S33 (7) 9 – Cold War

[WhoHar @whohar]

@htpbdet

Thanks for the summary.

Glad someone else mentioned Evil of the Daleks.

As I posted earlier, I’m coming round to the “Doclek” idea more and more.

Not sold on the Clara as Idris idea, though it does have its attractions. Surely the TARDIS would react quite violently everytime Clara stepped aboard.

There also appears to be no evidence to suggest Susan will make a return bar a few grandfather references.

So that leaves 1 & 2 as the main options with 7 as an outside bet. There is of course 8 – Moffat does something completely different.

@juniperfish

Jekyll & Hyde. Hmmm. I seem to remember a series a few years ago called Jekyll that was a modern take on that story. The writer was one S. Moffat.

[HaveYouFedTheFish @haveyoufedthefish]

@janetteb

I wonder if Moffat is aware of this site

… ah yeah. Um, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you guys …

[PhileasF @phileasf]

@htpbdet, re your list of theories. I may have exceeded my bonkers theory quota for this week, but I have another one, a sort of variation on your number 5.

In this theory, Dalek-Oswin manage to teleport herself into the TARDIS at the end of Asylum. She’s hidden somewhere deep within thee TARDIS, and she’s hacked into it. Now she’s started making the TARDIS project her into its environment, complete with convincing backstory and human body. A lot of this is dependent on Human Nature, where IIRC the TARDIS was able to manufacture a sort of backstory for the Doctor’s human identity. And speaking of Human Nature, perhaps a Dalek with access to the TARDIS’s knowledge could create a human version of herself just as the Doctor did in that episode. (So the ring (from Rings of Akhaten) could hold her ‘true’ Dalek identity, like the Doctor’s fobwatch.)

Anyway, I came up with this theory last year in an attempt to explain the eggs and flickering lights — my idea then was that Oswin was a sort of unreliable narrator of the episodes we were seeing, watching from inside the TARDIS. I put it aside a while ago, but now I’m entertaining it again. Why? The use of the HADS looks to me like the Doctor has had this theory himself, and is testing it. What happens to Clara when the TARDIS goes away? She passes out. Hmmmm…

[HaveYouFedTheFish @haveyoufedthefish]

@htpbdet

8. Clara is fragmented by being in the Tardis when it explodes/collides with itself causing the original explosion in Pandorica Opens.

[Anonymous @]

I’m sorry I’m late. I was sleeping out and Mrs Fish caught me… (apologies. Variation on an old Eric Morecambe joke.)

Well, lots of excellent speculation on this episode so I don’t suppose there’s much I can add at this late stage but here’s a few thoughts (apologies if there’s any repetition of anything above. I’m still working my way through the posts.)

I loved it. Definitely Gattiss’s best work on the series and earns him big Brownie points if he does indeed turn out to be the next showrunner — he could be the Philip Hinchliffe to Moffatt’s Barry Letts.

I loved the new Ice Warriors. A brilliant reinvention and elaboration. I liked the cyborg suit concept. I expect we’ll be seeing a lot more of them in the future, although it did cross my mind that they have put some pressure on the upcoming reinvention of the Cybermen episode to come up with something similarly impressive or risk slipping down the monster league table a bit.

There’s obviously been a lot made of the Alien comparisons but the new Ice Warriors put me more in mind of Predator personally.

That bloody sub was huge. Speaking as a hardened veteran of Silent Hunter 3, I know there is not enough room to swing a Cybermat in a sub and this one was bigger than the bloody Nostromo. I realise that Gattiss had Hollywood-ised the size of the sub, but there’s dramatic licence and then there’s just taking the piss.

David Warner was ace, as you would expect. Once again, I found myself wondering what he would have been like if he’d accepted the part of the Fourth Doctor. But I hated the whole Ultravox 80s pop thing. I just didn’t buy it as part of the character of a Russian scientist and it seemed more like an affectation of the writer shoehorned into the script. It was Gattiss’s only misstep in the whole episode, I thought. Mind you, maybe it’s just me. If I’d been the Ice Warrior and they started singing Duran Duran at me, I’d have nuked them on the spot.

And I don’t really buy that Warner was supposed to be some kind of ‘undercover’ version of Hartnell’s Doc. I just don’t see that at all. Although his role was certainly a bit Doctorish — and he was certainly taking that role for Clara in those key scenes in the corridor. It’s interesting that for the second week in a row, the Doctor (or ‘this’ Doctor) has abandoned Clara at a key moment.

