S33 (7) 7 – The Bells of Saint John

[Juniperfish @juniperfish]

Hello and welcome @edmund and @jamesunderscore ! Great contributions already.

Oh if only Elizabeth Sladen could be with us this year. I do love the idea of a tribute to her being incorporated into the 50th.

As for Klone/ Clone – love it! Especially as it fits in with all my doubling/ doppleganger theories. More evidence Clara is a River Song avatar perhaps?

 

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

Welcome @edmund and @jamesunderscore. A few people on-line have pointed out that Elisabeth Sladen’s middle name  was – ‘Clara’.

So I think she is being incorporated into the 50th, but in a way consistent with her character still being alive in-show.

[ScaryB @scaryb]

Welcome from me too to @edmund and @jamesunderscore

Interesting thoughts re the leaf… clones huh? The Dr really did react strangely to it – like there was something not quite right about it. And that leafish sort of shape given prominence on the next poster.

@bluesqueakpip – that was well spotted. Wonder if she’s called Clara as a tribute to ES?  Lovely idea that it was S-J who gave Clara the Dr’s phone no but is there any evidence she had it? I think has to be River or Rose. (sorry)

[overunder @jamesunderscore]

Then there’s the envelope – tucked in the book. It has DELSA stamped on it.

The top Google result for DELSA goes to a site for some bods called Data-Enabled Life Sciences Alliance, which appears to be a real site and not something put up by the DW team, although it is very new – copyrights on the site are from 2013, and the domain was registered last year.

Thoughts, anyone?

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@juniperfish

So how many duplicate Doctors do you reckon are possible…? From what we’ve seen so far (bearing in mind Moff likes to seed things in) –

Red bow tie/blue bow tie – 2 different time streams (no 1 theory obv 🙂 Ha! they laughed at us once!!)

Flesh Dr

Tesselecter Dr

Spoonhead Dr

10.2 Dr

Bonkers theory no 922(ii) – Series 7.2 ends in a big hall of mirrors with millions of Doctors (reflections, clones and duplicates) and no idea how to tell them apart 🙂 (like the end of orig Bruce Lee  Kung Fu movie (can’t remember name,sorry))

OR… (old theory time) the Doctor’s been dalekised/GI’d and needs to remember who he is in order to put everything right again. (The “question must never be asked” is because when it’s answered (“I’M Who” (truthful if not gramatical!) the baddies lose))

 

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@jamesunderscore There are some musings on DELSA upstream somewhere, this thread. You’re right, it’s intriguing. It’s not an obvious fake, but it’s a strange combination of letters to come up with by accident, it’s stange to ref a real company and Data-Enabled Life Science Alliance sounds like a very Who-ish sort of thing.

[ScaryB @scaryb]

Haha – bet DELSA global are wondering why their website traffic has spiked this week!!

[Anonymous @]

Welcome @edmund and @jamesunderscore.

I love the Klon idea. I think there might be something to this.

I’m sure others have already done this but a WHOIS suggest that the DELSA site is legit. But it is a very odd sounding name for an organisation. But it is also an anagram of SLADE, so maybe it’s a clue that Noddy Holder is going to be the next Doctor.

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@jimthefish It does look perfectly genuine. That said, it’s odd that the employee at Seattle Children’s Hospital who set it up has the first name Courtney. There’s also an Elizabeth Stewart. Could be coincidence; the names aren’t uncommon. It’s the main referral centre for children from Alaska; another coincidence. Bioinformatics, it appears, is also unbelievably relevant to the speculations about Clara.

The other odd thing about it is that the website is hosted by broadcastmatrix – who more normally do live stream radio – but maybe they just picked them because they’re based near Seattle.

 

Hmm… there is one thing I can think of. Someone at DELSA or Seattle Children’s Hospital is a Whovian and was contacted during the course of research. They’ve given the BBC permission to use the organisation’s name – which would suggest DELSA is a Big Good, not a Big Bad.

 

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

Another seriously weird coincidence – Maple Leaf is a district in Seattle. The ‘first page’, perhaps? Clara was born in Maple Leaf, Seattle?

