The Day of The Doctor – The 50th Anniversary Special

[OsakaHatter @osakahatter]

@bluesqueakpip, @scaryb – perhaps a variation on the ‘promoted companion’ concept could be used to pave the way for a female Doctor.  For example, rather than having a Doctor-lite episode, they do a Doctor-lite season (or half season), with the companion using the TARDIS to hunt out the missing/hiding Doctor.  The Doctor is still the main character (and could still be featuring in each episode just not with the companion), but effectively the companion doing the heavy lifting throughout.  Having then established that the show can thrive with a female lead, the jump to a female Doctor becomes a little less controversial.

[overunder @jamesunderscore]

@bluesqueakpip – Agree totally that if they announced a female Doctor early, the press would go bananas, and more than that, can you imagine how the fandom would react? Oy!

Personally, I think the best way to do it would be a midseason surprise regeneration – that way there’s no time for people to stew – it’s straight in to next week’s episode, with the new Doctor. It would be mad, glorious chaos!

[Anonymous @]

@osakahatter – I like your scenario:  “rather than having a Doctor-lite episode, they do a Doctor-lite season (or half season), with the companion using the TARDIS to hunt out the missing/hiding Doctor.  The Doctor is still the main character (and could still be featuring in each episode just not with the companion), but effectively the companion doing the heavy lifting throughout.  Having then established that the show can thrive with a female lead, the jump to a female Doctor becomes a little less controversial.”

Yes, that would be a genius way of ‘easing in’ the idea of a female Doctor.

@jamesunderscore – of course, there’s always the alternative of a short, sharp shock  🙂 :  “Personally, I think the best way to do it would be a midseason surprise regeneration – that way there’s no time for people to stew – it’s straight in to next week’s episode, with the new Doctor. It would be mad, glorious chaos!”

Now I’m torn between those two completely opposite ideas!  But that having been said, I’m still not convinced they will have a female Doctor with a female companion.  And adding a ‘boyfriend’ or alien into the companion mix brings us back to the Paternoster Gang, and my fear that if they get their own spin-off series (which actually, I really, really hope they do – it’s so perfect for a Sarah Jane Adventures replacement), the concept of a female Doctor will be put on ice.

[ScaryB @scaryb]

On sneaky ways to introduce a female Dr without her being annihilated by the fan base before they even screen the first story –

LOL  at @osakahatter‘ s suggestion of Dr Lite seasaon – certain trolls are spluttering already at the amount of screentime any feisty females in the show get over the Dr (“he’s the protganist!!” (much huffing and puffing and stampy feet)). Maybe they’d just implode at the whole concept and do the world a favour 🙂

Realistically the only way they could do it would be unexpectedly. They could trial it as  suggested or just suddenly do a gender switch as a result of exposure to a particular chemical just before or during regeneration. Or maybe switching gender on your 12th regeneration or when you hit 1500 yrs is a little known TimeLord quirk. Or it’s the condition for getting extra regenerations – yes of course you can but you need to change sex to get them.

😉

[Elouise @elouise]

@scaryb – You know, a slight exaggeration never hurt anyone 😀 Okay, maybe it has, but in this specific case i seriously doubt it! Still, I think it could make some great scenes 😀

[PennyInTheAir @pennyintheair]

@blenkinsopthebrave

Party pooper? Not at all. Sometimes the easiest explaination is the best. For example; the iconic sound of the Tardis being because the Doctor leaves the brakes on. Brillant! 🙂

Maybe the easiest answer to get past the 12 regenerations problem is ‘the Doctor lies’. Not saying that’s the best answer, but it would be the simpliest.

@scaryb

Would love to hear a leaf joke. Unless it’s a Ryan Leaf joke. San Diego Chargers fans, like the Doctor, like to hide their worst mistakes inside the time stream. 🙁

@whisht

A regenerating leaf might have been a step too far even for ‘bonkers’ theorizing. But I do believe that there are still things left unanswered in the show. Like you mentioned, the woman in the shop. Angies new phone courtesy of the Tardis. The Doctor disappearing in the marketplace. Things that stuck out as possibly significant.

As to the leaf theory…

I still am leaning towards a future version of the Doctor sending Clara the leaf inside his time stream. As to what order he traveled back into time (if he does), maybe he sends the leaf to Clara inside the time stream ‘before’ Clara feeds the leaf to grandfather. Maybe the leaf needed to pick up a little extra tardis/doctor time energy to be powerful enough to defeat grandfather. It might also explain why the leaf looks so different in that scene.

Anyway, it seems that the concensus of the posters here believe the 50th will be a stand alone, and won’t answer too many other things from these earlier episodes. So if I come up with anything more bonkers then I already have, I’ll post it in TNotD thread.

Thanks for reading. 🙂

 

PennyInTheAir

 

 

 

[CraigNixon @craignixon]

IMO, I don’t think the leaf is significant except what it means to Clara.

I saw that Graveyard as a “place where things may happen” – almost like they’re in his head.

The leaf was just used to ground Clara and make her sit up and listen as she was completely out of it for a moment.

She seems to be ‘re-intergrated’ after travelling through his time stream and thats where he found her.

A question though – did the doctor also travel through his own time stream – did he change anything?

[Timeloop @timeloop]

Woah, so quiet in here ö-ö? So maybe a question to get your brains working (My last in tNotD might be better in here):

One thing we could come up with is how Moffat plans to get them out. I feel like that is in our reach to crack open. You have seen and analysed his work for so long now. What do you think? Ready? Go!