Which brings me on to Clara. Sorry @htpbdet, but she’s still not doing it for me. Until it turns out that Clara is some kind of computer node/TARDIS/Susan/Kamelion manifestation, I’m finding her a bit unengaging. She’s quirky and personable enough but she still doesn’t seem to have any depth whatsoever. Her ‘it suddenly got a bit real’ speech to the Professor didn’t seem to me to be at all heartfelt. I just didn’t believe there was any real emotion behind it for a second.

Plus she’s not a leggy Scottish redhead with attitude.

If all this sounds like complaint, it isn’t. After a couple of ‘meh’ episodes, this one really hit the ball out of the park. With Asylum of the Daleks, Angels in Manhattan, The Snowmen and now this, series 7 has already produced some real cracking stories. In many ways, it reminds me of Baker’s first season in terms of the quality.

Very much looking forward to Hide now. It looks like we’re going to learn a bit more about Clara. And was that a Chameleon Arch we see briefly in the trailer? One thing’s for sure though — I bet Neil Cross is hoping for a better reception than his last story got.

And just for the record, at the moment I’m backing the theories of multiple Doc 11s, and/or the idea that one of them is going to go all Dark Phoenix on us. I’m really hoping that the 50th anniversary involves Doc 10 being called back to defeat his gone-bad replacement. I wonder if Matt’s regeneration will be a forced regeneration to ‘kill’ his evil self and ‘reset’ the Doc on the path of righteousness? Either that or he’ll be put in the Pandorica for real this time.

I’m also strongly advocating the multiple TARDIS collision theory. It’s interesting that the Van Gogh painting that led the Doc to the Pandorica portrays the explosion but that that thread didn’t really feature that strongly in the episode. I think that we’ll be returning to the setting of this story at some point in the near future. (And wouldn’t that tie in with Matt’s ‘painting’ clue?)

Anyway, apologies for the length. Well done if you made it to the end of this rambling skein of incoherence….

[thommck @thommck]

@whohar

There also appears to be no evidence to suggest Susan will make a return bar a few grandfather references.

So what about Jenny, the Doctor’s “daughter”?

If Clara=Jenny it would explain why Clara was so surprised to hear the Doctor had a granddaughter because it means that she will one day be a mum!

According to http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/The_Doctor's_Daughter_(TV_story) it was Steven Moffat who wanted Jenny to come back to life at the end of the episode. Was that all part of his master plan or just an element of his old”everybody lives” mantra?

[Anonymous @]

@phileasf —

What happens to Clara when the TARDIS goes away? She passes out. Hmmmm

Excellent point. There’s definitely something funny going on with Clara and the TARDIS (or at least one of the TARDISes). The fact that she couldn’t get into the TARDIS in Ahkaten suggests that she’s not in fact a TARDIS consciousness of any kind and in fact something that the TARDIS considers as some kind of enemy perhaps.

However, your point above suggests that she might in fact be closely connected to the TARDIS after all. Maybe in the upcoming Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS, what we’ll find at the centre of the TARDIS is in fact Clara — or maybe even Clara’s mother.

[HTPBDET @htpbdet]

@jimthefish – I know you are still pining for Amy and although I personally find that incomprehensible it does explain your reticence and wariness about Clara. All fine.

Did she pass out because the TARDIS dematerialised? She didn’t when the Doctor left her (i.e. the TARDIS was gone from her presence) in Rings or in Bells.

But you and @phileasf are right – that sequence where she passes out and has the coat placed around her was odd. I thought she had been hit by someone in the melee – but perhaps not.

And, we could still be seeing these stories out of their linear order…

Surely the fact that she could not get into the TARDIS in Rings might just be about her not having a key? Or, if, say, the GI (or someone) is in possession of the TARDIS it is trying to keep her out – but is not yet strong enough to do it when the Doctor is around? I don’t know – but there is some link or disconnect between the TARDIS and Clara.

@jimthefish – what was the chameleon arc you saw in the trailer for Hide? And I don’t think there is any chance that Moffat would let Tennant’s Dr be thought of as the “good” Doctor even in an anniversary special. But their TARDISes might well collide…

[thommck @thommck]

@HTPBDET I don’t think the TARDIS was trying to keep Clara out but the little girl/Queen. If she had entered it could have changed history for the worse, and the TARDIS knows it.

Also,  the girl hadn’t been invited in by the Doctor. Has anyone got into the locked TARDIS without coming in with the Doctor beforehand?

