S33 (7) 14 – The Name of the Doctor
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Craig 10 years, 10 months ago.
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19 May 2013 at 15:24 #9837
They’re taking their time making POV available this week!
My favorite jibe comes from Oliver Bolton: ”…It hasn’t been very scientific at all.”
19 May 2013 at 15:35 #9838Anonymous @
@wolfweed — I love when that’s brought up. Doctor Who has never been ‘scientific’. You could count the number of stories that count as proper SF on one hand…
19 May 2013 at 15:54 #9840Firstly – yes, definitely, ding dong, top smart etc. Secondly, not sure if this has been asked (or answered) yet, but do we have confirmation that the GI was destroyed in the Time Stream, or is that an assumption? If his demise is unconfirmed there is room for a return. I for one have not had enough of Richard E Grant’s special brand of dastardly melancholia.
19 May 2013 at 16:09 #9841@jimthefish and @wolfweed For that matter how much TV or Film Sci-Fi truly is scientific? Books yes, I’ll give you that. Asimov, Dick, Gibson and many more have all produced fiction based on projecting current science and imagining the future from a scientifically rational view point. But on television or film what has their actually been that doesn’t exist more to serve the need for fantasy and escapism than to examine the ramifications of scientific advance ? Mostly it seems that people trot out the term “hard” sci-fi when actually what they mean is serious, or perhaps po-faced (BSG for example might have been excellent satire, but it was no more hard sci-fi than original Star Trek or the Clangers, yet somehow its taken seriously in a way that Doctor Who never has been despite the fact that by the nmiddle of season 3 it had degenerated into insufferable pomposity shortly before disappearing up its mystically spiritual backside).
19 May 2013 at 16:24 #9842The more I think about it and read everybody else’s theories the more I’m convinced that Hurt has to be The Great Time War Doctor – how many references has there been to being a ‘soldier’ and being able to tell one in this series part 1 & 2?! Like in CW ‘a soldier can smell another soldier’ etc etc
19 May 2013 at 16:35 #9843@besd1 — Exactly. You could argue that something like Black Mirror is much closer to hard SF than Who has ever been…
19 May 2013 at 16:41 #9844Oh, yes, I’m fairly sure Hurt is the Time War Doctor. Especially given the number of times in this part of the series that Eleven (still calling him that – after all, it’s what he calls himself) goes for ‘the nuclear option’. The Mutally Assured Destruction option. And then there’s Mrs Gillyflower – the ‘mirror Doctor’ who was ‘the wrong hands’.
This is the Doctor who changed the madcap wanderer into an ex-soldier.
19 May 2013 at 16:42 #9845@ardaraith – Kudos to you! You beat me to the punch about River being an echo of Clara! I’m with you all the way!
@juniperfish – Re their “frosty exchange” someone mentioned above as evidence they’re not the same, River doesn’t necessarily put 2 and 2 together right away. She doesn’t necessarily have to remember anything except realizing near the very end what happened; although I like the idea that she’s sort of a “superboosted” echo via the TARDIS conception.
@Shazzbot – Why would river try to prevent her own existence? Well, in the very same case, why would the Doctor try to prevent his own destruction, and the destruction of the entire universe, by telling her not to do it? Because he’s the Doctor! He refuses to kill, or cause to die. He always puts saving a life first. He tells his companions not to kill themselves all the time, damn the consequences!
@scaryb – Vastra didn’t call River to the conference call, she called river’s (CAL) echo. Besides being a way to bring River back to say goodbye, this also his has the neat side effect of allowing Clara and River to coexist and interact without any (additional) timey-wimey complications. And I don’t think River’s too independent to be an echo of Clara. Victorian and Dalek Claras were pretty darned independent; and they weren’t Time Lords!
@badwulf – If River is an echo of Clara, she is still a separate character who has been born, lived a full life (and what a life!), and died. These aren’t “echos” like the computer echos stored in a database (which, ironically, she does end up as). these are full-fledged, separate beings. Them telling ClaraPrime they’ll just be “echos” is just them urging her not to do it because she’ll die, and they haven’t even been born yet.