[EmmOfTheEss @emmoftheess]

Hello from another newbie, albeit one who’s been lurking since this site was set up (thanks, Craig!).

Love the thought that the DELSA website is all part of the plot, it does look very much like something to do with Who. However, I think that this site can put that thought to bed: http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/31985/title/Opinion–Data-to-Knowledge-to-Action/

I think the leaf will prove to be most significant. I just didn’t get the “first page” comment at all…

[Anonymous @]

Welcome @emmoftheess.

RE. DELSA. There is a contact section on their website. Has anyone got the stones to email them and ask if they’ve ever heard of a Clara Oswin Oswald?

@bluesqueakpip — excellent research. I have to say that if it turns out to be a fake, then it’s an incredibly detailed one…

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@jimthefish – no, I am NOT emailing them. 🙂

But I’m certainly inclining to the opinion that the organisation itself is genuine. That said, there seems to be a quite active Who fandom in Seattle (it’s that sort of place), so the idea that the local children’s hospital might be happy to play a bit part in a famous children’s programme isn’t too far fetched.

[Craig @craig Emperor]

Hi @emmoftheess glad to have you on board. As a fellow lurker this is a great place to finally let loose. Hope you enjoy. Everyone here is very lovely. And no idea is too bonkers… In fact, the more bonkers the better!

[Tiddler @tiddler]

Hi there, another former Guardian lurker surfacing, enjoyed all your fantastic theories over there last series and since Craig launched this site. I’m not quite as full of bonkers ideas as you lot, but in relation to the leaf what about a link to Lorna Bucket, the girl from the Gamma Forests – we never really found out what she was all about in AGMGTW last year?

PS: Tiddler, the most important fish in any Julia Donaldson-reading household (saving the assorted fish clans’ presence)!

[PhaseShift @phaseshift Time Lord]

@tiddler

Welcome aboard. Just dive in with all the other fishes. 🙂

On the subject of the leaf, I thought it would have been a UK native Maple, but doesn’t really look like the three I know. If it was a Sycamore (which is one of our native maples) I would go on at length about the Egyptians who thought a Sycamore tree existed at the boundary of life and death.

Damn – we need someone who studied herbology at Hogwarts!

[PhaseShift @phaseshift Time Lord]

I got to thinking about fractals, the way you do. More the idea of fractals as metaphors rather than the true mathematical reality.

You know, Webs, leaves and snowflakes as natural metaphors for fractals, and given series 6 exhausted watery metaphors for time, perhaps it’s time to fall back on that phrase beloved by old who “the fractal nature of time”. If only because I’d love to see Matt explain that Clara was somehow “the female fracture in the fractal nature of time”. 🙂

Central to the idea of fractals is self similarity. Where the object is exactly or approximately similar to a part of itself (i.e. the whole has the same shape as one or more of the parts). So maybe all three oswalds are mere fractions of an gestalt uber Oswald.

Perhaps some of the familiar ideas on show in this episode are in fact a clue in that SM has deliberately produced a “self similar” script. If this is not true, he has my full endorsement to claim this in the future to make us both look very clever!

[Whisht @whisht]

Hi to @edmund, @jamesunderscore and @emmoftheess – looking forward to hear even more bonkers theorising!

I’ve not got much to add tonight, except (for @scaryb) an echo of a previous post I think I made that if there are a number of Drs, they will each have slightly different memories (so if collected in same place, then a specific recent memory will identify the ‘real’ one…).
Oh – and Enter the Dragon methinks! who could forget “O’Hara!!”

The DELSA site looks legit if only because to fake that many Googleable names with identities etc would be insane! It also has some wonderful verbiage on its Strategy page (though on second reading its beginning to make sense – does that make me a bad person??).
Only thing about Seattle is that its often used for filming NY scenes…

[Whisht @whisht]

ah – and Hi @tiddler (missed your joining as I was slowly typing!)!

Just a very random thought – if the Dr stole the Tardis to see the universe, is he a Tempus Fugitive?

Coat?

Its ok, I’m wearing it.

[holds head in shame…]

[PhaseShift @phaseshift Time Lord]

Ah – Thanks @whisht for reminding me. Just before I log off.