Speaking of doors, it struck me as odd how the Doctor just left the door hanging open at one point in The Bells of St John. I dismissed it as a continuity error but perhaps someone snuck in?

[HTPBDET @htpbdet]

@thommck – Well, the TARDIS did not keep Adelaide out in Waters of Mars… I am not sure the TARDIS has such skills, or rather, uses them.

And the girl entering the TARDIS would not have changed history of itself, would it? – as the TARDIS would have to leave to do that surely? And one thing the TARDIS does have control over is dematerialisation.

[ardaraith @ardaraith]

Colliding TARDIS theory – It couldn’t have collided.  River was parked, behind …something, and inside the TARDIS when she exploded in TPO.  How could another TARDIS have collided with it?  We have seen the TARDIS materialise within itself before, so two versions of itself being present in the same place can’t be problematic.  thoughts?

[thommck @thommck]

@HTPBDET I was thinking the girl would absorb all the TARDIS’ ‘songs’ and that would have been passed on to the vampire god… or something 😕

[Anonymous @]

@htpbdet — I would tend to agree with you RE. Clara not gaining access to the TARDIS in Ahkaten as simply due to her not having a key. But it does seem that the way they presented it made to too much of a big deal for that. Unless it was intended to portray Clara’s overconfidence in her ability to handle the situations she finds herself in.

Also on the subject of the TARDIS — I’m sure there have been numerous occasions of ‘unwelcome’ visitors to the TARDIS over the years with their visits made without the presence of TARDIS crew. Off the top of my head, I’m sure I can remember Delgado’s Master fiddling about in the console room, as well as the Rani. Then there’s Eric Robert’s Master (although I’m not sure how much the TV movie can be considered as reliable as precedent). And didn’t Tegan join the TARDIS my wandering into the TARDIS by mistake.

RE. the Hide trailer. I’m sure there was a moment in the Hide trailer that had a character (possibly Clara?) in the Chameleon Arch device as seen in Human Nature. It was all over in a flash though so I could well be mistaken.

@ardaraith — re. TARDIS collisions. Good points but maybe we’re talking more about multiple universes colliding with the TARDIS as the focal point between them. Maybe that would mean that they wouldn’t necessarily all have to be in flight at the time.

It also occurred to me recently that when the Doctor is ‘recalled’ by Amy after being trapped behind the closing other universe, we’ve assumed that it is the same one. Maybe it’s an assumption too far and we got a ‘different’ Doctor back at that point.

 

[Anonymous @]

OK, not a Chameleon Arch but you can see why I might think so if you look at this rather spoilery picture gallery:

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2013-04-16/doctor-who-hide—preview-pictures

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

Clara not gaining access to the TARDIS in Ahkaten as simply due to her not having a key.

I think the real mystery is that the TARDIS doors are now closed. In fact, they’re locked. The Doctor definitely leaves the TARDIS door open as he takes Clara to the market.

That’s why Clara’s so puzzled; the door was left open. Has she even seen the TARDIS locked at that point?

 

[HaveYouFedTheFish @haveyoufedthefish]

@bluesqueakpip @jimthefish @thommck @htpbdet – I know I’ve said this before but I think the tardis doors were a test; the doc knew he had very presumptively given another incarnation of Clara a key; he wanted to see what would happen if she unexpectedly found the Tardis shut.

Would she know she needed a key (the doc being careful not to use the key in front of her thus far – hence leaving it open) and therefore be unconsciously sharing knowledge with other incarnations? Would she actually have a key (so be sharing physically with the other incarnations)? Nope, she seemed oblivious that a key was even necessary (so no sharing at all, physically or unconsciously)

We were wondering why he disappeared in the market – he simply popped back to lock up so Clara couldn’t observer him operating the doors. Occams Razor and all that – its the simplest explanation.

[HTPBDET @htpbdet]

@haveyoufedthefish – actually, I think the most obvious answer is that it is Hartnell’s TARDIS Clara tries to open, Smith having gone back to check on her past.

@jimthefish – interesting pictures – does that look like a Metebelis Three crystal? Has Smith gone to Metebelis Three in the future when its abandoned and destroyed? A Metebelis reference would certainly tie in with the Doctor facing up to his fear – this time his past?

And you are right about various people gaining access unexpectedly to the TARDIS over the years – but not sure, apart from Ben and Polly getting access just before Hartnell renewed, if anyone has entered the Doctor’s locked TARDIS.