19 May 2013 at 17:09 #9846Why is Strax so dim when it comes to genders?
19 May 2013 at 17:19 #9847@topperofgallifrey – My guess is that Sontarans are clones. There’s no such thing as a female Sontaran (although it probably doesn’t strictly make sense to call the male either), so he has some difficulty with the concept. As I remember, Linx thought the idea do a two-sex reproductive system was a stupid way of creating new cadets.
19 May 2013 at 17:20 #9848@bluesqueakpip @thebadfairyprincess OK, I’ll accept that. Had thought maybe Hurt was the original Doctor, the past one the rest are running from (partly as they are all running in the timestream/memory thing while he isn’t), but that doesn’t fit with their personalities does it? Eleven could be Twelve but call himself Eleven (when does that happen anyway?) as mystery one has been stripped of the title.
Now we know what happened to Clara Prime, what is the missing years stuff about? Just a meta thing?
@topperofgallifrey He’s not human and doesn’t really have a knack for distinguishing between us pink weasels?
19 May 2013 at 17:46 #9850I actually love the parallel between Rings of Akhaten and this, besides the leaf. In RoA the Doctors investigations into Clara means he’s suddenly been present at moments / events in her life. In this, she’s introduced to his ife in a similar capacity.
Glad you liked the clip. I meant to mention it last night, but it slipped my mind. As much as I’ve enjoyed River, I wouldn’t be surprised if Moff wanted to close off her story before the 50th and, in his words “start something new”.
19 May 2013 at 17:58 #9852Any idea what the relevance of 10th April 2013 is? All I can up with is it was the day after the Trafalgar Square shoot.
19 May 2013 at 18:09 #9853I wouldn’t be surprised if Moff wanted to close off her story before the 50th and, in his words “start something new”.
Well that’s it then. You have just killed my whole reason to exist. I’m never ever ever watching the show again. But I shall continue to come back in here and wind up everyone on this blog as often as I can!
<is about to storm off in an almighty huff when she suddenly remembers she’s not in the Dark Place any more! Ooops 😈 >
19 May 2013 at 18:09 #9854
Did any classic series fans think of Goronwy from Delta & the Bannermen when the Dr mentioned retiring to Bee-Keep? There was always a suspicion that he was maybe more than human, perhaps a Time Lord even. Very Doctory, you see…
19 May 2013 at 18:12 #9855Initial reaction involved a lot of whooping and a big WHAT!? in our house. Loved it. Although panicked when I saw Six’s coat. Didn’t need him coming spoiling my fun again 😉
Some thoughts (still need to rewatch, so apologies for any imprecise rambling I’m about to set down. Does apologising for something that you haven’t done yet qualify as timey-whimey?). Anyway –
@ardaraith – good call on the TARDIS helping the many Claras so being responsible for stealing the Doctor still. Its neat and explains how she knows where in the time stream to be / what to be doing. I think the many Claras are primarily stopping the GI from interfering, rather than explicitly saving the Doctor every time, so regenerations etc would still happen.
In Hide, the TARDIS shows Clara herself – taken as being bitchy, I guess it was actually showing her Clara-prime because it had no idea which Clara it was talking to (as TDW establishes the TARDIS sees all of history simulataneously).
If there are thousands of fractured versions of the GI floating around, are they going to act like little terrorist cells, popping up with no head that can be cut off so to speak – don’t think we’ve seen the last of it (but probably have for a while).
@pedant – Clara jumped to save the Doctor, so the Doctor had to jump in to save her. Pretty much the bridge in It’s A Wonderful Life yes?! And now his Guardian Angel was/is always there whether he knows it or not.Another prisoner who knows about the Doctors future, along with Prisoner Zero in TEH. Bit of a prisoner theme – relevant to the Hurt Doctor perhaps? Congrats to @jimthefish and all the other Dark Doctor adherents btw!
