S33 (7) 1 – Asylum of the Daleks

[Craig @craig Emperor]

This is an older topic from March so already has responses below.

Repeated on BBC3 on 9 March. Kidnapped by his oldest foe, the Doctor is forced on an impossible mission – to a place even the Daleks are too terrified to enter…

You can watch it here until 16 March: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00wqr14

Here’s what you originally thought:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2012/sep/01/doctor-who-asylum-of-the-daleks

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

Here’s what you originally thought:

NOOOOOO! Craig! We’re trying to get away from religion and ethics!

[WhoHar @whohar]

Just watched this again. There’s a lovely bit of direction in there: when Oswin realises she’s a Dalek there’s a shot of her half in shadow, so you can only see one eye. When she overcomes the Dalek conditioning and lets the Doc escape, retaining some humanity, we can see both her eyes again. Simple, subtle and clever.

[PhileasF @phileasf]

I’ve just rewatched Asylum of the Daleks, bearing in mind my favourite theories, and of course the later episodes up to Hide.

Now more than ever I think either:
a) the Doctor is a Dalek, or
b) the Doctor will come to think he’s a Dalek.

or c, d, or e, which are new theories I came up with while watching.

I jotted down a few thoughts while I was watching… probably a lot more thoughts than anyone will ever want to read.

So here are the highlights:

Darla and Clara: they can both contact the Doctor.

We first see the Doctor inside a Dalek. (OK, a great big Dalek statue.)

Music (i.e. Carmen) is coming from a room at the ‘heart of the Asylum’. The music room was the heart of Caliburn House in Hide. And music and songs feature quite a lot in the second half of the season.

With a little imagination you could interpret this episode as being about a mad Dalek who imagines himself to be the Doctor, and is taken to the Asylum and imprisoned there. And then goes really crazy, having imaginary adventures with that hot Dalek in the next padded cell. ‘Sucker punch?’

When Amy starts to turn into a Dalek puppet, she perceives the Daleks in the Asylum as human. One pair of Daleks could be Clara’s parents. (The woman looks like Clara’s Mum to me — we don’t get a very good look at him). There’s a little girl wearing a crown, not entirely unlike the Queen of Years in Rings of Akhaten. As she dances we hear music.

Is fear a Dalek trait? The Doctor tells Amy to hang on to her fear, because fear isn’t Dalek. But later he’s told the Daleks have become strong through fear of him. Perhaps he’s being context-specific for Amy — if she stops being afraid of turning into a Dalek puppet, or of the Daleks, that would be bad.

The Daleks have a telepathic web, the pathweb. The Doctor tried to hack it and failed. So is this season what happens to someone who tries and fails to hack a ‘telepathic web’. Is the Doctor lost in the Dalek internet? How do you hack the pathweb? Do you capture a Dalek, scoop it out, and install yourself in its case? Is the mad Dalek they send to the asylum, if you go with that idea, the Doctor himself stuck inside a Dalek casing, or an unfortunate Dalek he’s connected his mind to while trying to hack the pathweb, and which now thinks it’s him?

These are my detailed notes. They’re preceded by timings based on the UK BluRay edition, rounded to the nearest five seconds.

0m50s: ‘I got your message. Not many people can do that–send me a message.’ Clara could in The Bells of St John. (So can Martha, and Rose probably, if she was in the same universe as him. The Brigadier could too, in the old days.)

1m: ‘I love your choice of meeting place.’ I don’t think I realised this on my previous viewings, but they’re inside the Dalek statue! On the BluRay you can see Darla in the statue’s eyestalk — since Australia’s ABC doesn’t show Doctor Who in high-definition any more, this may not have been clear before. Or I might have forgotten. Does this ‘Doctor looks through the eye of a Dalek’ moment reveal the secret of the season?

1m50s: ‘It’s a trap.’ ‘What is?’ ‘You are, and you don’t even know it.’ If this opening scene foreshadows the season, then that seems to support the Oswin/Clara-is-a-trap theory.

2m 10s: Amy’s knuckles (in the photoshoot): ‘LOVE’ ‘HATE’. Foreshadowing her coming inner conflict.

3m: The lights flicker when a Dalek puppet walks into the room. What if you interpret every flickering light this season as signifying the presence of a Dalek puppet?

4m05s: ‘How much trouble, Mr Pond?’ We see a Dalek coming into the room, and we hear the Doctor’s voice. For a moment it’s as though the Doctor’s voice is coming from the Dalek.

4m15s: ‘Out of ten? Eleven.’ The season’s first ’11’.