Delgado fiddling in the TARDIS – do you mean Claws of Axos where he Doctor tricked the Master into doing repairs to his ( the Doctor’s) TARDIS? If so, Pertwee let him in. I can’t recall another occasion but then I am aged…

[Anonymous @]

@htpbdet — ooh, good point about the Metebelis crystal. You might be on to something there. That would also fit in with if Cold War was a Troughton homage, this episode being a Pertwee one. Could that alien planet we see the Doctor on actually be Metebelis Three?

And while it’s difficult to tell, some of those shots of the TARDIS look more like the Tennant version than Smith’s one.

RE. Claws of Axos, That’s probably what I’m (mis)remembering. But then I’m not as young as I once was either…

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

Oh, by the way, the other Russian composer reference was the sailor called Onegin, (Eugene Onegin, a novel, ballet and most famously an opera by Tchaikovsky) who got horribly dismembered. This may simply be what Mark Gatiss would like to do to the opera: short version

a selfish hero who lives to regret his blasé rejection of a young woman’s love and his careless incitement of a fatal duel with his best friend.

Imagine peasants/servants/guests bursting into song at the slightest excuse and you’ve got the rest of the opera.

[Anonymous @]

@bluesqueakpip — and there was a televised version of it on the Beeb recently (last week, I think). I’m sure it’s still available on iPlayer if anyone’s interested.

[Whisht @whisht]

btw if we had a “thumbs up” button on here, I’d have fucked my keyboard up in the same way me and my brother did with Daley Thompson’s Decathlon.

thanks one and all (especially @htpbdet with his “can I just list the insanity in one place please?”)

;¬)

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

Anyway, while everyone’s putting up vids in the music section, a little thought occurred to me.

It makes sense that the passkey (if there is a passkey) for Oswin’s memory, or for the You Clever Boy program would be musical. If the Doctor is being Dalekised, at some point he will lose his passion for music.

And we know he has a passion to music – we’ve seen him listening to Muse, and he keeps making jokes about being on various recordings. But to Daleks, music is ‘noise’. So a fully Dalekised Doctor wouldn’t be able to use the passkey.

[Whisht @whisht]

ah @bluesqueakpip – I agree that its interesting, what with this season being all about remembering (expected for the 50th).

Music and smell are both keys to memories (stronger than words or sights).
They seem to knit the memory better. Lock it in some way.

And we’ve had both music and smells this season. And of course memory is essential to answer the most basic question – “who are you?”.

[Polaris @polaris]

Hi there, new here and I too was ushered from the other site by the constant moaning. Thanks Craig!

Loving all the theorising and the collective thinking. Sorry if this post is misplaced on this thread?!

@ardaraith With the clear susan and grandfather reference to doc1 in the rings of Akhaten, to doc2 with the ice warrior in Cold War, and @htpbdet predicted reference of the Metebelis crystal in the next, this totals 7 episodes with a mention to all the 7 doctors of old who, leaving the three nu-who together in the 50th special. Or maybe that was the plan!

I also think that this means the special will respond to the Bells of St. John episode as bookmarks to the 7 doctors episodes, so any theories of what is happening to the doctor or Clara will relate to something the GI’s doing, or did in that episode.

To me, the doctor almost seems shocked or confused as to Clara’s ‘save the day’ speeches in both ‘rings’ and Cold War; he’s as wary of her as he was of Amy when she was a ganger and showing pregnant/not pregnant.

Loving it!

[Polaris @polaris]

It’s late, I meant ‘bookends’!

[IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan @pedant]

Just a passing thought, but there is a spare no-longer-Time-Lord-Tennant-a-like in a parallel universe with rose.

That would strike me as the obvious way to include Tennant and Piper.

[PhaseShift @phaseshift Time Lord]

Just dashing in. Late, loads for me to read when I properly get back officially tomorrow. And loads of Vids to watch in from @whisht by the looks of it. 🙂 BUT…A conspiracy theory too far?

On the Saturday after “Cold War” which talked about music and Clara’s liking of “stuff”, is this merchandising opportunity random or not?

Three Guitars Mood 2 is the song that introduces the Doctor’s granddaughter Susan, who is listening to it on a hand-held transistor radio when the audience first sees her. It is attributed by her to John Smith And The Common Men, and they are the title artists of a three-track EP, Sounds From The Inferno, which is being released on Saturday 20th April on the Hysterion Records label.