When I made my pitiful joke about DELSA above, I should have made it clear it is an actual research association. My counterparts in the US have an association with them to obtain bits of Environmental Data like plant uptake of contaminants etc.

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

Assortment of random catchi-upiness:

It think Artie/ RT is more likely another did at Twitter than a nod to the Radio Times (but suspect it is just a coynkidink)

I reckon the leaf has just told Doc that the kid on the swings was Clara, probably nothing more.

No thoughts on DELSA, except the stamp’s field colour seems to be Tardis Blue.

“Run you clever boy…” etc could, of course, have been the Doc’s mum’s instructions….

[janetteB @janetteb]

Everytime I have to click the “Remember Me” box (after being unaccountably logged out) I think of Clara and wonder if she is a password. A Log in.

Re’ the maple leaf, I too think it is a reference to the prequel scene in the park (though it may signify several things.) but that may not be as simple as it appears. For instance we don’t know when that meeting took place. We naturally assume that it was about ten years before he meets a grown up Clara. It might not be so. Given Clara’s rather unaccountable ignorance of the internet, maybe there is some oddity surrounding her upbringing. This too would tie with the clone idea. In fact Clara’s lack of ability to manage modern living reminds me a little of the Elizabeth Bennet character in Lost in Austen, who was also working as a governess.

cheers

Janette

[chickenelly @chickenelly]

I’ve not had any particularly Earth shattering ideas, waiting for Saturday’s episode to get a few more clues. However I’ve got the following observations:

1) Leaf.  I reckon the leaf thing may still be important as unless you had watched the prequel you wouldn’t know.  Perhaps there is some event that takes place at that time that the Doctor has to go back to sort out?  Also, in the series preview, isn’t the Doctor in a creepy looking forest at one point saying something along the lines of ‘I’m the Doctor and I’m afraid’?

2) Pedantic quibble.  When the Doctor and Clara zoom off on the motorbike from Southbank, they end up crossing Westminster Bridge (past the Houses of Parliament) and proceed to go along the Mall towards Buckingham Palace.  St Paul’s Cathedral is in the other direction.  I would suggest that he gets a GPS system but that was knobbled in the Sontaran double bill a couple of series ago.

[HaveYouFedTheFish @haveyoufedthefish]

@chickenelly – to be fair, in TV Land, there is simply no window in existence in London that does not look out on to Tower Bridge, topographically challenging though that is.

[HaveYouFedTheFish @haveyoufedthefish]

I can’t help but think that DELSA is a little MISTERSAXON joke, and help but notice that’s its an anagram of DALEKS with the K missing. But K kind of looks like a open book, edge on and its printed on a sort of “missing letter”. Yeah – tenuous I know.

Could indicate that Clara is in some way still connected to / part of the Dalek pathweb? And/or she’s still almost (but not quite) still a dalek.

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@haveyoufedthefish Yeah, I wondered about a dalek link too. Didn’t come up with anything halfway as ingenious as your missing letter concept tho. kudos 🙂

As far as anagrams go, it’s either that or @jimthefish‘s Noddy Holder

Could indicate that Clara is in some way still connected to / part of the Dalek pathweb? And/or she’s still almost (but not quite) still a dalek.

Either that, or the Doctor is.

[HaveYouFedTheFish @haveyoufedthefish]

Well i just read Summer Falls in the name of research (its actually by James Goss)

Reminded me of Wintersmith by Pratchett and similarly not actually very good I’m afraid. The doc (11) is in it but there’s no clues leaping out at me. There’s references to petrichor (as the smell left by the tardis), the tardis is in need of some repair. There’s a cat who can talk due to exposure to the tardis, a key/arrow/weathervane, a ring, some witches who repelled the lord with chants) and a weird reference to digital cameras but I guess that’s a reference to Amy’s own anachronism supposedly writing it in mid C20 NY.

The lord of winter seems like a daemon/Fenric class baddie, who enters this dimension by invitation only, creates a frozen pocket universe and needs further invitation to cross over completely and take the rest of the world.