5m05s: ‘What do we do?’ ‘Make them remember you.’

7m40s: Oswin wears a ring. Is it the same one Clara has in Rings of Akhaten? Oswin’s red outfit, and the way red is always (or at least usually) a part of Clara’s outfit: the obvious connection seems to be to red riding hood. In that story, a wolf puts on red riding hood’s grandmother’s clothing. If the Doctor is trying to hack the pathweb by pretending to be a Dalek, that would make him the wolf. (And remember ‘hungry like the wolf’ in Cold War.) So, is Clara part of the pathweb security system, a program specifically designed to trap the Doctor, in case he ever tried to hack it? Any moment she’s going to call for the woodsman.

9m15s: Here’s a new bonkers theory… What if the ‘Doctor’ in this episode is a mad Dalek that imagines itself to be the Doctor? They take it to the asylum, ask it a few questions to confirm that it’s as mad as a sackful of kaled mutants, and then send it down. And the real Doctor’s been on holiday all year. A theory that I sometimes entertain is that there are two ‘streams’ of stories going on this half-season, with two Doctor-and-Claras having separate adventures. Maybe one pair are Daleks in the asylum, and the other… not.

9m50s: The Daleks find hatred beautiful. ‘Perhaps that is why we have never been able to kill you.’ The Dalek PM could just as easily be talking to a mad Dalek who thinks he’s the Doctor, as to the Doctor.

10m35s: ‘This signal is being received from the very heart of the Asylum.’ Cue Oswin’s music. So the ‘music room’ — Oswin’s hiding place — is the heart of the asylum… cf the music room being the heart of the house in Hide. The basic situation in Hide recalls the basic situation in Asylum, except in Hide the Doctor is able to save the lost traveller. And reuniting the crooked people corresponds to reuniting Amy and Rory.

12m10s: “Where do you get the milk.’ You could so easily think this is a joke, just the Doctor being flippant. Such a clever bit. In addition to watching out for eggs all this year, maybe we should have been looking for milk too. The Doctor rather ostentatiously drank milk from a bottle in Hide.

12m40s: ‘The Asylum force field is impenetrable.’ So how did the Alaska get through?

14m40s: So, that Dalek puppet is trying to repair the Alaska’s escape capsule, or thinks he is, when the Doctor and co fall from the sky. But surely he hasn’t been tinkering up there for the past 363 days? Does he relive the couple of hours post-crash over and over? Or has he been activated to watch for the Doctor, Amy and Rory. Oswin has ‘eyes’ on the surface, and can also see into the cabin of the escape capsule with the zombie puppets. Could she be running this whole show, so to speak? She knew the Doctor and co were coming, after talking to them over the radio earlier. Could she have activated the guy on the surface? If she can control him, could she control, say, a dead girl like Clara? If her body were preserved in ice in the 19th century… (But what about the parents? No, this theory doesn’t make much sense.)

17m15s: The big hole Rory fell into — that’s a big well. As various commentators have noted of the well in Hide, wells can be seen as a way of connecting with the unconscious. With the things that are too horrible to accept.

24m20s: ‘Egggs.’ Isn’t it interesting that the Doctor wasn’t curious about where Oswin was getting the eggs? It’s as if he has a mental block on ‘eggs’, as he might if he’s trying not to be a Dalek. Is he afraid to say it in case he starts exterminating?

26m50s: Amy is being converted into a Dalek puppet. ‘I want you scared. Scared isn’t Dalek.’ I’ve been assuming fear was a big part of the Dalek condition, and that the more the Doctor shows fear in recent episodes (e.g. Hide), the more he reveals himself to be Dalek-like. Fear leads to anger.. anger leads to hate… and all that. Is the Doctor wrong? If he’s a Dalek already — or if he’s a Dalek who thinks he’s the Doctor — he may incorrectly think that fear is a good thing. Or he might be simplifying — in this context a human would be afraid, but a Dalek puppet wouldn’t.

27m30s: Note the classic Dalek corridors. The TARDIS corridors, in photos for Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS, look a lot like classic Dalek corridors. (I assume those were TARDIS corridors in the photos… the title sort of suggests it.)

28m20s: Amy sees the Daleks as nice people. Well, as well-dressed people. What is being communicated by this scene?

– Is Amy literally perceiving the Daleks as human?
– Does it figuratively express the idea that she sees them as nice people now? Or as an elite group (suggested by the high-status clothes), the kind of people she’s supposed to serve? So what we are seeing may not be literally what Amy is seeing, but a representation of her emotional response to these Daleks.
– Bearing in mind that these Daleks are mad, is she seeing them as they see themselves?