My initial reaction was that the Hurt Doctor was the Valeyard. My wife immediately thought the Doctors numbering had been thrown off and he was from the Time War. I can see opinion here is similarly scattered (with the addition of the Doctor Zero theories upstream, which I love). However, I’m going to suggest that he is a future doctor but went back in his own timeline to end the Time War, only allowing himself (as 8 or 9) to escape the Timelock. The Doctors survivors guilt is worsened by the fact that he knows what he is going to become, and he’s been running from his future, rather than his past. It would justify Ten’s ‘I don’t want to go’ (and going on the lamb rather than facing up to reality), as well as his horror at his TimeLord Victorious moment in WoM, and of course Eleven’s darker moments. And Doctors 9/10/11 couldn’t haven ever broken the Timelock even if they’d wanted to, because he has not yet created it in his own timestream.
But, ‘Introducing John Hurt as The Doctor’ – comes across as a Massive Moffat Misdirect (TM pending).
Interesting that the Tomb TARDIS was Eleven’s current set up. Implies that this is the final incarnation, as would Clara only fixing timestreams upto the Eleventh. I’m gonna guess the second half can be explained away by Clara only helping the Doctor become who he is when she met him. Or is the current design a ‘no personality’ template that Eleven hasn’t bothered changing?
I think the Doctors comments to River about it paining him to see her also explain the TARDIS refit and costume change. The previous set up was a constant reminder of what he’d lost, and it wouldn’t feel homely without his family, so a change would have been in order. In that mental state, the change wouldn’t have been to something warm and fuzzy.
Emphasis on Jenny’s heart by Strax when reviving her and I think Vastra calls her ‘my heart’? Could be imagining that though. Are we supposed to be thinking about heart(s)? Jenny as Docs Daughter Jenny theory back on? The original Jenny clone was only days old, so could she have regenerated as a baby with no memories? Put me in mind of the Power of Three as well but can’t see any connection.Anyway, time for a rewatch!
19 May 2013 at 18:13 #9856bullets went awol in the above, sorry for the unreadability!
19 May 2013 at 18:18 #9857Hugh Lloyd 😀
Can’t find a short copy of this, but if you want to dip into a bit with HL go to 17.00 (But no apologies for posting the whole thing, still sounds remarkably fresh and sharp to my old ears (first broadcast Jun 1961))
19 May 2013 at 18:20 #9858Definitely need to eatch again. In the meantime, come on, everybody, a couple of tears? I had to reach for the box of tissues! I think this was River’s goodbye. yes, she was/is stored in the library but to me it was a “I need to let you go”, ergo let you rest as past and not awake you every 5 minutes when i think of you. When people you love die, you think if them all the time, they come up on you everyday life, but what if every time you did that they were awoken in a kind of half-life, impossible in the flesh? Wouldn’t you want to let them rest? Ghosts also get tired. I really don’t want to see River go, as she has always been the most progressive, interesting bit bit for me of new Who, but I trully believe this was goodbye. That dialogue had the true emotion of two lovers being torn apart beyond their control. Oh, goodness me, I need the tissues again, defo need a rewatch and some sobering up before coming back to rush in where only fish dare to thread. (please excuse the ortography! dreadful, but right now, too emotional to correct!)
19 May 2013 at 18:31 #9859Guys, i have one question, i hope someone can answer me.
I understand The Doctor couldn’t say him name, because it would opet the tomb. But why, later on, couldn’t he say his name, at least to his nearest friends? What is it with his name? Why couldn’t anyone hear it? River knew it, and it was better that she knew it, because it helped. So why cannot he say his name?
19 May 2013 at 18:40 #9860“We now know that she suggested to Hartnell’s Doctor which TARDIS to steal. We also know, from The Doctor’s Wife, that the TARDIS stole her thief. Ergo – Clara is either a manifestation of the TARDIS or is psychically linked to the TARDIS. We already know she is psychically linked to River.
River, the TARDIS and Clara are all connected therefore.
River is a child of the TARDIS, that much we know. I don’t think Clara is her daughter or granddaughter, not from the way River interacted with her at the seance table. She is, surely, the creation of River and the TARDIS working together to save the Doctor.”
A compelling case, particularly the first part. This theory certainly fits all the evidence and also would be delightfully elegant if true. Just to add to it, we also know:
that River is far more adept at flying the Tardis than the Doctor, suggesting a high level of empathy with the old girl.