Chapters 10/11 is sad because the cat sacrifices itself and then (in an echo of “Dalek” where it wants to feel the sun one last time) dies (though it’s implied later it’s survived, probably back as an ordinary cat)

[PhaseShift @phaseshift Time Lord]

@haveyoufedthefish

Actually, from a few points in that the “Lord of Winter” sounds like the GI to a certain extent, promising winter. Digital cameras in this episode, etc. I don’t really like e-books (I’m with Buffy’s Giles on this one – “Books should smell”), but I’ve considered having a look at this with a laptop reader.

If it was the GI there would be a question of how Amelia would know about it, but “Timey Wimey” and all that.

[PhaseShift @phaseshift Time Lord]

I just had a quick trawl over the Dan Martin blog and I saw HTPBDET’s post. Not sure I’d agree with him over the GI’s methods/motivations over collecting minds in “The Web of Fear”. One of my thoughts was how well that story (all but lost in visual form) is served by BoStJ. The audio and books are consistent in what was actually said.

In fact, for those that care, does the good book* not say:

“I want you Doctor – or rather your mind. Its contents will be invaluable to me in my conquest of the Earth”
“And how do you propose to get it?”
“I have prepared a machine. It will drain all knowledge and past experience from your mind. Your brain will become as empty as a newborn child.”
“I can resist you, you know,” the Doctor challenged. “You can’t just take me over like poor Travers. My will is as strong as yours.”
“You must submit to me willingly. Or the machine will not function.”
“And suppose I refuse?”
“Then I shall settle for quantity, rather than quality,” the cold voice mocked. “I shall drain the minds of all the humans here, and those of many others, until I have the knowledge I need – to complete my conquest. Weaker minds will not survive the shock as yours will. The humans will die.”

Parable of “The Web of Fear”, The Gospel according to St. Terrance

So to me, this is more of a promise fulfilled by the GI. Quantity, rather than quality, with the humans dying in the process. You don’t really need to know the story to appreciate TBoStJ, but if you do, it certainly compliments it. You can even imagine Miss Kizlet being a young girl at the time of the “Web of Fear” and a weakened GI going back to the drawing board and “whispering” to her.

*”Doctor Who and the Web of Fear”, Terrance Dicks, Target Books, ISBN 0 426 11084 6

[Craig @craig Emperor]

Great spot @phaseshift

The early stuff is more or less lost on me, but that sounds like Moffat has been paying attention.

I was going through the users a couple of nights ago and spotted HTPBDET has registered but not confirmed for this forum. I think this gives me some ammo to email him just in case he’s had problems signing up.

By the way, did you get my PM re the blog?

[wolfweed @wolfweed]

Just read this for the 1st time since 1979.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/72561982/Doctor-Who-The-Stolen-TARDIS

I think the Dr’s name is Plutar – but why did it have to be hidden?

And what’s his surname?!? Any middle names?

Plutar The-Other Smith?

Rolls off the tongue nicely. I’m not betting any £££ though.

[janetteB @janetteb]

Is the Doctor’s name mentioned when he returns to Gallifrey in “The Invasion of Time”? I must rewatch, once we have got through re watching series 5 that is.

Cheers

Janette

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

2) Pedantic quibble.  When the Doctor and Clara zoom off on the motorbike from Southbank, they end up crossing Westminster Bridge (past the Houses of Parliament) and proceed to go along the Mall towards Buckingham Palace.  St Paul’s Cathedral is in the other direction.  I would suggest that he gets a GPS system but that was knobbled in the Sontaran double bill a couple of series ago.

He also circles round Horseguards before going through Admiralty Arch from the Trafalgar Square direction, a trick which definitely comes under the heading of ‘spacey-wacey’. I did joke on the Guardian blog that maybe, as an alien, he thinks going past as many famous London landmarks as possible is an actual traffic regulation.

It’s probably just a little joke about London’s film topography bearing no resemblance to the real thing. But it may be the same kind of clue as the paper in The Snowmen; something’s a bit out of joint and the cracks in reality weren’t mended properly by Big Bang II.

[HaveYouFedTheFish @haveyoufedthefish]

@phaseshift – to a certain extent like the GI is as much as it’s trying to persuade lonely children to invite it into our world and promises them their own perfect world in return – Christmas day, every day, forever.