There’s a little girl among them, dancing, wearing a crown like the Queen of Years. There’s also music (or is that humming?) A man Dalek and a woman Dalek air kiss. (The Doctor air kisses now, remember.) The woman resemble Clara’s mother, or at least I think so. We don’t see the man’s face.

32m05s: ‘Do you know how you make someone into a Dalek? Subtract love, add anger.’ I’ve been misremembering this quote as having to do with memory loss, but that was something the Doctor said to Amy earlier.

37m55s: The Doctor fixes Amy and Rory as easily as fixing his bow tie. If the Doctor didn’t need an anti-nanocloud bracelet, then why did the Daleks give him one? Oh. Maybe he knows he can’t be made into a Dalek puppet because he’s already a Dalek puppet… but a puppet of a Dalek he himself controls as part of his effort to hack the pathweb. Too much? Could something so elaborate possibly be the explanation behind everything? Only if Asylum were to be repeated as part of the story, in much the same way as Evil of the Daleks was repeated after The Wheel in Space, as a projection from the Doctor’s mind to show Zoe what kind of adventures he and Jamie have. It would be pretty awesome if a ‘repeat’ of Asylum decoded it by being an alternate version where everything to do with the arc was made clear. It would also be pretty awesome if they did this for the whole season. If the ‘real’ version wasn’t very different from what we’ve been watching, it might not be that expensive to make an alternate season… Too bonkers? Yeah.

39m25s: ‘Those ones don’t usually wake up for anything.’ Oswin clearly knows a lot about the Asylum. Is this entirely consistent with how she represents herself in her early statements? Or can any inconsistency be explained psychologically — that her awareness of the truth about her surroundings increases as she comes closer to realising who she really is. That the Doctor asking about the milk has set her on the path to understanding what’s happened.

0m30s: ‘The Daleks, they have a hive mind — well they don’t, but they have a sort of telepathic web.’ ‘The pathweb’. So, is this setting up the idea that the Doctor-Dalek and the Oswin-Dalek are sitting alongside each other in the Asylum, making up stories involving their fellow inmates? The season isn’t just in the Doctor’s head, or Oswin’s head, but both their heads at once.

40m50s: ‘I tried hacking into the pathweb. Even I can’t do it.’ Ah haa! The Doctor’s tried hacking into the Dalek’s telepathic web. Is that what’s happening this entire season? Is this what it looks like when you try to hack into the Dalek pathweb and fail? The Doctor’s lost in the Dalek internet, like Clara in Bells of St John (and us, of course) in the Earth internet. How do you hack into it anyway? Do you capture a Dalek and try to mind-meld with it? Do you pretend to be a Dalek?

42m10s: Is the Oswin-Dalek the same Dalek that led the Doctor to Amy and Rory at 4m05s? They both have a sort of name tag at the base of the head.

42m55s: ‘Where am I? Where am I?’ a la the lost souls in Bells of St John. Is this Oswin becoming connected to the pathweb, and thus becoming a lost soul on the Dalek internet? Darla’s memories are stored for when they’re needed for deep cover. Maybe they’re stored in the same way as in Bells? So if Oswin’s memories are stored in the pathweb, could they be extracted and put into a suitable body?

44m38s: ‘They have grown stronger in fear of you.’ ‘I know.’ See, the Daleks have fear.

45m15s: ‘Run you clever boy. And remember.’ And as she says ‘remember’ she looks to the camera, virtually breaking the fourth wall. She’s telling us to remember, not him. Because we’ll need to remember every tiny detail of this episode if the explanation in the season finale is going to make any sense.

[ardaraith @ardaraith]

@phileasf  not finished with your list yet, but when you mentioned milk….The Doctor poured himself, and then drank without spitting, a glass of whiskey in Snowmen (dont think it was Brandy??) Clara makes a pointed comment about whiskey in Hide, “11th worst thing”

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@phileasf and @ardaraith – he’s definitely acting out of character, isn’t he?