River knew that their was a point in the Doctor’s timeline when she wouldn’t be around anymore, and that Trenzalore was approaching. Its not beyond the realms of possibility to imagine that River, who was once prepared to let the entire Universe perish in pain rather than let the Doctor die, would use that empathic connection with the Tardis to set in motion a course of evasive action. Could Clara be that course?
The Tardis seemed wary at first and would only work with the true Clara on its own terms , yet had no such problems with the fragmented Claras, and as the series progressed and the time approached for Clara to make her sacrifice she almost seemed to be lead by the Tardis towards an understanding of what was expected of her (witness the reveal of memories in TNOTD), indicating that Clara needed to be prepared by the Tardis, and then River, for her task. Yes River tried to disuade her at the last, but when Clara asked if this is what needed to happen River had only one answer. Yes.19 May 2013 at 18:43 #9861@kurtcobanana – maybe because he can separate the John Hurt incarnation from the name The Doctor (because he acted not in the name of the doctor), but he can’t separate it from his birth name, other than by burying that name.
19 May 2013 at 18:44 #9862@KurtCobana Because his name IS “The Doctor”. Or at least the only name he acknowledges. The one he chose for hmself. As certain human cultures do – once you have gone through a right of passage around puberty – you choose or are given a name which is supposed to relate to the qualities you have and/or value. The Name of the Doctor translates as The Reputation of the Doctor – something which he sees as something to be aspired to and much more important than a combination of letters of symbols.
19 May 2013 at 18:45 #9863@besd1, @juniperfish – perhaps the TARDIS’ waryness with Clara in RoA for example is because it was aware there were duplicates around, and couldn’t tell which one was Clara-prime?
19 May 2013 at 19:06 #9864@osakahatter (and others) – I’m needing to be convinced that the Tardis really didn’t like Clara. We know Clara said that, but my immediate reaction (which has stayed with me) to that moment was, why did Clara believe the Tardis didn’t like her? Not ‘why did the Tardis not like Clara’.
Does the door auto-lock? We don’t often see him explicity lock it upon leaving. Also, we’ve seen the Doctor unlock it but I’m drawing a complete blank on when he has strode right in (without so much as a finger-click [ ! ] ). I can’t remember being shown any companions striding right in, either.
That last part shows the holes in my memory though; and so many here have far fewer holes so I’m sure someone can set me right. Should I believe the ‘not liking’ because of the multiple Clara issue? Or was it simply a locked door, which raises two questions: 1) Why did Clara assume the door would be unlocked? and 2) Why would a locked door make her think the Tardis didn’t like her?
19 May 2013 at 19:29 #9865@jimthefish and @scaryb – You’re right, of course – past stories have been re-written twice, and I understand how that ties in with Moffat’s supposed hyperbole (but turned out, for once, not to be!) on how TNotD was a compete game-changer. I was focusing on the game-changer being the Hurt Doctor and what that implies for the 50th (and beyond??).
I do want to register my disappointment, though, that the montages of various Claras didn’t show her saving him. In fact, they showed the opposite – Clara banging helplessly on glass walls and glass floors, or standing still whilst a Doctor ran / drove by her, etc. Even when she saw him in a corridor, twice, we didn’t see her do anything directly with that Doctor. The pre-credits montage, on first viewing, I thought set up an interesting conundrum: a girl saying she’s born to save the Doctor but actually is frustrated time and again by not being able to help.
It was only the interaction with Hartnell that showed an actual change happening. I assume this was due to not wanting to splice Clara into old footage over and over, or hire look-a-like actors.
But it would have been nice if we could have seen her actually change something, move something, do anything which assisted a previous situation – this would have reinforced your point that old stories are now timey-wimey no matter what has aired (i.e., there is no ‘canon’ anymore). And as it is, I’m still left with an overall impression of Clara not actually doing anything – based simply on what they chose to show in those montages, which were primarily helpless Clara, unnoticed Clara, etc.