Can I just say…

1) Hello to everyone recently signed up.
2) Loving the tagline
3) Loving the picture inclusion (well done @craig).

Can’t wait to get back into the groove tomorrow. See you later.

[lesaubiers @lesaubiers]

@IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan

 

Yeh I’d say they’ll bring them across from the parallel universe, unless of course the events take place in the past whilst Rose was a companion to 10, then they could have 2 real doctors and no need to hop across the void.

 

Also, how do I @ people? I think I’m @ing people wrong!

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@polaris and @lesaubiers (looks like you’ve cracked the @ thing btw It’s just @ then the name (no space between))>

You leave this board for a few hours and it explodes, LOL. Loving all the new theories, great ref spotting.

Hard to know if they are dropping clues or just tributes to previous Doctors. I do like the idea that each of this series refs 1-7 leaving the 50th for the 3 of nuWho. Fits with Moff’s comments about mainly looking forward. What about 8 tho? Anyone know what Paul McGann’s up to at the moment?

Same with the locked Tardis door and translator circuit. Is it just to show that Clara is new and remind the audience of what the Tardis can do, or….?! I LOVE the idea that she can’t get in because it’s Doctor 1’s Tardis. OTOH the Doctor and companions have a long tradition of getting split up, esp at crucial moments. He has been noticeably leaving the door open this series.

Delighted my pet theory of dalekised Doctor is gaining ground. Tho I’m beginning to be less convinced, LOL. But I do still think that the doctor is incapacitated in some way (split personality/fractured/multi-dmensional) and his memories need to be down/uploaded again. And I still think those memories are from the last 50 years, not just this series As with ganger Amy I strongly suspect 7.2 will end on a massive turns-everything-you-think-you-know-inside-out cliffhanger.

@polaris – I do like your thinking re bookending tho…  But that works with the GI as well, who is now my prime suspect and has a track record of separating people’s minds and bodies.

And @bluesqueakpip‘s musical passkey (a ref to Prof Song…?)

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@jimthefish Agh! Couldn’t resist the link! <slaps own wrist>

Interesting tho – esp when you look at where said crystal is positioned…! Also cameras… old idea of cameras capturing souls….? And yes, that last one 🙂

[HTPBDET @htpbdet]

@scaryb – yes, I do think the GI will be back for the finale – I have thought that all along. But your post makes me realise that the download theory and the GI can work together in a simple way – in Web of Fear the GI wanted to take the Doctor’s mind and said it would leave him empty, like a child – so, if they succeed in that, then his memories can be downloaded and he is restored.

But the question then is – what and who is Clara? And how does that scenario fit in with the question that must never be answered?

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@htpbdet – I do think option 1 has the advantage that it fits in with ‘the first episode of the series sets up the mystery which will be resolved in the finale’.

The two themes in Asylum were Memory and Dalekisation. oh, and memory. Did I mention memory? It’s a huge theme through the episode; Clara saves herself from total Dalekisation by remembering her humanity, the Doctor wants to be remembered – implied in what he says to Amy – and the last line of the episode is ‘Remember Me’.

The only mechanism that sets up a future problem is that the Doctor takes off his wristband to save Amy, assuming that Dalekisation won’t work on a non-human. Given that Time Lords might well have attacked the Asylum, this is something of an unwarranted assumption.

And the clue that Clara’s world is a fugue state is given early on: “Where did you get the milk?” And the Doctor keeps repeating that. I certainly didn’t spot that it was a big clue, but by the end of the episode you realise that Moffat played fair; the clue was given.  And I did realise it was something more than a joke question.

So I would say that what has happened in these stories has happened; there are no appearing heads, no ‘where did you get the milk?’, no inability to pick up objects or people ignoring the Doctor. Clara isn’t stuck inside the TARDIS and other people are very much interacting with her. She might have some relationship with the TARDIS, but she’s a physical body. Possibly one created from a computer program, but she is physical.

I think the big thing hidden in plain sight in her life story is that we don’t see her mother pregnant, and we don’t see any hints of a birth scene. We also had it carefully dropped into a previous Moffat story that Time Lords can regenerate as very young children – Mels talks about ‘last time I was a toddler’.

So Clara could easily be a regenerated Susan. Or she might be a regenerated, memory-wiped Doctor. In both cases, the childhood we and the Doctor saw was real. 