I like the Dalekisation theory because it’s a great explanation of why the Doctor’s been acting steadily more out of character (and out of control) since Asylum. But sorry, not buying any ‘it was all a dream’ explanations until you point me to the blindingly obvious ‘Madame Kovarian sticks her head through the hatch’ type clue that this is a dream. 😀

But Dalekisation – yes, there’s enough there. The missing bracelet, the increasing anger, the people pointing out that he’s behaving in a way that scares them, the normally teetotal Doctor starting to drink, killing Soloman and nearly killing Kaler-Jex, threatening to self-destruct… it’s not as blatant as Mme Kovarian, but there’s certainly enough clues to use it as a child-friendly explanation for why their hero has gone all darkside. The adults might be asked to form their own opinion. 🙂

And remember

Oh, definitely to us. Very much so. I think it makes sense of the Eleventh Doctor’s comment to Amy, in his very first series: “anyone that is remembered can be brought back.” Because that’s what’s happened to the Doctor – in the form of ‘Doctor Who’, the show. He was remembered. And he was brought back.

Maybe we’re about to find out that it’s true in-show as well. 🙂

 

[PhileasF @phileasf]

@ardaraith – good call on the Doctor drinking whiskey, I’d completely forgotten about that. He’s come a long way from having to spit out a glass of wine in The Impossible Astronaut (IIRC).

@bluesqueakpip, I think you’re right that the biggest objection to the Doctor-aDalek-like-Oswin theory is that they just wouldn’t do this, as audiences hate to be told it was all a dream. And yet so much seems to point that way that I feel it will be used somehow, even if it’s just a theory that ends up being mentioned and debunked within the show. If it turns out to have any truth, it will be that the Doctor is being turned into a Dalek puppet by those nanocloud things.

In the cold light of day, after a good sleep has flushed away lots of probably fruitless theorising, what still seems significant is the concept of the Daleks’ telepathic internet, and that the Doctor has attempted to hack it and failed. Maybe it hacked him right back?

And I can’t remember who first pointed it out on this site, but there appeared to be an intentional link made between the images and dialogue accompanying Oswin being Dalekised, and her upload in Bells of St John. This implies that her persona could still be out there in the Dalek pathweb, ready to be rescued by the Doctor… or the Great Intelligence… or River, or herself, or parties unknown.

One thing I didn’t mention (surely the post was long enough already ) — the episode had plenty of red and blue for the colour symbolists.

[WhoHar @whohar]

@phileasf

Great post on AotD. Lots to mull over.

I think it was my post – regarding the direction when Oswin first realised she was a Dalek.

I’ve said elsewhere that Moffat tends to set things up in the first ep of a run, so the Dalekisation of the Doc sans bracelet would make alot of sense as a theory as to why he’s acting like he is. It remains my favourite to date. How Clara fits in to all this still needs some work IMHO.

[WhoHar @whohar]

@phileasf. Your idea about the Daleks hacking the Doc right back would.work very well as an explanation for Clara – she’s a Dalek construct trying to infiltrate the Doc. Maybe the first two Clara’s were early versions of the Dalek virus that failed (died).

Need to consider this further.

[Pufferfish @pufferfish]

In Hide, I did notice the Doctor drinking milk from the bottle, which I thought tied into ‘where did you get the  milk?’ in this episode.

[Juniperfish @juniperfish]

@pufferfish Hello fish friend. Well y’know both milk and eggs are traditional antidotes to heavy metal poisoning now I think about it. The kinds of foods one might imbibe to try and resist being turned into a pepperpot cyborg……….????

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@phileasf Very impressive, love it! Especially the music “at the heart of the asylum”, wells etc refs

Re dreams – Agree that it can’t “all have been a dream” (cue  explosions of incensed fandom LOL) but I still say you can get round that by making it “memories up/download” ie it all really happened but the Dr has forgotten and needs to have his memories restored (which is what we’ve been watching (for last 50 years!). Any inconsistences can be put down to little glitches in the programme!)

@ardaraith – nice spot on drinking whisky in the Snowmen (tho it’s not the Dr who rejects the whisky in Hide). I missed that one, but I’ve been thinking he’s been seen eating and drinking a lot recently – he never used to!  The first time we commented on it I think, was in IA, with the red wine.  Although, fair enough, 11 was introduced to us via his strange food choices.  This season – coffee, scones in BoSJ,  blue fruit in Rings (when he comes back from being “missing”), drinking milk in Hide (agree with @pufferfish on that ref). Anything in Cold War?