19 May 2013 at 19:39 #9867@Shazzbot – I don’t know, I tend to lean towards that they just didn’t want to repeatedly splice her into old sequences as with Hartnell. I think that scene alone made the point. The rest was all kind of dream-like anyway; it wasn’t a complete re-telling of all her incarnations. It was just showing her present at key moments.
And with the leaf thing and all, who’s to say her simple presence in the timeline couldn’t have altered events such that the Doctor would have been saved in every instance, even if she didn’t actively do something every time? “When a butterfly flaps its wings in one part of the world it can cause a hurricane in another part of the world.”
19 May 2013 at 19:43 #9868@shazzbot – fair point, we were taking Clara’s opinion as fact. The reason I brought it up though is more I’m happy (in my mind) to explain away that particular thread as due to the TARDIS avoiding potential paradox caused by picking up the wrong Clara. I’d be very surprised if it appears as any more than a running gag going forward.
19 May 2013 at 19:43 #9869I really liked it and was so glad when Jenny came back to life. Can’t wait for November and feel the need to do a complete nu-who rewatch in preparation for the 50th (never watched any old episodes).
@shazzbot @scaryb I adore River and feel the character always brings an exciting energy to the show. However, as much as I hope she is back, it felt like a goodbye. As for when she learns his name if she never reappears I will think of them having a private ‘real’ wedding where she learns his name.
I don’t really think Clara and River are the same person and think I would be disappointed if they where. They seem to have quite different personalities, all 3 versions of Clara have been pretty similar at their core, whilst River seems different.
No two parallel universes going on, red/blue bow tie/balloon world, and I feel the ganger doctor might be done with. But really pleased with the ending to the series. Can’t wait for John Hurt, feel he’s going to be amazing. The look of his character was realy interesting, definitely war (and world) weary.
Want to say a big thanks to you all for your fabulously bonkers theories during series 7.2, but a special thanks to @craig for his fab site.
19 May 2013 at 19:54 #9872@shazzbot — yes, it would have been nice to see more instances of Clara actually interacting with the past but both time and resources would have been a factor, I reckon. I tend to think the Clara/Hartnell scene is enough to make the point anyway.
Mind you, this is essentially the first half of a two-parter, so who knows…
19 May 2013 at 19:56 #9873@shazzbot – maybe the reason Clara often doesn’t interact with the Doctor is because she doesn’t have to? She’s focused on stopping the GI in the background so that the Doctor can do what he does in the foreground uninterrupted?
19 May 2013 at 20:01 #9875@jimthefish – I guess I was thinking of placing her in a situation but not necessarily with that Doctor or companion(s) also there at that exact moment. For example, moving a boulder which is later used (switch to real archive footage) by the Doctor to hide behind, or throw, or somesuch. It would have made the point that Clara’s intervention assisted the situation but wouldn’t have been as tricky as the Hartnell moment to intercut.
I’m just banging on now, I know! The Hartnell moment did make the point, but it was the only such scene. {pout} Honestly, this is a mild criticism of an episode I thought was amazing in all other ways!
@osakahatter – good point, but still with my pouting critical hat on, it would have been nice to see her throw the GI off a cliff or something! 😉
19 May 2013 at 20:12 #9877We all know that clara went in the doctors time stream and saved him from the gi, we know this for proof also because clara also stopped gi in the snowmen but i wonder how she saved the doctor in asylum of the daleks, maybe gi was hidden somewhere, i wonder how clara knows shes impossible is going to effect her later on as being the doctors companion
19 May 2013 at 20:22 #9878@drwho — actually I think last night’s episode has (for me anyway) Clara-fied (arf!!) Clara’s character for me. The reason why she’s maybe a bit cocky and unfazed by the wonders of travelling with the Doctor is that she’s pretty much experienced everything he has, been everywhere he has. It might present its own narrative problems though because she won’t exactly be able to say ‘What is it, Doctor?” because presumably she’ll already know.
@Shazzbot — maybe we’ll get a scene with Clara deciding to stop repairing the Doc’s adventures after halfway through the Pertwee era because they’re no longer as good after that point… 🙂
19 May 2013 at 20:32 #9880@shazzbot – just got a vision of Clara rounding off the movie tributes of this season by referencing Avengers – shouting “Puny GI” followed by punching Dr Simeon in the side of the head 🙂
19 May 2013 at 20:35 #9881@rema Hi there 🙂 Well, on the parallel universes flickering together at infinite speeds and red and blue realities not occurrring…
In a way, they are !