However it doesn’t possess anyone and is described like a God with complete direct control over the environment (no snow machine here); it literally occupies the whole sky and has many, many eyes. It seems much more powerful than the GI, which seems much of a nudger/influencer than a powerful being in its own right.

[HaveYouFedTheFish @haveyoufedthefish]

@bluesqueakpip – oh I just think they’re just giving the international (particularly US) market what it wants.

Coming up next: Dr Who and the Beefeaters of Death

[PhaseShift @phaseshift Time Lord]

Thanks, @craig. I’ve just replied to your PM. Many thanks for your help.

@haveyoufedthefish

Thanks. I think I will have a look at it. It would be interesting to see how the GI story goes, because it’s never really acheived it’s aims, we don’t know how powerful it could become. And if there are monsters called

**Potential Spoiler but based on a BBC release name**

“Whispermen”, then it may indicate it’s due to become physical and much more powerful.

**End Spoiler**

[wolfweed @wolfweed]

@phaseshift

So the ‘finale villain’s are a sort of Snowmen version 3 (2 being the Yeti)?

I’m not sure what the GI plan actually is – other than to get a template for a humanoid & proceed to escape & possess/become everything including humans and technology – oh & possibly still devour the Dr’s mind. If humanity is Burger King then the Dr must be a delicacy!

I predict the Dr’s name is Zodin (the Terrible)! I also forsee the ‘Cyber-Family’ in Gaiman’s ep. (We know we’re getting a Cyber-Something).

[Whisht @whisht]

ah @wolfweed – Alan Moore, he knows the score….

[HTPBDET @htpbdet]

Sorry – not good at mastering this blog technology…

Re 4245 above and the Gospel according to St Terrance :

What I said on the Guardian site was:

“As to the Great Intelligence – well, it bears no resemblence to the foe with that name that Troughton fought twice (three times if you count the frozen Tardis in the web in space). Troughton’s GI did not feed on minds – it possessed them to achieve one end – to take on corporeal form. The BSJ GI does not seem to be interested in corporeal form; so it both is and is not the GI.

When Troughton defeated the GI in Web of Fear, it was dispersed into the Universe – so, not really likely that it could have, or would have wanted to, possess a 7 year old child then. Still, its possible I guess.

The GI must have some wider role to play in this arc – Troughton sought to possess the GI, to contain it within his mind but Jamie stopped that. Perhaps the GI has taken some essence of the Dr as a result of that process?

Has anyone else looked at the photo of the Whispermen the BBC has put out? The creatures who appear in the finale of this episode block? Do they seem to be multiple copies of Matt Smith’s features hidden behind a mask (apart from clearly being derived from Buffy’s Hush?) Is he facing his fear – some aspect of himself?”

Actually, I think Phaseshift eloquently (and with citations) makes my point stronger.

Previously, in times Troughton, the GI was a disembodied entity that wanted corporeal form and used domination of the minds of humans to achieve that end. In Snowmen, the GI was intelligent snow, it took knowledge from humans and sought to conquer Earth.

The quote mentioned occurs towards the end of the story, but not at the end ( ep 5 maybe? It’s been some time…) and it does not affect my musings about how the nature of the GI seems to have changed under Moffat.

In WOF, the GI wants the Dr’s knowledge, not the power or essence of his mind. If the GI is refused by the Dr, it threatens to take that knowledge from as many humans as it takes. This is all to permit its conquest, its transformation to corporeal form , to proceed smoothly.

What the GI precisely does not do in those Troughton stories is feed on the minds of humans. Which seems to be its sole intent in TBOSJ.

Which I found curious. Not because feeding on minds is impossible for the GI – just that it was different. So, if different, then why? Discounting lazy writing, the sense one gets is that there is a larger plan afoot. But what?

It is interesting to consider the timeline of the GI’s interactions with the Dr. What comes first? And why doesn’t the Dr remember it? Assuming, as I do, that Snowman is meant to represent the Dr effectively creating the GI, then AS and WOF occur after it and then BSJ. S works looked at this way – the Dr has – well, Clara actually – turned the snow creature into a disembodied entity and it seeks corporeal form – but it doesn’t feed on human minds.