My main reason for being wary of the Dalekisation theory is Moff’s comment in an interview that the Dr is the constant, that it’s the companions to whom things happen, and who are on the journey. But I do think the Dalek pathweb has to be significant if only as a foreshadowing of the GI (which is still out there – it’s never been defeated properly by the Dr (in 4(?) encounters) – each time it’s chosen to retreat)

 

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

And yet so much seems to point that way that I feel it will be used somehow,

@PhineasF – I do keep joking that we may be in the middle of the longest flashback in television history 🙂

If the Doctor is replaying his memories, that would explain the slightly dreamlike nature of some of these stories. He’s concentrating on trying to make sense of this. Possibly he too has become a mad theorist, looking for hidden clues to an  explanation. 😀

 

[Anonymous @]

Hi everybody, tomorrow We have the Launch of Doctor Who Series 7 in Italy!!!

You can follow the channel Rai4 on Twitter : https://twitter.com/RaiQuattro

And using all day the hashtag #DoctorWho 

 

[PhaseShift @phaseshift Time Lord]

It’s a stunning opener for 7. There are so many good elements crammed into the running time, that you can see it as that idea of a condensced film. Fill it out with sweeping establishing shots, lingering looks and pointed silences and you’d probably be at 90 minutes. Instead it’s breakneck pace and looks spectacular for its TV budget.

Every time I watch it, I get caught up in “ooh that was really nice” moments. Today, it was just the look of the snowy wastes they descend on to the Asylum planet. It was worth the detour after filming A Town called Mercy. The other is the dreamlike vision for Amy as she perceives the Daleks as people. Just lovely touches.

Above all though – I still marvel that the Jenna Coleman stuff was kept as a surprise. That was incredible, and really does show the power of not seeking out spoilers.

Matt, Karen and Arthur are all on fine form, but it’s the confrontation between Oswin and the Doctor, with him having to explain “it’s a dream you made yourself” which is a fine sucker punch to the episode. Great voice work by Briggs as well as the exterior Oswin Dalek. Such much pathos through a ring modulator.

Also I think it’s one of the best uses of the Daleks since the revival, slightly better than even Dalek (which I rate pretty highly).

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@phaseshift – yes, I agree this looks great; it makes very good use of its extra minutes. Visually stunning, dramatically impressive even when you know the answers to a lot of the puzzles. Very, very filmic – if the Day of the Doctor is this good, I’ll be a happy bunny. 🙂

That moment where the Smith Doctor is screaming in terror for Oswin to open the door is a call-back to Dalek, isn’t it? Why does he hate them so much? Perhaps it’s at least partly because they terrify him. Matt Smith does some really good acting in the ‘Parliament of the Daleks’ scene; the Doctor’s acting confident and unafraid – but every now and then you can see from a flick of his eye or a slight tightening of his mouth that he’s very, very scared. He’s just determined not to give the Daleks the satisfaction of knowing it. Which makes his later screaming collapse all the more powerful; the image you get is that this – being trapped inside a room with the Daleks coming towards him and only one door that he can’t open – is his personal nightmare.

Yes, the final confrontation with Dalek Oswin is the sucker punch. The clues were there all along; the eggs (and the insane Dalek starting off eggs… eggs… before finally managing egg-stir-min-ate), the ability to hack into all the Dalek controls, Oswin’s ‘hiding place’ being an enlarged interior of a Dalek – complete with controls for the mutant inside. Jenna-Louise Coleman gives a hugely confident performance – Oswin Oswald has grown from the Clara at Trenzalore, and you can see it. Even though, when she filmed this, she was having to work out what that more mature Clara might be like – and then go back to an earlier version of Clara for Bells of St John. 

[Anonymous @]

Have written about this before but just to echo @phaseshift and @bluesqueakpip that this is an excellent story. One of my favourite of Moffat’s episodes, I think. Very filmic with an awesome opening — has Skaro ever looked so forbidding and brilliant? One of Matt’s best performances and also brilliant work from Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill too. Amy and Rory’s reconciliation never fails to bring a tear to the eye. Definitely think that this is probably the best Dalek story since Genesis. I too love Dalek but think it’s more of a curate’s egg of a story and not really a typical Dalek tale at all.

I do think it’s interesting that SM takes the Daleks in a slightly new direction here. First of all, the Emperor Dalek has been replaced with a Parliament and a Prime Minister. It’s possible that you have an Emperor above that but this seems to be a totally different political structure. It’s no doubt meant to have an edge of satire about it but I still like it in an of itself.

And I also like the new ‘religious’ aspects of the Daleks — starting with the huge statue on Skaro (who would have thought that the Daleks had iconography and therefore aesthetics?) — and then the Prime Minister’s ideas of ‘divine hatred’. I like this idea of Daleks as religious fanatics and hope to see more of it — although I suspect it’s SM’s attempt to bring the Daleks up to date (Daleks as crypto-Nazis no longer really works, but Daleks as al-Qaeda might)…

[wolfweed @wolfweed]

@jimthefish – We were supposed to get the Parliament of the Daleks in Tennant’s final story, but Moffat asked RTD if that could be changed so that the Daleks would make more impact with a return in Victory of the Daleks. Otherwise we probably wouldn’t have seen the Time Lords yet.