We saw the Doctor and the Cyber-Doctor face off for control of the Doctor’s brain via a game of chess in Nightmare in Silver and the Doctor’s brain was coloured half in blue and half in orange-gold (red near enough). Blue was for heartless Cyber-Doctor and red was for hearts-filled “our” Doctor.
Now we find that deep in the recesses of the Doctor’s memory/ unconcsious is an incarnation of himself which he has split off, to whom he denies his name “The Doctor” because that incarnation has done such terrible things.
Imagine if what is coming is a struggle for control between this split off shadow side and the Doctor we know. Two different versions of the Doctor, flickering together at infinite speeds, one symbolised by ice in the Doctor’s hearts (blue) and one symbolised by love in the Doctor’s hearts (red).
I actually think that at the level of Jungian Time Lord cosmic consciousness, the red/ blue universes are not done yet!
@besd1 Hello there – yes Clara says she was “born to save the Doctor” – I suspect she was engineered by River and the TARDIS – we did not get to see that room in the TARDIS capable of making anything in JttCotT and in the same episode as a cyborg story, for nothing.
19 May 2013 at 20:36 #9882@jimthefish I did wonder that about Clara, but there again “our” one is clearly idenitfied as the original. She wasn’t supposed to get back out again, but the Dr did the heroic thing 😥 So she’s the pattern, and probably enhanced by this experience and from being in the Dr’s timestream/paradox-ridden tardis, but she’s not been the consciousness of the 1m copies.
19 May 2013 at 20:39 #9883@rema <cheerfully chucks ganger doc theory out the window>
Who needs ganger Dr when we’ve got John Hurt!! (not to mention Smith and Tennant ALL in the same episode!!)
@juniperfish Dark Dr theory vindicated 🙂 Jury out on interconnectng timelines till November. Keeping both my bow ties in place meanwhile
19 May 2013 at 20:44 #9884@jimthefish – maybe I misunderstood your comment, so apologies.
“The reason why she’s maybe a bit cocky and unfazed by the wonders of travelling with the Doctor is that she’s pretty much experienced everything he has, been everywhere he has.”
But, Clara Prime, as she existed up until the moment she stepped into his timestream, didn’t know she’d been travelling [sort of] with the Doctor. She only knows that by the time she lands on the floor in the last scene. So this whole half-series, any cockiness she has can’t have come from that.
You mention narrative problems, and I posted this earlier:
Yes, this made me wonder about how the Smith/JLC series 8 will work out. They’ve both been in his timestream – composed of future as well as past – so there has to be a plot point of it all being re-written or else we’d have an entire series of two people saying ‘I remember what we did tomorrow.’
19 May 2013 at 20:50 #9885Re ‘born to save the Doctor’ – I’m not convinced by the engineered-by-River-and/or-the-Tardis theory yet.
I think of it as a literary touch – at the moment you leap to sacrifice yourself for a greater good, you might think ‘My whole life was coming to this point; this is what it was all about – I was born to do this.’
19 May 2013 at 20:50 #9886Hi @scaryb I haven’t complemented you on your fine fez-wearing angel yet. I feel you need a blue version too 🙂
You know I reallly love the musical pass keys theme in 7.2. , all relating to the importance of River Song of course. I love it when music is used as part of the text in TV drama. I got quite teary-eyed about “Tracks of my Tears” which the Doc mentions in his “last” scene with River (ok I’m in denial) and which I’ve posted in the music thread.
It’s a pleasure when everything is not spelled out and we have to put the pieces together (such as John Hurt Doctor being the thing in the Doctor’s room in The God Complex).
We seem to have near consensus that Hurt Doctor (and isn’t that name wonderfully symbolic in itself) is Time War Doctor. I’m looking forward to finding out more in November.