I don’t really understand why the GI uses the image of Richard E Grant either – that form was abandoned and, so we were told, the GI mirrored the tears and then evolved into a disembodied entity. How could it – and why would it – copy a form it had abandoned and had no way of mirroring?

Clara and her “run you clever boy and remember” motif – it occurs to me that prior to Asylum of the Daleks, the Doctor may have heard that phrase before.
When he stole the TARDIS and ran away from Gallifrey with Susan? Perhaps his mother said it to him? Could Moffat be proposing a re-imagining of the start of the Dr’s travels? Some catastrophe that sees the Dr’s family destroyed and his mother getting him to run to safety ( in the TARDIS ) but to remember her and his family?

So is Clara the Doctor’s mother – somehow scattered through time and without her memory?  Would explain a lot…

What is the Dr being exhorted to remember? His mother? The Great Intelligence? Who Clara is? All three? And are some of the answers the same?

[HTPBDET @htpbdet]

Right – must watch Rings of Whatsey…

[Juniperfish @juniperfish]

@htpbdet ! A very warm welcome – you made it over here 🙂

Hmmn – it is interesting that we have The Great Intelligence consuming souls via Wi-Fi upload followed by “Grandfather” also consuming souls and psychometric memories.

A soul-sucker is on the loose!

The Dreamlord berated the Doctor for feeding on the wonder of his young companions in “Amy’s Choice”…

 

[Anonymous @]

Welcome @htpbdet — glad you could join us…

[Craig @craig Emperor]

@phaseshift I told @htpbdet you’d been questioning him. Apologies, but good debate is always welcome. 😀

@htpbdet if you put an @ before a person’s name then they will get an email saying “You’ve been mentioned” which hopefully inspires more debate.

[PhaseShift @phaseshift Time Lord]

Heheh @craig – why did you think I’d typed that on here rather than on the G’s blog? I managed to get @htpbdet to comment on the Asylum blog last year with a similar wheeze when we hadn’t heard from him for a while. 😉

Welcome @htpbdet. Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of the new tools after a while. Hope you like the place, and as well as the new episodes, we have some ongoing conversations on old Who that I think you’d make some great contributions to. Our Faces of the Doctor strand for instance.

I think the point I was making was that the motivations and goals of the GI were left pretty open by the Troughton episodes. It wanted physical form as a means to an end, but the end was never really established. I think both the Snowmen and Bells have bookmarked those episodes pretty well and give the potential to develop the GI further. Yes, the Doctor suggested he’d banished the GI to space, but he was often wrong about the fate of dispelled adversaries. Sometimes they come back.

The Whispermen thing I haven’t seen, but by the Hush reference I think they are probably the top hat wearing eyeless creatures we saw in the series trailer? To me they look a bit more influenced in face by “The Trickster” who appeared in the Sarah-Jane series, but the dress and name “Whispermen” makes me think they are the next stage for the GI. A physical entity perhaps with his controlling power through whispers?

[thommck @thommck]

A very enjoyable episode, lots of action to kick-start the next half of the series and quite funny too. Enjoyed the jammie dodger bit but are they getting a kick-back from companies for product placement? Burger King got a nod too.

 

I thought it was very odd to see the video screen on Clara’s door. Seems a bit over the top for a normal house and a lot more expensive than spyhole! It was also very similar to how she saw the Doctor in Asylum of the Daleks.  Was there any similar imagery used in The Snowmen?

The threat of getting trapped in the Wi-Fi doesn’t sound too hellish a fate. I wonder if Skype would still work. I presumed the GI were “upgrading” Clara (d’oh now I’m thinking of the cybermen!) so her and all the other uploads could be used as a hive mind/code-breaking machine. Reminds me of the Dalek pathweb but I don’t think we’ll be seeing them again soon now they’ve been firmly reset twice!

UNIT looked a bit different, more like a heavily armed SWAT team than what I’d seen before.

Has anyone thought that the answer we’ve all been waiting for is … Doctor Summer? Given Moff’s habit of hiding clues in plain sight and dodgy character’s names of the past, is it that too much of a stretch?

 

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@thommck – not a stretch, but I think ‘Summer falls’ is a reference to the Doctor’s ‘Lord of Time’ title.