This way we focus on what will be and not was has been.

 

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@timeloop

This way we focus on what will be and not was has been.

you’re so linear! 😈

(Timestream’s “collapsing, closing in on itself”  I reckon they’ll just walk out and we’ll start 50th elsewhere/when (see my post above for more detail))

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@scaryb – agreed, except I’m wondering if the Doctor and Clara are trapped within his timestream – i.e. they can only travel “from Gallifrey to Trenzalore”.

A perfect topic for the 50th – the Doctor has to escape from his own history. And unless he does – there is no future. 😈

[ScaryB @scaryb]

@bluesqueakpip well that’s the other possibility, I think.

Either we jump straight into HurtDr’s story, or the Dr and Clara still have to get out of his (fast collapsing) timestream. There was that strange flash shortly after the Dr finds Clara – I think it was you who called it as “collapsing/collapsed timestream.”  If it appeared just before the Dr “materialises” I’d have said that was him stepping into it. But it didn’t.

[Anonymous @]

@scaryb , @bluesqueakpip – just re-watched the ending of TNotD.  The ‘timestream squiggle’ disappeared after the Doctor appeared corporeal and just when he says ‘because it’s impossible – you’re my impossible girl’.  (But Bluey, I always bow to your superior detective and analytic skills!)

It’s also several lines after he tells Clara that holding onto her leaf will take her home.  But she’s now collapsed in his arms and doesn’t appear to be going anywhere on her own steam, leaf or no leaf.  🙂

They’re headed out (out?  away?) when Hurt Doctor turns around.  Do they make it out?

[Timeloop @timeloop]

Maybe we wont see anything at all? Maybe we will just see them stepping out to the console room again… No explanation at all? That would be …. something that fits into DW, damn it.

I think that flicking light was the Doctor stepping into this particular part on his time-stream. Just as in JttCotT  with Clara…. And that leaf was the landing signal [tAtM ; tEoT] he needed to find her within his time-stream.

[@scaryb *blush*  *This way we focus on what will be and not what has been. Sry for that. Not as linear as you think. Linear in relation to the time-stream of the Doctor. His future can be in past, present, and future …. so not quite linear.]

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@Shazzbot – yes, the timestream disappears long after we hear the Doctor’s voice, and after he’s corporeal – they’ve got a light effect on him when you first see him, as if the squiggle is illuminating that side of his body. It’s been fizzing away for a bit, and then vanishes as Clara is stumbling towards him. Which agrees with what they both said; the Doctor says the time-stream is collapsing in on itself because he’s inside it, and she tells him to get out.

He’s a Time Lord, after all – I’d imagine that even if his route in has gone, he’d know if there was some way out. He’s certainly talking to Clara as if there’s still a way out. But another signal that the time-stream is collapsing is that Eleven is talking with the Hurt Doctor – who should be several centuries away from Trenzalore.

Given that Time Lords in the previous continuity (continuity? Hah! The Great Intelligence/Clara spit on your continuity!)  needed special measures to interact with their previous selves, I’d personally see the collapsing time-line, at the very least, as a great excuse for Eleven and Clara to exit at a point where they meet Ten and Rose. It would also explain any interaction with the Hurt Doctor.

[PennyInTheAir @pennyintheair]

Okay, I’m scrapping two theories (one about Clara and her Mom. And the other about a regenerating leaf) and merging them together to try and answer @timeloop question on how the Doctor and Clara escape the timestream. (I got way to complex with that leaf theory. Simplier is always better. 🙂 )

As @Shazzbot reminded us, the Doctor says to Clara…

Doctor: “I’m sending you something. Not from my past, but from yours. This is you, Clara. Everything you were, or will be. You blew into the world on this leaf. Hold tight. It will take you home.”

It’s that simple. The leaf guides them out of the time stream.

The Doctor said in tNotD that he believed he was the most traveled Time Lord in history. (para-phrasing) The Doctor has traveled so much within his lifetime, and his time line, there is probably no one place and time he can focus on to jump out to.

Clara on the other hand has a single short life time, and a single person she can focus on. Her Mom. (which brings me back to my Clara/Mom theory). Blood calls to blood. The leaf first belonged to Clara’s Mom, before it belonged to Clara. Her Mom states emphatically she will always find her when she is lost.

I think the Doctor will encourage Clara to focus on the leaf, to find their way out. She will think of her Mom, and either see her through a crack in the time stream and follow it out to a time when Ellie is still alive. Or, it will bring them to present day beside Ellie’s grave.

And that’s my bonkers theory for this thursday.

PennyInTheAir

(Still doesn’t explain how a leaf that got eaten by grandfather is still in one piece. But I’m still working on that. 🙂 )

 

[WhoHar @whohar]

@PennyInThe Air

I like this, although with Moffat’s predilection for cause-and-effect type plots, I can easily see Clara / Doc causing the leaf to fall out of the timestream at the exact point where it hits her Dad-to-be in the face.

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

So, I’m wondering: we’ve just discovered that Clara, in leaping into the Doctor’s time-stream, got scattered through time like the leaves in autumn.

All those ‘mirror-Doctors’ we’ve been seeing throughout this half of S7. Has the Doctor (or will the Doctor) somehow been scattered through time by leaping into his own time-stream? Were those mirrors Doctricals, just as Clara has her Claricles?

🙂

[Juniperfish @juniperfish]

@bluesqueakpip re mirror Doctors. I think so.

I had a think about this in fictionalised form under your blog post on The Children Who Waited in SIDRAT.