I don’t think they ever contemplated Ecclestone as “dark Doctor” – he was, after all, the first generation of Nu Whovians “my Doctor” and I think it would be a retcon too far. I hope Smithy will get to play a dark version of himself as Hurt Doc and “our” Doc fight for control, just because Smithy does dark so well.
Wow his scene with Kingston blew me away on re-watch. She packs “goodbye sweetie” with all the tremulous and impish au revoir you would expect from River – love her acting chops! She raises Smithy even higher.
19 May 2013 at 21:04 #9888@juniperfish We seem to have near consensus that Hurt Doctor (and isn’t that name wonderfully symbolic in itself) is Time War Doctor. I’m looking forward to finding out more in November.
I’m in two minds between that Shadow Doctor (or Doctor Zero). I do think there’ll be some struggle for control between him and Eleven anyway.
19 May 2013 at 21:10 #9889I do want to register my disappointment, though, that the montages of various Claras didn’t show her saving him. In fact, they showed the opposite – Clara banging helplessly on glass walls and glass floors, or standing still whilst a Doctor ran / drove by her, etc
.My take on this was she was trying to save the events or course of his life. In RoA she showed a real understanding of the multitude of events that lead up to your present “you”.
The GI was a formless intelligence seeking to change those events in however many ways. Maybe not by directly tackling him, but still influencing decisions, encounters that would change who he was. He was the agent of change. Clara was an opposite force. Seemingly random interventions when needed to correct his influence. A half heard voice making him pause for example.
The best illustration of this is the encounter with the First – we know he and old sexy more or less selected each other. Perhaps a little voice (the GI) told him to take another box – and attempt to make his wanderings more directed. Under those circumstances he may not have gone to Earth, met Ian and Barbara and his life would have been very different. A Gallifreyan Clara corrected that one. In some encounters she is physical, and in some almost a ghost (like the lost time traveller in “Hide”).
In retrospect I think the two episodes by Neil Cross in this run are pretty informative on this element of the story. Will have to rewatch (which I don’t mind, I really like both Rings and Hide :-D).
19 May 2013 at 21:24 #9890Hi @phaseshift – I’m fine with the Hartnell moment, and agree with what you’ve posited here (and others on this thread also believe that’s the best explanation).
My complaint started when others pointed out that the ‘game-changer’ wasn’t the Hurt reveal at the end as I had thought (and what that meant going forward); it was actually the idea that subtle – or stronger – changes were made to previous adventures, which throws the entire burden of fealty to 50 years of canon straight out the window. (And made all future DW writers breathe a collective sigh of relief!)
If that’s the game-changer, then, it seems important to have more than one ‘here’s what I changed earlier’ moment – not least because every other scene in the montage was Clara being helpless or ignored. The overall impression left for me was that she didn’t change anything, because they didn’t show it (other than steering Hartnell to Sexy). They didn’t show the GI doing anything bad and they didn’t show Clara cleaning up the GI’s effects or otherwise having an influence on anything which might match the idea of ‘saving the Doctor’.
I’m 100% on board with giving the audience the latitude to fill in the gaps and not spell every little thing out to us; but for a ‘game-changer’ it felt to me that the montage could have been stronger. Or … was the implication that all Clara had to do was make sure Hartnell chose Sexy, and by that single act, she saved the Doctor?
19 May 2013 at 21:26 #9891@juniperfish – your wish is my command 🙂
(for a little while anyway, in honour of River and the superb Alex Kingston) Thanks for the Smokey song (yes, very apt) and also belated thanks to @wolfweed for the Kate Bush track – I think that might actually be THE saddest video I’ve ever seen 😥
@phaseshift @Shazzbot Could get pretty boring running through the specific instances Clara changed the GI’s sabotage, especially if you don’t know the original stories. You’d need to do a lot of setting up to make it pay off. You see how it’ll work with the Hartnell scene, the rest is up to your imagination if you want to go there.
There’s 2 gamechangers, one looking back, the other to the future – the GI/Clara retconning the canon (to get a bit jargony about it) and the reveal that there is another incarnation that we knew nothing about, but who is so dark he cannot even be given the name The Doctor.
