny/Rupert (I like the reference to the most heroic bear) and Orson are endeavouring to rescue. I also wonder if he gave her the soldier as a good luck icon, something to protect her or as a symbol that she and Danny will rescue her. But then she gives it to the Doctor so narratively that doesn’t quite fit.

    Orson either is a descendant of Danny’s which the story implies, or maybe a twin or clone however much though I like the idea that he is his father, and being a time traveller, and Danny appearing to be fatherless, that is possible, I think it doutful. Actually on reflection I think I will add that to the possibilities. (Sorry after the battle of the keyboard I have forgotten who originally suggested that Orson was Danny’s father.) So if Orson is Danny’s father the question is, who is the time travelling ancsestor? No I won’t say it.. I am in danger of sounding as repetitive as the dodgy key on my keyboard.

    I suspect that the toy soldier will appear again. I think its “journey” begins in the orphange though his comment that the toys do not belong to him but to the home may be significant. Moffat either does not write random lines or picks up later on previous comments and plays with them. I do like the idea however that the soldier circles in time, going somehow from the Doctor to Rupert/Danny, which given the Timey Wimey nature of  the story is possible. I am sure that eventually the toy soldier will either reappear in the Tardis in some dusty old corner or will be in the posession of someone in the future linking them back to the Doctor. (Yes Susan again!!)

    Cheers

    Janette

     

    #31949
    Beezilla @beezilla

    Howdy all. I was going to attempt to read through to see if it has been mentioned already or not, but with my time schedule I just simply can’t. Has anyone else noticed Clara twice now saying she “didn’t” want to go with the Doctor? I can’t recall any of the Doctor’s companions not wanting to go(not counting the episodes before 2005). It really perplexes me! Hope I’m not hated for this next part, but I’ve never been too keen on Clara. It even took me a while to come around to Amy Pond(another reason to maybe dislike me, I wasn’t a big fan a Matt Smith…didn’t hate him, but never want David Tennant to change as well as seeing Billie Piper leave the show). How could you not want to go with the Doctor? It seems like Peter is developing more and more with each episode and I’m liking it! Thoughts/Opinions please…repost if you’ve already mentioned this as well!

     

    Beez

    #31950
    janetteB @janetteb

    @oblique and @pedant, Just to add, Moffat is the kind the writer that pays a lot of attention to detail. Of course not all details are significant or even those that are are often just reflections of what is happening. The significance that we read into things is by no means the reason it is there. Meaning is always going to be very subjective, however Moffat has almost certainly studied semiotics and knows how to use signs. Most writers would have done so at some time.

    Just adding to what you said re individual writers, non-fishy man, Moffat does go over the scrips by other writers and edit where required so that any arc related details can be present in all the of the stories regardless of scriptwriters. It is also clear that he gives his writers guidelines. The attention of detail is one of the market differences between Moffat and RTD as showrunners. The arc references in RTD were very simple, a name or phrase sprinkled through the scripts was usually the sum of it. When it comes to character names again the difference is clear. RTD was known to re use the same names. He favoured simply names, reflecting the “everyman” quality of his characters. Moffat chooses very interesting and often uncommon names. Danny sounds simple enough but we learn that his real name is “Rupert”. Orson is interesting on several levels. There is the very brilliant “Orson Welles” link. (Again I have forgotten who first brought that to our attention, but credit to ?) Also the name has an interesting historical background and the story of Orson and Valentine dates to about the time of the reign in Northumbria of Oswald which brings me to Clara’s name, also significant on several levels. Oswin, “Os for the Win”, but also a Saxon name linked to Oswald king and saint. (His son was Oswiu) Moffat has very definitely been doing his homework.

    Cheers

    Janette

    #31951
    Anonymous @

    @electrolyte   The Doctor just may not have FOUND the monster.

    Yes that’s what I think.  But I use the term monster loosely, because most of the time the monsters turn out to be not what you thought they were (i.e. VashtaNerada).  But I still think they were really there, whether they are really monsters or not.

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