I think we’ve been seeing dark doppleganger Hurt Doctor struggling to break through into the Doctor’s “reality” ever since we first met Eleven, in all kinds of metaphorical parallels in the narrative.

The title of the The Beast Below alone speaks of a dark underbelly or look at the Krafayiss in Vincent and the Doctor. I always thought it odd the Doctor referred to that beastie as “evil” when he saw its face in the painting. He seemed unusually quick to make such an absolute judgement. But now I see the Doctor was projecting, and rejecting, a lonely monster side of himself (another “glimpse behind the curtain”).

In a big timey-wimey loop spanning the Moffat era, which we’ve talked about the possibility of before, the Doctor has been seeing time-ripples of Hurt Doctor since Amelia’s garden because he has always already jumped into his own time-stream, thus disturbing the internal force-field between himself and Hurt Doctor.

The cracks in time are, in one sense, the cracks in the wall in the Doctor’s consciousness.

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

I had a think about this in fictionalised form under your blog post on The Children Who Waited in SIDRAT.

@juniperfish – yes, that reply of yours really should have been a full blog post of its own. But the ‘Doctricals’ of S7 part 2 mostly aren’t ‘Dark Doctors’ – apart from Mrs Gillyflower, of course, who was as bonkers as a bath full of fishes. 🙂

[Juniperfish @juniperfish]

@bluesqueakpip “as bonkers as a bath full of fishes” HDU 🙂

Well, I could write a whole similar post for S7 but, just briefly for now:

S7 part 2 “Doctricals” (dark doppleganger Doctor mirrors) would include “grandfather” the sun-god, devourer of souls, in The Rings of Akhaten, Skaldak (great and ruthless warrior out of time, with an explicit parallel via his dead daughter) in Cold War, the monster in the bubble universe in Hide (and the fact that there are two versions of the Doctor and one of them runs towards the monster and one away from it). In Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS, frankly, we’re the other side of the looking glass and the Doc himself is his own dark mirror here (the thing which frightens Clara the most), then Mrs. Gillyflower in The Crimson Horror, as you say, but there are also two versions of the Doctor in this story (the one in the photograph who is not red in the eye of the dead man, and the one who is red). In Nightmare in Silver, of course we have Mr. Clever, and in The Name of the Doctor we finally have Hurt Doctor himself.

So, yeah, I’d say S7 Part 2 fits pattern…

 

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@juniperfish – good points. Yes, the Doctor has a ‘dark mirror’ in each episode. You missed out the Great Intelligence, by the way. He’s the Dark to Clara’s Light, in the battle for the Doctor’s ‘soul’.

Light mirrors: given that Clara means ‘clear, bright’ and that the posters quite specifically place her as ‘mirroring’ the Doctor, Clara’s undoubtedly one of the Doctor’s light mirrors. Bells doesn’t seem to have any other ‘light mirrors’, but in Cold War we see Professor Grisenko, who plays the supportive grandfather/father to Clara’s distressed Companion. Hide has Professor Alec Palmer, finally coming out of his frozen shell after the war – and it’s Professor Palmer who manages the Doctor’s trick of encouraging Emma to become the hero she doesn’t believe she can be.

Journey – as you say, we’re the other side of the looking glass. Clara may be playing his ‘light’ mirror again. There’s also Tricky, whose supposed lack of humanity hides compassion and intelligence – and who should be the Captain of his particular ship. Crimson Horror – the Doctor’s ‘light mirror’ is the Paternoster Gang, especially Jenny. Nightmare in Silver his ‘light mirror’ is Porridge. In The Name of the Doctor, his ‘light mirror’ (apart from Clara) is, appropriately, his ‘other half’ – River Song, his wife.

[Anonymous @]

@bluesqueakpip – hello, Bluey.  🙂  Your unparalleled investigative work in the Clara episodes has inspired me to do a little detective work of my own.

I’m rewatching ‘Rose’ with an eye for long-embedded clues to story arcs for the 50th.  And I’m in the scene with Rose and Clive, the internet conspiracy theorist with a Doctor website (‘Dad, it’s one of your nutters!’), in his shed.

Clive has pictures of the 9th Doctor ‘tracked down to the Washington public archive’ as he looked (as Eccleston) in the crowd at the JFK assassination (surely simply a sly look at the programme’s first broadcast date?); then April 1912, with the Daniels family ‘and friend’ the day before the Titanic sailed and the Daniels inexplicably cancelled their trip; and 1883, a picture ‘washed up on the coast of Sumatra when Krakatoa exploded’.

Clive says ‘This Doctor keeps cropping up all over the place – political diaries, conspiracy theories, even ghost stories … ‘  And all his pictures are of Christopher Eccelston as the Doctor.

Now, of course at this point, 20 minutes into the first re-booted episode, they are establishing CE as ‘the Doctor’.  But what they are also doing is establishing that the 9th Doctor has had quite a few adventures before pulling Rose’s wrist with an exhortation of ‘Run!’ in the shop basement.

Whatever our cogitations on the meaning of the end of TNotD with respect to the 50th, we have established as canon (oh, please, I know; all those arguments and quotes – yet RTD and The Moff have been extremely careful to not only be respectful of ‘canon’ but also to respect their own arcs), that the 9th Doctor did quite a bit on his own, before finding Rose on her council estate.