19 May 2013 at 21:31 #9894@scaryb Wonderful – very fetching in blue 🙂 An angel with ice in their stone heart however… as if they weren’t scary enough!
I’ll have to go and listen to the Kate Bush.
@Shazzbot I likesd @bluesqueakpip ‘s theory on the G-blog that the episodes we saw clips from were some of the not-so-great ones which could really have done with a re-write! Very funny and cheeky.
I did also like Clara’s many period outfits.
@phaseshift Enjoyed your Paternoster Gang blog post – for the steampunk alone it should happen. Vastra in glittering black VIctoriana at a seance table with floating Gallifreyan co-ordinates above it? Scrummy.
19 May 2013 at 21:41 #9895@Shazzbot – we didn’t see what the GI did to affect things, but we see the effects – Jenny dead cos no Dr to save her, Strax doesn’t get his epiphany, stars going out etc (ie the Wonderful Life moment). And the Doctor on the floor with the agonies it’s causing him (painful process getting your timeline rewritten). You know that the multi-Clara solution works because again we see the effects.
Much of what the GI does could be done with whispers eg the Dr’s reputation going downhill as in AGMGtW. Clara could fix it equally with whispers or, as you suggested, making sure a boulder was in right place at right time. But I do think it would be tedious (and technically laborious) to go through several examples. It’s not the detail of this that’s important, it’s the results.
And I strongly suspect Moff of adding in a huge tease – as I’ve said before – we (audience) can never know re old episodes if we are watching what originally happened or if it’s the post Clara version, which may or may not be subtly different from the original timeline.
19 May 2013 at 21:42 #9896“We now know that she suggested to Hartnell’s Doctor which TARDIS to steal. We also know, from The Doctor’s Wife, that the TARDIS stole her thief. Ergo – Clara is either a manifestation of the TARDIS or is psychically linked to the TARDIS. We already know she is psychically linked to River.
River, the TARDIS and Clara are all connected therefore.
River is a child of the TARDIS, that much we know. I don’t think Clara is her daughter or granddaughter, not from the way River interacted with her at the seance table. She is, surely, the creation of River and the TARDIS working together to save the Doctor.”
A compelling case, particularly the first part. This theory certainly fits all the evidence and also would be delightfully elegant if true. Just to add to it, we also know:”
Could someone please proove to me that ” she is psychically linked to River.” She said she was but only for the call. I just dont get your argumentation Oo
Sorry if you cleared that up already. I just came home and try to catch up – this bit just bugged me, thats why I ask. I just cant see it…19 May 2013 at 21:53 #9899@timeloop Hello – I can’t prove anything 🙂 What speculative Who board are you on!
I posted up-thread that I thought it likely River was the hooded figure in the prequel to Asylum of the Daleks who sent the Doctor the dream message giving him the co-ordinates to Skaro, thus engineering his first meeting with Clara (whom River knew would save him – “River always knows” said the Doctor to Clara in The Name of the Doctor). This link was made becasue the same psychic link/ dream message technique was used by Vastra and River in The Name of the Doctor.
The other evidence for a link are the song pass keys, the musical narrative insertions from the music room heart of the house in Hide to Duran Duran in Cold War – songs with narrative significance pointing to the involvement of River Song.
Why would River speak the Doctor’s name and open his tomb to the ravages of The Great Intelligence if she did not have fore-knowledge that Clara would be the solution (because she and the TARDIS had created her for this purpose)?
Clever Professor Song.
19 May 2013 at 22:02 #9900I do think it’s a case of limited time to make the point, and the relative cost of production of the clips (and some are variable quality).
The Hartnell choice was inspired in mahy ways. It’s a great “this is where it all started” moment for the Doctor, and critically one who someone who has only seen “The Doctors Wife” can probably get the sense of what is happening.
Many thanks for the compliment on “The Paternoster” Blog. I had a lot of fun with that one. I hope if you get the time you’ll be able to use you author status to develop a couple of the ideas you mentioned on the Website Comments thread.
If you’ve not seen it there is a small behined the scenes feature that features the slap between Alex and Neve, and a couple of fun observations from Dan on plunging through a window.
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