Incidentally, we could still have the memory wiped Doctor and Clara-as-Susan; I’d think the Doctor might be willing to trust his own granddaughter with his life. But the triple-Clara is a benign trap; it’s designed to interest the Doctor, make him take Clara on board, have her with him when stuff hits the fan – because he must not know what her real purpose is.

Fields of Trenzalore. He cannot speak falsely or fail to answer. But if you don’t yet know… or in Clara’s case, don’t remember…

 

[thedoctordude @thedoctordude]

@bluesqueakpip What if Clara, human or not, is actually a repository for the doctor’s memories? When the time comes the doctor will have to deposit his memories into Clara in her time line in the past and password lock them with a song . This would keep the memories safe from a dark doctor or especially dalekised doctor who wouldn’t value songs. Or maybe the memory transfer would be made by a song such as in RoA. This would also explain why she can’t seem to access her own memories or ideas very much. Her head is so full of the doctors memories that she can’t remember anything or have any desires of her own.

[thommck @thommck]

@thedoctordude but what if someone else sings the song by accident!

[thedoctordude @thedoctordude]

@thommck That’s true. An alternative would be that for the memories to be unlocked clara would have to say “run you clever boy and remember” and then the doctor would have to respond with another specific phrase for them to be unlocked.

I’m probably completely wrong on this, but it was just something I thought of.

[HTPBDET @htpbdet]

@bluesqueakpip
Impossible Bonkers theory 79,3267 – entitled Trying to make it all fit together
I think whoever came up with the notion that “Run you clever boy and remember” was an Instruction “Run” for the commencement of a system download that would restore the Doctor’s memories and make him remember was inspired. Even if it doesn’t turn out to be right, it’s a brilliant idea.
I agree that in Asylum Clara saved her essence by holding onto her memories – did she ever specify she was human though? Or did the Doctor just assume that?
As I have said, one thing which perplexes me about Asylum is that Clara is not Dalekised like any other human/humanoid. She does not retain her human form and have an eye-stalk in her forehead – she is chained up inside a Dalek casing – which rather more suggests she is a Dalek that has been sent to the Asylum because she is insane. Doesn’t it?
Assuming it’s not bad writing – who is she and why is she there and why does she say she is from the Alaska? Is the Alaska background a cover to her real identity?
But before you answer that question, your answer has to encompass why Clara, in, as you say, physical form, also appears in Victorian England and then in modern London?
How does Clara get to be in three places at once – and in each place not know who the Doctor is and in two places know “run you clever boy and remember” but in the third not know the phrase?
Is she a clone? Is she someone fragmented through time?
But more than that – how did she get the programme that needs to be Run to restore the Doctor’s memories?
From Snowmen, it seems the Great Intelligence will be involved again.  For my part, I would not be surprised to see the Great Intelligence defeat Smith’s Dr and drain his mind at the end of the final episode of this run – a cliff-hanger for the Anniversary Special.  It’s at this point that I wondered whether, rather than Dalekising the Doctor when he was in the Asylum, the Daleks used the opportunity to infect him with something which would break down his memories (specifically his memory of the Great Intelligence because that seems to be the ONLY memory he has lost) and make him easier for the GI to dominate – making me think a Dalek /GI alliance had been formed with a view to domination of all time and space through the TARDIS.
It seems to me that the most likely person to have archived the Doctor’s memories (of things that have and have not yet happened) is the TARDIS. Of course, it could be Smith’s Doctor, but, honestly, I think that would be awful. Just another rehash of the solutions in the last two seasons.
So, if the TARDIS has done the archiving – how does the Run programme get to Clara in three timestreams?
It was because of that problem that I thought the best idea would be that the Idris soul had been ejected by the GI from the TARDIS – after it took possession of the Doctor’s mind – and the GI had gone off with the TARDIS, leaving the mindless Doctor and a bereft Clara.
So, if IDRIS is ejected from the TARDIS by the GI, and thrown into the time and space continuum, she could take refuge in Susan, taking her Run programme with her.
You are right – and I had forgotten Mels’ line about regenerating as a toddler – but of course Susan could regenerate as a baby – that makes complete sense. So, if she did regenerate as a baby, at the point of regeneration let’s say her chameleon arch protection ended with the regeneration process. So the Idris soul can locate her – and does and possesses her as a baby and protects her from detection until she is old enough to be properly chameleon arched. As a baby, the regenerated Susan gets placed into an adoptive home (perhaps by Doctor 10 and Rose without knowing what is happening – or because Doctor Ten realises that Susan has suddenly been revealed and he goes to make sure no one else finds her, realises he can’t raise her as a baby and so puts her in care)
Smith’s Doctor does not know who she is – and we have been assuming that that is because he has forgotten something (well, I have) but maybe he actually doesn’t know? (This works better if Doctor 10 and Rose are not aware of whom the baby is, but would also work in an alternative timeline scenario)
But, the older Susan/Clara gets, the more difficult it is for the fobwatch to contain her and Idris and so to relieve the pressure, Idris sends versions of Susan/Clara into other timestreams – a protective measure but also as a way of ensuring it is more likely that the Doctor will encounter her. So that, at the appropriate point, Clara can run the programme.
River or someone having a song as the key to running of the programme could work with that.
I am sure it will never work out that way – but it seems to make sense (until you all point out where I have gone wrong and why!)
The thing I can’t work out is why/if the TARDIS has an issue with Clara…
One thing though which makes me sure that Clara is the key to the Dr rising from the dead or equivalent is the reference to her as Soufflé Girl – because soufflés never rise twice. So she will help him rise once.
Having helped him rise, Clara then removes her fobwatch (Mother’s ring) and becomes Susan (with Idris’ soul still inside). Tennant’s Doctor feels her and comes for her and finds Smith too. Together they hunt down the GI in the TARDIS and they excise the GI from the real TARDIS by colliding the two TARDISes or effecting a Time Monster Time Ram – either way, caught by surprise and Idris supported by the mental energy of two Doctors and Susan absorbs the GI or expels it from the TARDIS.
Okay you guys – time to demolish this scenario starts now! J
@jimthefish  I actually really hope it is a Metebelis Three crystal BUT only if we see Smith go and get it because, as we know, Pertwee returned the only one he had…
Right….Gin and tonic time…