(Clive also says ‘and the title seems to be passed down from father to son; it appears to be an inheritance.’  So, there goes any theories about the meaning of this first episode wrt to TNotD!  I’m simultaneously making a point and destroying it in the same post.  🙂 )

But I think that Clive is a prescient nod to all modern-day theorists, in that we can get it totally wrong on some points, but still be utterly right on other points.  😀   Clive also says to Rose that the the Doctor’s only companion is ‘death’.  Poetic death in terms of all AG (after-Gap) companions, surely.  But with the exception of Martha (the least lauded of the AG companions) they have all suffered a death of some kind.

[The13th @the13th]

I had a revelation about the 50th episode earlier today. What if David tennant is not playing the 10th doctor but his human counterpart that he left with Rose? That would also open the gate for Rose to be in the episode as well.

[Tennantmarsters2013 @tennantmarsters2013]

No because matt and David were photographed by the 10th doctor’s tardis

[Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip]

@tennantmarsters2013 – uh, debunking someone’s bonkers theory based on a spoiler photograph is bad form. Admittedly that particular photo has been so widely reproduced it’s a bit difficult to avoid it – but I think it is still, technically, a spoiler photo.

In the interests of bonkers theorists everywhere, I’d point out that the Eleventh’s TARDIS has occasionally reverted to the Tenth’s TARDIS exterior form and occasionally used the Tenth’s control room – Ol’ Sexy has all her desktops neatly filed, after all.

That may be Ten’s TARDIS in the photo. Or it may be Eleven’s TARDIS, going backwards in time as the Doctor’s timeline slowly collapses in on itself. Tennant may be playing Ten in the photo. Or he might be Zygon!Doctor. Rose might be travelling with Ten – or arrive with 10.5. There’s absolutely nothing to stop David Tennant playing two or more parts – he’s done it before.

Actually, Eleven’s TARDIS going backwards in time and/or otherwise having a size/time leak would be fun, because it would give us a problem – which would also allow us to recap every historical exterior, and every historical console.

 

[Tennantmarsters2013 @tennantmarsters2013]

I apologise I’m fairly new to all this.

On another note just watching Amy’s choice and the bad guy in that seems like is the great intelligence. Did anyone else get this?

[Craig @craig Emperor]

@tennantmarsters2013 Please tell us in a more lengthy post why you think the Dream Lord, for that is his name, seems like The Great Intelligence. Otherwise, given your posting history, I will think you a troll and you will join quite few others on my “Consider deleting” list.

[Tennantmarsters2013 @tennantmarsters2013]

Well for starters the doctor has come across him before. He acted like the GI and he asked the doctor what his name was so he is either something to do with the silence (which I highly doubt because the silence didn’t want his name to be spoken) or he is the GI.

JLC or JC as she is now officially said that Moffat planted seeds for Clara a few years ago. Maybe it wasn’t the mystery of Clara maybe it was about the GI

@craig I can assure you I am no troll I am a massive doctor who fan ( after the restart as I s too little for the old series) and I’ll admit not a long explanation but come on this only came to me whilst watching Amy’s choice when the dream lord asked him what his name was so please don’t go and delete me just because I am sharing my opinions with the people on here 🙁

[Craig @craig Emperor]

Okay @tennantmarsters2013 Thank you. This is a place for discussion and theorising, so please do that in more than one sentence. We’ve had quite a few people on here doing exactly what you have been doing, posting one sentence questions ending with “what do you think?”. They are trolling and want other people to do a lot of work for them so they can laugh at them from behind their keyboard. That is not the sort of post we want on here. Please give us your theories, but back them up with evidence from the show.

A post starting “I just watched Amy’s Choice again and I think The Dream Lord is The Great Intelligence because…” followed by a couple of paragraphs is exactly what we want.

What we don’t want is you asking what happened to Geoff. You will be ignored.

I’ll take you at your word for now though. You’re on my “Must try harder” list instead. 😉

[Tennantmarsters2013 @tennantmarsters2013]

@craig thank you and I can understand that and I will try harder.

I only asked what happened to him because I can’t remember what happened to him.

Hope you read my post on the doctor’s companions page as I would love some feedback 🙂 I’d be ever so grateful

[Craig @craig Emperor]

@tennantmarsters2013 What happened to Geoff? What happened to any other character you’ve seen in any other episode? It’s a ridiculous question without expanding on it. You could have explained that you thought he might be a recurring character because… etc.

I’ve read your post on the Companions topic. It’s okay, but please try to improve your spelling/typing.

And don’t ever end a post with “What does everyone else think?” again or I WILL delete you. I don’t want to see it again. Got that?

People who post long, thoughtful articles can get away with that. At the moment you can’t.

If people like your post they will respond.

[Tennantmarsters2013 @tennantmarsters2013]

@craig spelling wasn’t my fault I’m on the iPad and the spellchecker isn’t doing what it is suppose to.

All I am doing is asking people’s thoughts if that’s in a short or long post how is that a bad thing? I like hearing what people think…

[Craig @craig Emperor]

@tennantmarsters2013 You’ve been warned. Asking what people think after one sentence is an obvious sign of trolling. My rules. I don’t have to justify them to you.

[Tennantmarsters2013 @tennantmarsters2013]

@craig well if asking what people think is bad in your eyes and rules think I’ll take my opinions else where as I am no troll I’m just merely asking for other peoples opinions. I’m a very shy person and took me a lot to join this forum and post my views and I don’t appreciate being called a troll when in fact all I am is a fan of the show and to be honest this has really upset me 🙁

[Craig @craig Emperor]

@tennantmarsters2013 Maybe you caught me on a bad night, maybe I’m wrong, but I’m not going to lose sleep over you never posting again. Feel free to come back when you can contribute something meaningful to the conversation that’s not full of grammatical errors and spelling mistakes. You’ll be most welcome. I promise.