Pond Life is as integral a prequel as the actual AOTD prequel, setting up the Pond’s marital dysfunction.

The sequence in AOTD where Amy hallucinates (linking back to the ballerina figurine) must rank as one of the greatest in the history of the show.

[ScaryB @scaryb]

Not much to add that hasn’t already been said except to agree with all the recent posts. It’s  a story which was gobsmacking at the time and grows with repeated viewings. I love how it switches perspectives and the end reveal has you rethinking the whole story – and with a massive emotional punch.  (I love it also for being the starting point for my now defunct dalekised Doctor theory!)

@bluesqueakpip

Oswin’s ‘hiding place’ being an enlarged interior of a Dalek – complete with controls for the mutant inside

I missed that completely. Spot on.

And those extra minutes make a massive difference.

[MadAngel37 @madangel37]

What I don’t get is how could Clara dream of being human?  Why was she  in the deepest part of intensive care? This episode confused me in many ways.

[Anonymous @]

@madangel37 – First of all, welcome to the forum 🙂

Regarding DalekClara – The Doctor did explain it. The idea of being a Dalek was so traumatic to Clara that she clung onto her humanity because the truth was to horrific to accept.

As for being in the deepest part of intensive care. Dalek Clara was strong enough to resist the nanocloud. Now suppose that the nanites gave up trying to convert her but instead started converting the other Daleks using Dalek Clara as the template (like the nanites in The Empty Child were converting everyone to resemble Nancy’s son)!

The Daleks couldn’t/wouldn’t destroy her but they weren’t prepared to risk being ‘contaminated’ with emotions.

Hope this helps 🙂

[MadAngel37 @madangel37]

@fatmaninabox Thanks I’m glad to be here. Also, that makes it more understandable.  I will have to explain this to my friend. He is very, very confused by this episode and no matter how i try to explain it to him, he never understands. Thanks again for the welcome and the reply.

[dwfriedemann @dwfriedemann]

I just saw this one yesterday.  Got to sleep on it and I have a question.  Just to clarify things for me. Or is there another episode that I missed to explain it.

First, I thought her name was Clara Oswald not Clara Oswin

Also as soon as Clara put down the shield to the planet the sane Daleks in space blast the planet to smithereens.    Clara Oswin has the body of a Dalek but retained her memories and mannerisms “You cheeky boy” when the Doctor said the nanobots affect the mind FIRST (and yet it did not on her mind)?

The 12th ? doctor Peter Capaldi is traveling with “Clara”Oswald (actually I thought he was the special 13th doctor).   How is that even possible when Clara should have been blown to bits?

Am I missing an episode to tie these loose ends together? The name of the episode would be appreciated.

 

[Anonymous @]

@dwfriedemann

Welcome to the forum 🙂

Yes, you’ve missed a few episodes 😉

You’ll need to watch ‘The Snowmen’ and the second half of season 7, particularly ‘The Name of The Doctor’ for it to start making sense.

[Anonymous @]

@fatmaninabox @dwfriedemann

yes, watching those episodes after the Dalek Asylum and the rest of the whole series will show you everything you need to know to explain how Clara is saying the ‘same things’. Can we say Impossible Girl without spoiling anything? You’ll have heard that expression in relation to Clara, coz she really is ‘impossible’.

In this series, 8, that’s past and ‘solved’ but it’s still a  full part of her character -she is loyal to a fault with the Doctor because she really knows him 😉

Kindest, puro

[dwfriedemann @dwfriedemann]

I started watching DoctorWho with Rose Tyler.  On TV.  Of course the blonde caught my attention.

Now I watch on my computer screen.  And I saw there were “other Doctors” and watched many of them.  Right from Dr #1 on up to get the general idea of what was happening…and why… .          Watching them on the computer screen as they were switching from  Matt Smith to Peter Capaldi.   Many could be viewed in B&W format.   Which was okay, but it gave me a good idea of how the Doctor got to the number he is at now(through transformifigulation of energy of spirit.

. I have watch the U.S. base version ” the name is forgotten” but not Jack.(who is later the “head of Bo” .