[Anonymous @]

@htpbdet —

ooh, lots of good stuff there. I hadn’t heard the theory that ‘run you clever boy…’ could be an operating instruction before. That’s excellent. I really hope it turns out to be true.

I also love the Clara of Asylum might not even have been a Dalekised human but simply an insane Dalek that thought it was human. Maybe the product of the experiments of The Evil of the Daleks. If she somehow turns out to be something like that then that would be a nice shout-out to one of the classic stories of the past, with with it being the 50th and all…

[Whisht @whisht]

hmmmm….. [ponders]

btw, is it important that (I think) that “Clara’s” role in AotD wasn’t Clara originally?

That actually the role was simply a genius female human, who falls into the clutches of the Daleks, keeps them at bay with Love, and in the end saves the Doctor (but dies doing so).
Pure tragedy – but Moffat saw a chance (same way he spotted not using the GI for the villain of “House”) to use ‘Clara’ instead of a random genius girl.

In AotD she’s simply an example of Clara Oswald.

or am I misremembering something else..?

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

btw, is it important that (I think) that “Clara’s” role in AotD wasn’t Clara originally?

Quite possibly not: I know from experience that you can pencil a one-off character in, have them in several scenes, and then realise in editing that they’re not a one-off character at all, they’re that character you intended to introduce several chapters later.

Your subconscious has been at work; you just didn’t realise it had decided to bring them in earlier than planned.

[chickenelly @chickenelly]

Re: disappearances which look like they might be significant

Is it possible that when Clara tries to get into the Tardis she can’t because the Doctor is inside with the door locked?  He might be watching (testing her again) to see what she does.  He pops up again when he sees she is making the right decision – ie being nice to the kiddie.

Not come to any conclusions re: Clara’s fainting fit in Cold War, but if Clara is some kind of replicant computer gubbins (technical term) maybe getting wet makes her short circuit.

Hmmm…*scratches chin…*

Speaking about disappearances, our lack of interaction with the Grauniad blog is possibly why it now seems like a  moan fest.  Our contributions balanced it out.  Oh yes, when I last checked there were a paltry 15 comments on the Pertwee episode blog.

[Whisht @whisht]

ah, thanks @bluesqueakpip –

btw on looking for something else on this, I got this from the tardis.wikia:

‘As Oswin remembers being converted, she repeats “Where am I?” multiple times.’

which echoes BoSJ.

hmm…. “where am I?” “Who am I?”…

[Whisht @whisht]

Hi @chickenelly – I agree – I saw the episode blog and went when there were a few posts (well done @phaseshift) but just couldn’t be bothered.

It just didn’t seem as engaging as here.

I kinda feel bad about that but not too much.