[wolfweed @wolfweed]

On INVOLVEMENT

[HTPBDET @htpbdet]

Hi all

I have missed most of this party and have only limited internet access at the moment, so cannot read all the posts – which is very irritating! – but, for what they are worth, here are my thoughts about where the 50th may go and how John Hurt fits in.

Please do just tell me where I am wrong or where I have simply repeated someone else’s ideas without knowing it!

My starting place is here:
 
Simeon:                 It was a minor skirmish, by the Doctor’s blood-soaked standards. Not exactly the Time War, but enough to finish him. In the end, it was too much for the old man.

and here:

Doctor:                  When a TARDIS is dying, sometimes the dimension dams start breaking down. They used to call it a size leak. All the bigger on the inside starts leaking to the outside. It grows. When I say that’s the TARDIS, I don’t mean it looks like the TARDIS, I mean it actually is the TARDIS. My TARDIS from the future. What else would they bury me in?

and here:

Clara:                    Doctor? Explain? What is that?
Doctor:                  The tracks of my tears
Simeon:                 Less poetry, Doctor. Just tell them.
Doctor:                  Time travel is damage. Its like a tear in the fabric of reality. That is the scar tissue of my journey through the Universe. My path through time and space from Gallifrey to Trenzalore.

and here:

Doctor:                  My own personal time tunnel. All the days…even the ones that I…even the ones that I haven’t lived yet.

and here:

Doctor:                  Look, my name, my real name, that’s not the point. The name I chose is “the Doctor”. The name you choose, it’s like, it’s like a promise you make. He’s the one who broke the promise…He is my secret.
Hurt Doctor:        What I did I did without choice.
Doctor:                  I know.
Hurt Doctor:        In the name of peace and sanity.
Doctor:                  But not in the name of the Doctor.
 
and here: (from The Wedding of River Song)

Dorium:                 On the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the Eleventh, when no living creature can speak falsely, or fail to answer, a question will be asked. A question that must never, ever be answered.
Doctor:                  Silence will fall when the question is asked.
Dorium:                 Silence must fall would be a better translation. The Silence are determined the question will never be answered. That the Doctor will never reach Trenzalore.

If you take Dorium as telling the truth, interesting things seem to follow.

The Silence tried to stop the Eleventh Doctor from going to Trenzalore. They tried to kill him in Utah to prevent it.

So, they are not afraid of him dying. What then, are they afraid of?

They don’t want the Doctor to go to Trenzalore. Why? Could it be because if the Eleventh does go there then he will be assured of a future “which is infinitely more terrifying” than his past?

Trenzalore contains the tomb of the Doctor, a tomb which is the dying TARDIS. Simeon says, specifically, that the Doctor’s last battle was too much for “the old man”.

John Hurt seems quite likely to be that old man.

Say he is. Say he is the final (not necessarily the thirteenth) or at least a later incarnation of the Doctor we know. He is tired of running and fighting and so, rather than seeing out whatever skirmish he was involved in, he stops, fatally injures the TARDIS and creates the “time tunnel” – because that provides a chance for a fresh start.

So the act that is not done in the name of the Doctor is the killing of the TARDIS.
An act done to cheat time, to provide a selfish safety net. An act done for the peace and sanity of a tired, worn-out, frustrated Doctor; an act which puts him before others, in contravention of the name the Time Lord chose for himself, a name dedicated to a live of travel and assistance for others.

Somehow the Great Intelligence finds out that the Doctor’s tomb is at Trenzalore and so he lures the Eleventh there to kill him. And to kill him the Great Intelligence intends to enter his time tunnel and destroy the Doctor in his various time streams.

The Great Intelligence enters the “track of tears” and starts killing the Doctor. The Universe starts to adjust to the absence of the Doctor in various points in time and then Clara enters the “track of tears” and becomes the Impossible Girl and saves the Doctor in all of his past lives.

She does not know about the future ones and thus, cannot save them. This also explains why she did not know who Hurt was – if he was an earlier version of Smith’s Doctor (even an aged McGann’s Eighth) she should have recognised him. This ought to be true even if Hurt was Doctor Zero.

But the Great Intelligence could have destroyed the future 12th Doctor or any other lives the Doctor had not lived. And, in any event, it would be unexceptional that the “track of tears” was full of time energy and power.

Clara is lost in the “track of tears” and so the Doctor enters to save her. But it is unclear how he intends to do that.

But once he enters his own time tunnel, he surely would be able to know all of his future – because the whole of the life lived is there one way or another.

Which appears to be how he knows what the Hurt Doctor has done.

Which sets the scene for the only way for him to get out of the “tracks of tears” to be with the help of Clara (who we know can leave the time tunnel and live separate lives because we have seen that happen in Asylum and Snowmen) and the Hurt Doctor.

Perhaps Clara locates Tennant and Rose (who are fighting the Zygons?), saves them, they join forces with Smith and Hurt (the “trinity” to which Hurt has made reference?) defeat the Zygons (whatever they are doing?) and then, by use of some of the energy from the dying TARDIS (perhaps), they somehow fuse – the past and future of the Eleventh coalescing into one form – triggering a new regeneration and a new future.

Is this what the sSlence was trying to prevent? An envigorated Doctor with a new lease on life?