I figured at this point I knew what the story was about, and I understood he could do the presto chango 12 times and I thought Matt Smith was#12…with the heart felt plea “I don’t want to die…”

Is when they throw a curve ball into it and a plea(by the impossible girl I believe I remember correctly through the crack in the wall is heard by the Gallifry society and he is given life again as

Doctor#13 or Peter Capaldi(which in the beginning I thought was a poor choice as the last 2 doctors were at least younger with more vitality and vigor and laughter.

PC has proven to be up to the task however how he comes by Clara Oswald is because Matt Smith died with her calling out to the crack in the wall.  To the Lords of Galifry to help him.

Maybe there are only 12 doctors and I am mixed up.  Unfortunately none of them have it tattooed to their forehead so I lost count as I did a “Power-Watch of as many episodes in order as I could on my computer”                                                                       . I understand why the spaceship is a policebox and is stuck in that mode.  But it is way bigger on the inside.  That is acceptable to me.

I have seen the Statues, the 2 Doctors, many episodes with Rose Tyler, to Donna, to Rory and his girl friend(sorry names are not my strong suit), the Cubicon, to Clara Oswald.   I am not from England, but am pretty sure the name is Oswald.

In Asylum of the Daleks she called herself Clara Oswin and the Doctor did not recognize the name as a former companion.  Yet she was with the same mannerisms and sayings.

Seeing how earlier in this episode Rory’s girlfriend lost her protective braclet to the Daleks, now the micro nanobots were able to rewrite her and the first place they start is in the mind. That is what the Doctor said was going to happen.

Yet, Clara crash landed into the planet (I know all of space and she has to hit a planet…driving skills of women) 🙂 and has been there quite a time with a bracelet and yet they still got to her body…but not her mind?

I don’t have a listing of all the episodes, but I try to keep up with them so I do not have to back watch an episode to make sense of why stuff is happening in the next episode.

So, am I missing an episode that ties this together?  The reason for the confusion?

Sorry for the long write.

[Oswino @oswino]

I love this episode so much, mainly because it shows oswin who we know to later be clara be the start of Clara’s story ark that spans the whole of time.It is also a brilliant one for me because that was the moment I started to ship whouffle which I still do today!! And no I don’t ship Whouffaldi that freaks me so much because he’s so old

[Anonymous @]

@oswino

Shipping.

Gruesome. 🙂

Most members here don’t think Capaldi’s too old! For anything. 😉 At least I don’t. Whouffaldi? That’s a new one on me! Well done.

Anyway, welcome to the Forum. Hope you have a great time. Perhaps tell us who your fav Doctor is/was and your favourite companion on the Companion thread?

Kindest and enjoy, Purofilion

[Anonymous @]

@dwfriedemann

Hellooo!  OK, the Doctor didn’t recognise her -at first -but then he did, “run you clever boy” -he wanted to know, definitely who she was and eventually found her? So, no confusion there. Yes, the Daleks did re-write Oswin’s mind -she thought she was in a space ship cooking soufflés (and the Doctor knew that this was wrong: “Where do you get the milk?”) when she was inside a Dalek, but for some reason, hadn’t been fully ‘turned into one’.

Perhaps it had to do with the Impossible Girl -as she jumped into his timestream she knew what had to be done. Although, to a point, she wasn’t ever sure why! Hence when he discovered Clara as waitress and governess in one. There, he was saved from The Great Intelligence. She ‘crash lands’ into a planet (“all of time and space” as you said) possibly because she jumped into his timestream -so landing on the Asylum planet was deliberate and revealed at the very end of that series. Perhaps you need to re-watch the whole series as you’ve forgotten Amy’s name? She’s a very important character for three years.

On the topic of the number of Doctors, there was John Hurt as well -as the 9th or War Doctor and Tennant was two Doctors -which, when you add them up, means Smith was already on his last regeneration. Now with Capaldi, the ‘clock starts’ again and we’re back to One. I think he’s extremely vigorous: you don’t need yet another ‘handsome’ young Doctor. To us 40 year-olds and people who’ve seen Who from its inception, it isn’t necessary to have movie star good looks. Mind you, Baker was cute and I think Capaldi is…what’s the term? Hot! That’s it (never said that before)!

Hope that helps and we can have a dialogue.

Kindest, puro.

[Anonymous @]

@dwfriedemann

It looks like we did respond to your questions?

I hope, since then, you’ve been able to watch those missing episodes.