Lord of Summer, Lord of Winter. Robert Graves first suggested it as a folkloric archetype (though me, I’d call it a fairytale rather than a genuine archetype) – the Oak King and the Holly King. They are two aspects of the same deity (listening, @juniperfish ?), one representing the light, the other the dark. They fight perpetually – shades of the Doctor and the Master.

The reason I tend to doubt Graves’ interpretation is that Holly in folklore is generally seen as the light within the dark. It keeps away evil spirits, for example.

But if that archetype is being used, Summer falls, Winter wins – but then Winter will give way to Summer; Summer is always reborn.

Though admittedly, at the moment, it feels as if Summer is never going to bloody win 🙂

 

[PhaseShift @phaseshift Time Lord]

Hi all. I just remembered I don’t think anyone has posted the ultimate review by our favourite little Whovian, Lindlee.

I love her reaction to the Doctors Monk costume “He was dressed up as a JEDI!”

[Anonymous @]

Not really sure if  this is significant but re-watching TBoSJ on BBC3 earlier this evening I noticed that when Clara begins to hack into Miss Kizlet’s personnel files, the incidental music playing is a variation of ‘River’s Path’ from the Series 5 soundtrack which features at the start of ‘The Time Of Angels’. As Clara has her own theme, this struck me as odd.

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

Summarising the bonkers theories for tomorrow’s rewatch.

• @juniperfish came up with a theory that the GI may represent the ‘Dark Side’ of the Doctor’s character. That’s still a goer, I’d say, at least symbolically. The GI and Clara become the ‘bad and good angels’, so to speak, playing out the two sides of the Doctor within his timeline.
• Juniperfish also wondered whether Clara’s leaf connects with River’s forest (the only water in the forest is the river). While we found out pretty quickly what the leaf was about, it’s still a good spot that the TARDIS’s cryptic line connects Amy, River and Clara.
• Various people noted that this is yet another episode with two Doctors – the real Doctor and the Spoonhead Doctor.
• @haveyoufedthefish correctly suspected that we’d be viewing the events of the last 50 years in a new light and that the Doctor’s history might be being nudged in various directions by beings split/reflected through time.
• Haveyoufedthefish also spotted that ‘Bells of St John’ might refer to John Donne’s ‘ask not for whom the bell tolls’. Given that we now know we’re heading for regeneration, this is almost certainly correct.
• The theory that Clara might be a reflection throughout time, while partially proven, is still up for grabs. We’re certainly meant to think that Clara-from-Blackpool is the original, but is she? (that one’s mine).
• Circles and seasons (which are another kind of circle) repeat.
• I did a fair amount of numerology in more than one post – which I suspect is meta rather than text. The lives of the various Claras mirror important dates in the show’s existence because Clara in-universe takes on the role of ‘producer’ of the Doctor’s life. She’s his showrunner.
• We still have no bloody idea who the woman in the shop is.
• Or what, if any significance @whisht‘s mysterious screeching tires have in the background of the cafe scene.
• We wandered down many happy byways for DELSA, before somebody (months later) finally realised it’s an acronym for ‘Sladen’ (DELSA on an N-velope)
• @scaryb became responsible for a pun even worse than one of @wolfweed ‘s. The newly computer-literate Clara plus the computerised Great Intelligence together become: CGI.

[janetteB @janetteb]

One extra albiet very, very, very minor point to add is ‘why Cumbria? Given the rather odd joke about Carlisle in the following episode the choice of location appears to be highlighted for a reason, MOffat playing cat and mouse with us again I suspect. (That may not have been mentioned until the discussion about the significance of Cumbria following the Carlisle joke.)

Another minor but niggling question for me is why did the childrens’ mother die the week that Clara came to stay? It is implied that her death was not connected to Clara’s visit but was unexpected.

(apologise for not re-watching the episode as required but we are helping Recalcitrant Teenager study for a forthcoming Maths exam and no distracting TV is allowed. Fortunately the 23rd is the weekend after all exams end. Perfect timing)

Could not help but notice that the comment above was @htpbdet‘s first (or one of his first) post(s) here and it was brilliant as usual.

Cheers

Janette

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