It seems to me that whatever Hurt’s Doctor did can’t be in the past of the Eleventh – because otherwise, if it was so contemptible, why didn’t the Doctor redress the deed? There may be a good reason for it, of course, but non-intervention seems odd unless the reason is remarkable.

And it is this, more than anything else, which makes me think that we are not talking about the Time War – because the Doctor could unseal the Time War anytime he wanted and it seems quite clear that the Doctor sealed the Time War in his own name, quite deliberately albeit at some personal cost.

Anyway – those are my thoughts for what they are worth.

Your time starts now…

 
J

[HTPBDET @htpbdet]

Hmmm…..can’t edit the typos there……..sorry about that!

No idea what that J is about…

[Anonymous @]

@htpbdet – 🙂  I thought that J was a wry, ironic smile.  It’s at the bottom of more than one of your recent comments.

“So the act that is not done in the name of the Doctor is the killing of the TARDIS.”

Hmmmm, very interesting.  And I was also thinking about both Clara and the Doctor seeing his future as well as his past in his entombed timestream, and what that means for the 50th.  I hope the rumours about recovered tapes is true, and the Beeb will be doing a glorious retrospective for us all.  Because so far, this year is a disappointingly damp squib.  🙁

[CraigNixon @craignixon]

I want to have been thrown a bone and we get Jack or Martha or someone in.

And find out they’ve been a Zygon for years.

Proper hard hitting betrayal of everything we thought we knew

[Whisht @whisht]

ah CraigNixon – how about this then for a bit of bonkersness (we’ve been a bit lacking in bonkersersness recently!):

Basically….. the Zygons sided with dastardly renegade Time Lords who wanted to destroy half a universe to beat the Daleks.
The Doctor was obviously against this. The Time Lords tricked and kidnapped him and he was thrown away in a cell to grow old…

As too many people would have noticed a missing Doctor, the Zygons took the form we know as Ecclestone, and pretended to be the Doctor.

We’ve been had!

HurtDoctor is the Doctor grown old in a cell, who did something despicable to save his own sanity.

.

.

[at this point my joke/bonkers collapses on itself, especially as it was starting to make sense but I got caught up in HurtDoctor’s regeneration….. and I’m very late for a meeting!]

;¬)

[OsakaHatter @osakahatter]

@htpbdet – Perhaps Clara locates Tennant and Rose (who are fighting the Zygons?),

I did wonder if the willingness to announce returning characters early is a big curve ball and what we’ll actually get is a previously unseen Ten + Rose vs the Zygons adventure that Eleven and Clara (or perhaps just Clara as you suggest?) stumble into, rather than the Zygons providing the main antagonists for the entire special?

I agree that whatever was done ‘but not in the name of the Doctor’ is not going to be the ending of the Time War.  The Doctor is too accepting/guilt ridden over his actions for that to be a buried secret.  I keep coming back to ROA and the Doctor stating that ‘we always stay and fight… unless we’re holding something precious in which case we run as far and as fast as we can’ (can’t remember the exact quote sorry) and it makes me think that the thing done not in the name of the Doctor, was to not stand and fight.  But this doesn’t quite tie in with the Hurt Doctor appealing that ‘I did without choice’ and Eleven – despite being antagonistic towards the Hurt Doc – agreeing with this.  This makes me think that it couldn’t be something like killing the TARDIS, because I can’t see Eleven ever agreeing that he had no choice in that.

It seems to me that whatever Hurt’s Doctor did can’t be in the past of the Eleventh – because otherwise, if it was so contemptible, why didn’t the Doctor redress the deed? There may be a good reason for it, of course, but non-intervention seems odd unless the reason is remarkable.

I think the majority view is that the Hurt Doctor is an unknown past incarnation, but you’ve summed up largely why I’m leaning towards a future one.  It ties in with the themes of JTTCOTT, recognising future/alternative versions and changing the present to stop them becoming a reality, and possibly of having memories of things that haven’t happened.

Is this what the sSlence was trying to prevent? An envigorated Doctor with a new lease on life?

The prophecy is quite vague.  Silence will fall when a question is asked, a question that must never be answered.  Do the Silence want to stop the question being asked or stop the question being answered? If it’s the former, then they presumably want to stop silence falling.  If it’s the latter, then they’re not concerned with silence falling, more with what happens afterwards.  It may not matter, but I think it would guide us as to their motivation.

I’m sure the wiser heads will be able to expand on this better – but don’t most classical mythology stories about people trying to prevent or fulfill prophecies involve a misunderstanding of what the prophecy means?  Perhaps the question is nothing to do with the name of The Doctor and we’re still to find out what the actual question is?

[HTPBDET @htpbdet]

The prophecy is quite vague.  Silence will fall when a question is asked, a question that must never be answered.  Do the Silence want to stop the question being asked or stop the question being answered? If it’s the former, then they presumably want to stop silence falling.  If it’s the latter, then they’re not concerned with silence falling, more with what happens afterwards.  It may not matter, but I think it would guide us as to their motivation.

@osakahatter

Yes, the prophecy, like all good prophecies, is capable of many readings.

But, given what happened when the Doctor did go to Trenzalore, don’t we know enough to know what the prophecy meant?

Firstly, that the prophecy was spread by the Whispermen once the GI discovered where the Doctor’s tomb was. Maybe.

Secondly, that the question was “Doctor Who?”.

Thirdly, that if it was asked it would be answered.

Fourthly, that once correctly answered, the question would open the tomb of the Doctor.