Heck, I’ve only got so many minutes to type and stuff (and lawd knows I’m a slow typer) and I haven’t even replied to any music today!

I just don’t think I can be bothered (but then again, I have few if any thoughts on Pertwee)…

[Anonymous @]

@chickenelly and @whisht — I’ve all but given up on the Guardian these days but I do like to check in occasionally. Here is much better, I think….

[WhoHar @whohar]

Night shift signing in (where’s @blenkinsopthebrave and @bobbingbird when you need them).

I had a similar thought to @htpbdet re the two Tardis’s only I wondered if Ten had collided with Eleven’s Tardis on the way to/from the alt universe where he dropped Rose & Doc 10.5 off. This would precipitate the Big Bang. There are problems with this, not least being that Doc 11 would remember that incident as it was in his past?

Loving the potential Evil of the Daleks tie in.

@thommck
Would like to see Susan reappear (or some other throwback to the first ep) but I still need some more positive in-show proof.

[Anonymous @]

@whohar — unless 10 didn’t realise it at the time. Besides paradoxes like that are exactly the sort of thing Moffatt gets off on…

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

What if Clara, human or not, is actually a repository for the doctor’s memories?

@thedoctordude She could be. Certainly her ambition – or immediate plan – is very much something that might come from residual ‘Doctor’ memories seeping through. She wants to travel. The thing is, to me, she seems very like the Doctor. When she first appeared in Asylum, I did think that Jenna Louise Coleman was almost playing Ten. Same motormouth, same thinking she was the greatest thing ever, same humour.

That’s now been toned down quite a lot. But there’s still a lot of ‘Doctorish’ qualities in there – except that these qualities are now contained in a very young, inexperienced person. And other qualities – when in Bells of St John the Doctor remarked “I wish I was like that”, I was kind of going ‘Uh, really? Clara has qualities you’d like? That’s – interesting.’

But she could be like the Doctor because she’s a descendent, like the Doctor because he’s designed her as a repository (and so added character traits he thought he lacked), or like the Doctor because she is the Doctor.

The two ideas that would really fit with her dates, the dates that all match up to important dates in Doctor Who are:

1. She is indeed the repository of the Doctor’s memories. She is ‘Doctor Who -the program’ (a meta pun on ‘she’s Doctor Who – the programme’).

2. She’s got all the ‘Doctor Who’ dates because she’s the Doctor; the Doctor memory-wiped, regenerated as a baby and chameleon arched (possibly by River). Then hidden as a perfectly normal human – hidden in plain sight, travelling with the Doctor as his Companion. Because, after all, the one person the Doctor couldn’t possibly be is his own companion.

And the TARDIS is keeping an eye on young Clara (she’s got to look out for her thief; ‘he’ always gets into so much trouble). So Clara is telepathically connected to the TARDIS (she almost immediately feels that Sexy is a ‘person’ who might not like her). But it’s also slightly disturbing to Sexy, bit of a time paradox.  She might easily react by pulling Clara’s leg a bit. South Pole, anyone?

And the memories that are going to survive are the ones we’ve been watching for the last 50 years (@scaryb, I think that was your suggestion).

 

[WhoHar @whohar]

@jimthefish

This is true. I wonder though where Ten would have ended up, given that Eleven was outside “our” Universe after he flew the Pandorica into the exploding Tardis/Tardis’s. Maybe the back end of Ten’s time will be retconned?

[PhaseShift @phaseshift Time Lord]

@whohar

Good point about a couple of missing members. After @juniperfish and @scaryb seemed to be blocked last week I’m a bit concerned others may have been impacted. I’ll try to PM @craig tomorrow. I seemed to have trouble connecting over the last hour and a half and thought we might have another problem. @bobbingbird was about last week, but to be honest I don’t recall seeing him on the Dan Martin blog this week.

[WhoHar @whohar]

@phaseshift

They are both conspicious by their absence for sure.

I’ve had issues accessing the site in the last hour , thankfully now resolved.

Dan M is reviewing the Sea Devils in the Classic Ep. slot which should be of particular interest to you.

[thedoctordude @thedoctordude]

@bluesqueakpip Now I might be wrong about this, but it seems like there are have been several instances when the doctor has stated it is impossible for him to insert himself or go back into a timeline he has already established. It seems in that like it would be impossible for him to be around Clara if she actually was the doctor because their timelines would interfere. Now of course there were times that this did happen such the episode on pete tyler’s death and does seem like they have some very similar qualities.

[Author]

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