Yes, Clara is ‘deposited’ into parts of the Doctor’s timeline as the impossible girl which is why she keeps reappearing after ebing blown to smithereens. No pun intended… 😉

I think your main concern was why Oswin’s mind might not have been affected by the nanowotsits of the Daleks. I believe her mind was affected: she hung on desperately, though, in order to save the Doctor and his companions and to save herself. Her image of her mother was very strong, she used that & childhood memories of music and cooking to keep herself going. Of course, each night she puts up barricades thinking the ‘enemy’ is about to get in.

But they’re Daleks, so there’s no way they wouldn’t have ‘gotten in’ already -and they did, immediately. But her mind was powerful: more so that the usual human, perhaps, and so she defaulted back to her original childhood memories. As a Dalek, though, she has considerable powers with technology and can over-ride the system -or so it appears that she can.

In reality, she’s still a Dalek and the Doctor sees this and so do the audience at the same time.

[gamergirlavatar @gamergirlavatar]

@purofilion I never thought of Clara using her memories like that to think she was still human . I didn’t think of her childhood . I thought how she was staying human so she can save The Doctor , Amy , and Rory and than say ” run you clever boy ” , so he will find out the girl who will made him get over Amy and save the world was her and he will start the search for her . I think I only thought she stayed human by thinking of The Doctor because when she stepped into his time line she kept talking about in all her lifes there was always The Doctor . Good idea about her using her childhood , now that I think of it she did talk about her childhood , mother , cooking , and music .

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

Impressions of this episode – it’s just packed with lovely lines and quotes. The irony of the Daleks saying “You will save us” to the Doctor is delightful. And the spectacle of the Dalek Parliament is visually marvellous.

“You had a daughter.” Darla: “I know. I’ve read my file.” That is just so sad, and chilling.

“You think hatred is beautiful?” Dalek PM: “Perhaps that is why we have never been able to kill you.” That stings! Score one for the Dalek PM!

And Moff gave us clue after clue that Oswin Oswald was not, could not be who she said she was. But I missed them all first time through because she was such an appealing vivacious – and flirtatious – personality my subconscious didn’t want to admit any doubts. Masterfully done, Moff!

“It’s life. Just life. That thing that goes on when you’re not there.” Amy on her breakup with Rory.

Clue: Where does she get the milk?
Clue: The nanocloud getting to Amy.
AMY: What comes first? How does it [Dalek-isation] start?
DOCTOR: With your mind. Your feelings, your memories, and I’m sorry but it’s started already.
AMY: How do you know?
DOCTOR: Because we’ve had this conversation four times. [Ouch!]

Clue: Oswin never appears on the video link.
Clue: Amy sees a room full of people (that are actually Daleks).

OSWIN: Do you know how you make someone into a Dalek? Subtract love, add anger. Doesn’t she seem a bit too angry to you?
AMY: Well, somebody’s never been to Scotland.

DOCTOR: What about you, though, Oswin. How come you’re okay? Why hasn’t the nanocloud converted you? – that’s lampshading it!

Then Oswin hacks into the Dalek database and deletes all information on the Doctor. That was brilliant.
And the reveal that Oswin was a Dalek all along is so tragic, but beautifully written.

And of course, when the Doctor teleports back into the Dalek Parliament, the Daleks don’t know who he is. Darla gets to say “Doctor – Who?”

Is it just my faulty memory, or is the Tardis interior particularly colourful in this episode?

Altogether one of my favourite – and fun – episodes.

[janetteB @janetteb]

“What colour it it?”

“Sorry all the good questions were taken.”

Sorry but you missed that one. 🙂

And hearkening back to the discussion on the Spoilers thread, this is what is lacking in the Chibnell years and why only the best episodes are re watchable but none really shine.

It is a wonderful episode with heart break and laughter. Seeing Amy and Rory breaking up hurts because we have invested so much in them. It is a fitting acknowledgement however of the trauma they have suffered with the theft of their child.  Love the little scene at the end.

Cheers

Janette

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@janetteb Yes I know I missed some, the episode was just chock-full of so much delightful stuff I couldn’t quote it all. Or I’d just have to copy and paste the entire transcript from Chrissie’s site.

Like:
DOCTOR: I get fired at a planet and expected to fix it.
RORY: In fairness, that is slightly your M O.

Or Harvey, when confronted by the dessicated corpses of his mates:
HARVEY: No, of course. Stupid me. I died outside, and the cold preserved my body. I forgot about dying. (And before we realise the implications of that he sprouts a Dalek eyestalk).

I think, by the way, this was the first appearance of Daleks in human disguise? Darla being the first. Adds a new level of creepiness to the Daleks.

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