Fifthly, that once the Tomb was open and, given that the TimeLords are sealed on Gallifrey with the Matrix, the Doctor’s “time tunnel” of energy and the past/future would be there as it could not be uploaded to the Matrix.

Sixthly, that the GI could enter the “time tunnel” and start to eradicate the Doctor throughout history, an act that would result in planets and stars disappearing or dying   – the falling of silence.

What the GI did not bank on, and the thing not incorporated in the GI’s plans, was the presence of Clara and he special skills as the Impossible Girl.

I think that is all logical – no?

This makes me think that it couldn’t be something like killing the TARDIS, because I can’t see Eleven ever agreeing that he had no choice in that.

Doctor’s Wife makes me think that the TARDIS would not want to live without her “thief”. So, I could see how the concept could be comprehended by the Eleventh.

And unless you know what was happening when the Hurt Doctor did whatever he did, its hard to know what Smith could agree with. No?

@shazzbot    Damp squib year indeed. I live in the hope that the period between November 23 and the Christmas special will be full of treats – but we will see.

And I have no idea about that J…

[CraigNixon @craignixon]

@Whisht

Ha, Brilliant!  Love it.

 

Or Harriet Jones was not killed by the Daleks, she was taken hostage by Zygons who are using her to try and take over Earth, After all, everyone knows who she is!

 

Speaking of which, did they ever supply a good explanation for why people couldn’t remember things like Daleks/ Cybermen in London? Or the Cyberking in Victorian London in the Special?  THought it was down to the cracks but they’re fixed now so it should be a part of ‘history’

 

EDIT:  WHat I want to know is how the GI got them from Victorian London halfway across te galaxy to Trenzalore. Also, he manifested rather a quickly for a being of information at a time when there is no information network

[Anonymous @]

I’m still slightly wary that Doctor Ten and Rose will turn out to be Zygons as some part of a trap or misdirect. And I will be really quite annoyed if that proves to be the case. I want to see the proper 10th Doctor and Rose in action, not some misdirection (and that includes the Doctor-Clone).

But I think it’s fairly certain that the Zygons having been revealed so prominently and so early means that they will not play much part in the 50th.

Some great theories emerging once again. But I’m still pretty adamant that Hurt’s costume dates him pretty conclusively somewhere between McGann and Eccleston.

@htpbdet —

It seems to me that whatever Hurt’s Doctor did can’t be in the past of the Eleventh – because otherwise, if it was so contemptible, why didn’t the Doctor redress the deed? There may be a good reason for it, of course, but non-intervention seems odd unless the reason is remarkable.

Perhaps Eleven did the only thing he could do — which was to write Hurt’s Doctor out of his own timeline. Maybe it’s a similar dilemma to the one in Genesis of the Daleks. If the Doctor undoes the actions of the Hurt Doctor then a lot of incidental ‘good’ will be undone with it. I think it’s becoming increasingly clear that it is the Hurt Doctor with whom the Silence and Madame Kovarian et al have the grievance with.

[OsakaHatter @osakahatter]

@htpbdet – yes, your pairing of events to the prophecy makes sense, and I agree it is likely to be the events the prophecy was referring to.  The argument I was making about prophecies though is that they can often be attributed to more than one event and the narrative of stories about prophecies is often driven by a character focusing on one event and being caught out by another.

When the ‘Fall of the Eleventh’ was first mentioned, the common assumption was that it would refer to the death/regeneration of Matt Smith’s Doctor.  The events of TNoTD suggest it actually applies to the TARDIS falling from space or the events within the tomb.  But perhaps the eleventh is still to meet his actual end, his fall, at Trenzalore and it is then that another question (or even the same question asked for another reason) is asked.  The tomb was, after all, Eleven’s current TARDIS configuration (complete with recently cracked window).

To twist my own argument on it’s head of course, as many of us were expecting the prophecy to be occurring at the death of the Eleventh Doctor, it’s as likely that the events of TNoTD were the actual events of the prophecy.

Doctor’s Wife makes me think that the TARDIS would not want to live without her “thief”. So, I could see how the concept could be comprehended by the Eleventh.

Completely agree that the TARDIS wouldn’t want to live without her thief, but I took this as the TARDIS chose to shutdown at the demise of the Doctor, rather than her thief shutting her down first.  I’d take the Doctor choosing not to carry on as the action not in the name of the Doctor and the death of the TARDIS being a consequence of that, rather than being the action in of itself.

Incidently –

Clara is lost in the “track of tears” and so the Doctor enters to save her. But it is unclear how he intends to do that.

But once he enters his own time tunnel, he surely would be able to know all of his future – because the whole of the life lived is there one way or another.

Which appears to be how he knows what the Hurt Doctor has done.

I like this, it’s neat and could be explained in a line of dialogue easily.  As I’ve said I’m on the side of Hurt as a (potential) future Doctor but the sticking point is how the Eleventh would know what his future self had done (other than the Hurt Doctor having crossed his own timestream at some point in the past).  If the anniversary is then about the Doctor crafting a new future for himself so the Hurt Doctor ceases to be, this would fit with SM’s suggestion that

‘…the show must be seen to be going forward. It’s all about the next 50 years, not about the last 50 years. If you start thinking it’s all about nostalgia then you’re finished…’

As canon appears to have been made selective, it would make sense for the episode to also be saying that the future is yet to be written.  The Doctor knowing what his future holds from being in his timestream, uses help from his past (i.e. Ten) to change it.  I think it would make Eleven’s regeneration – possibly as you say coalescing with ten into one form – quite an uplifting, positive change, rather than a mournful departure.

[OsakaHatter @osakahatter]

@jimthefish –

I’m still slightly wary that Doctor Ten and Rose will turn out to be Zygons as some part of a trap or misdirect. And I will be really quite annoyed if that proves to be the case. I want to see the proper 10th Doctor and Rose in action, not some misdirection (and that includes the Doctor-Clone).

Agree, I’ll be more than a little narked if we don’t get the proper Doctor Ten and Rose – and furthermore if they turn out to be extended cameos rather than giving us a full multi-Doctor adventure.  However, I’m reasonably confident that won’t be the case

But I think it’s fairly certain that the Zygons having been revealed so prominently and so early means that they will not play much part in the 50th.

Yup, makes me wonder what they’re holding back as a surprise (assuming that Matt Smith’s departure wasn’t it) – it’s kind of a shame the Zygons didn’t get a standard episode return instead because I’d love to see them back properly, and I think this will be fleeting.

But I’m still pretty adamant that Hurt’s costume dates him pretty conclusively somewhere between McGann and Eccleston.

Maybe he didn’t have time to forge his own outfit – and has just been using stuff he already had lying around in the TARDIS that he’s not worn for a while 😉

[HTPBDET @htpbdet]

But I’m still pretty adamant that Hurt’s costume dates him pretty conclusively somewhere between McGann and Eccleston.

@jimthefish
I have to say that as soon as I saw Hurt, my immediate response was “Okay – you are the real 9th Doctor, the one who sealed the Time War”. Partly, I think, that was because I knew Moffat had wanted Eccleston involved in the Anniversary Special.
Then I shifted, and spent days vacillating between him being the aged Doctor Eight or Doctor Zero.
The Doctor Zero notion appeals, because it might mean that the reason the Doctor originally left Gallifrey is to be revealed.
The aged Doctor 8 also appeals, but that would seem to mean the Time War, because that is the “big thing” between BG and AG Doctor Who. And it seems to me that if some other dastardly deed is now interposed, it will upset the underlying theme of each of the AG Doctors thus far.
Examining the text, then, brings me back to a future Doctor of some kind (although whether it could be a future Doctor affected by the GI is still an open possibility)
But I am interested to know why you think the costume so positively identifies Hurt?

 

Perhaps Eleven did the only thing he could do — which was to write Hurt’s Doctor out of his own timeline. Maybe it’s a similar dilemma to the one in Genesis of the Daleks. If the Doctor undoes the actions of the Hurt Doctor then a lot of incidental ‘good’ will be undone with it.

I would run with this but for the script statements in both Nightmare in Silver and Name of the Doctor. There seem clearly enough to be eleven versions of the Doctor that Smith now is. I can’t see how he could excise part of his own time-line. Even if he could, why would Clara not encounter that version when she is travelling through his “track of tears”?

If Smith or one of the other AG Doctors excised Hurt, there would still be the fact of that happening and the regeneration leading to Hurt, plus the memories of the Doctor are there for Clara to plunder, even if he had been somehow excised.

It is that, more than anything else, which makes me think Hurt is a forward-looking Doctor rather than a backward-looking Doctor.

I think it’s becoming increasingly clear that it is the Hurt Doctor with whom the Silence and Madame Kovarian et al have the grievance with.

Yes, I think that might well be right.

@osakahatter

The thing is, though, that the Eleventh did fall at Trenzalore. He was dying and then Clara intervened. Silence commenced falling – but Clara stopped it. The Eleventh stepped into his own time tunnel and has yet to emerge – so, for all relevant purposes, the Eleventh has fallen and we have not seem him rise. Yet.

You might be right about the TARDIS. Nothing magical about my thought. I was just trying to come up with something that Hurt might do that might cause that reaction in Smith and be considered a non-Doctor thing to do. Deliberately killing the TARDIS to create the time tunnel, or even allowing the TARDIS to shut herself down for that purpose, seemed to me to fit the bill.

“The Doctor knowing what his future holds from being in his timestream, uses help from his past (i.e. Ten) to change it.  I think it would make Eleven’s regeneration – possibly as you say coalescing with ten into one form – quite an uplifting, positive change, rather than a mournful departure.”
Absolutely. And what a moment that would be: the three versions of the Doctor coalescing into one, thereby eradicating the Valeyard and other canon baggage (such as regeneration limits) and affecting the Doctor fundamentally, setting a new course. Plus, Rose would lose her Doctor again. (Unless Rose is a Zygon trying to trick the Tennant Doctor?)

One matter of interest, to me anyway, was the “daisest daisy” line from Pertwee  as Smith fell – which easily leads you to thinking about the hermit teacher and K’Anpo Rimpoche – and the idea that more than one form of the one Time Lord can exist simultaneously and then merge as in Planet of the Spiders.

My word,  this Anniversary Special could be something…

[Tennantmarsters2013 @tennantmarsters2013]

I’m the opposite I want to see the actual tenth doctor and rose not the meta crisis doctor.

And therefore should be the past tenth in order to do is.

There is something else that’s think should be addressed at some point either in 50th or season 8 and it might seem silly but just something I’d like an answer to. How did jack turn into the face of boe?

Come on November

[chickenelly @chickenelly]

@tennantmarsters2013

How did jack turn into the face of boe?

This is addressed at the end of series 1 & 3 (AG).  Caused by super tardis-y Rose.  Here’s the wikipedia entry (saves me writing it!) – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_of_Boe

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