The Doctor Falls

[McCotton @mccottonthedoctorfan]

One of the things I want to talk about is the ending.  After watching “The Doctor Falls,” I watched it on a lot of reaction channels.  The scene right before the First Doctor shows up.

“I will NOT CHANGE!”

Am I just interpreting this scene wrong?  Everyone is saying “he’s trying not to regenerate.  He’s trying to stay as he is.”  But I don’t think that’s the case.  Before he leaves the TARDIS, he talks about how tired he is.  How he doesn’t want to do the cycle anymore: be lost, find out who he is, regenerate, start over.

To me, in that scene, the Doctor is trying to not regenerate, yes.  But he’s not trying to stay the Twelfth Doctor.  He’s trying to die.

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

@mccottonthedoctorfan

I agree. And I think the Christmas episode will be like “It’s a Wonderful Life”, as he comes to realise why he has to live (albeit in a different body).

[Hiker @hiker]

@mccottonthedoctorfan

Your name is too long. 🙂

Otherwise, I took it as ‘I won’t change again, I want to stay as I am or die.’

I think he’s burnt out with the effort it takes to get rolling again in a new form. I think also, Bill being turned into a Cyberman, and Missy dissappointing him was all a bit much to an already fatally injured Doctor.

I have high hopes for the Christmas special. I’ll miss Capaldi. I hope he hits it out of the park!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ichabod @ichabod]

@hiker  . . . I took it as ‘I won’t change again, I want to stay as I am or die.’

An echo of CyberBill, “I don’t want to live if I can’t be me.”

[Missy @missy]

@mccottonthedoctorf:

You could be right. Perhaps he thought that enough was enough.

@hiker: I have high hopes for the Christmas special. I’ll miss Capaldi. I hope he hits it out of the park!

If anyone can, he can.

Missy

[MissRori @missrori]

@missy  I’m going with the “enough is enough” take on Twelve’s angst at the moment.  He never had a happy season finale — he always ended up alone — and on top of that, as far as he knows he lost both female companions (plus River), couldn’t redeem Missy, and only did so much for the solar farmers.  And since he never had a lot of close friends otherwise, he had a very lonesome life in many ways.

I’m hoping that the Christmas special finds a way to give him a miracle so he can truly live happily ever after.  A friend of mine had hoped that “The Doctor Falls” would turn out to be a joyful Everybody Lives story, to contrast with his previous two finales cheating him out of the happiness he earned.  Well, this wasn’t it, but maybe the Christmas special can be?

[MissRori @missrori]

Looking at the above, I think I was being a bit too gloomy about Twelve’s character arc.  Still, I never got the sense that offscreen he had a lot of friends he frequently touched base with, especially in Series 10.  I know that “Happy people make for boring television”, but if there are two things I would have liked to see (more) of in Twelve’s tenure, they were 1) new alien worlds explored at length and 2) fun adventures where the stakes and body counts weren’t high and the endings sunshiny.  It frustrated me that (especially in Series 8 and 9) we were teased with wonderful exotic places and fun adventures that the Doctor and his companions were having but never got to see them.  They would have been a nice break from all the drama.  😉

Edit: Come to think of it, one thing I liked about “The Lie of the Land” was its positivity once the first third had been worked through.  But apparently, looking at other sites, it’s ranked down at/near the bottom of Series 10.  Wonder why that is?  Are people just too angsty these days?  😉

[ichabod @ichabod]

@missrori   I think “The Lie of the Land” comes off as a bit rough, even half-baked, which in fact the script was — that’s the one Moffat apologized for in an interview because he was still working on it when his mother got sick and died.  He lamented the fact that he never got to do a final revision or go over the draft that he turned in with Capald before shooting.  Moffat apologized for that, too (saying he’d felt bad about leaving the cast in the lurch, a bit, on that one).

I think viewers picked up on that lack of polished resolution, which is why the episode ranks so low.  Expectations had been raised by “Extremis”, and they weren’t met, for good reasons — which get forgotten anyway, and how much do the reasons for the shortfall matter, after all?  Not much, when you’ve ranking the observable result, not the process that produced it.

[MissRori @missrori]

@ichabod Yeah, the Monks trilogy seemed ill-fated by the fates.  Moffat only had the onscreen writing credits on “Extremis” (solo) and “Pyramid at the End of the World” (with Harness), the latter being the one he was working on at his mum’s hospital bedside. (sniffle)  “Pyramid”, of course, wound up muddling its point by having so many characters making foolish decisions, which undercut its attempt to chide the Doctor for hubris (because he was the scary handsome genius he said he was despite his mistakes when compared to everyone else).  That could easily have been addressed with more revisions.  Moffat doesn’t have a credit on “Lie of the Land” but had he the time, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see him work enough on Whitehouse’s script to refine it and get a co-writing credit, if only because it involved Missy.  The finished “Lie” ran a few minutes shorter than standard episode length, time that could have been used to better resolve stuff like the Doctor’s “test”.

Getting back to this episode though…much as I enjoyed it, there are a few points I don’t think have been fully explained elsewhere, so I’ll ask them here.

• If the Doctor is going to be kind, why not negotiate peace between the Cybermen and uncoverted Mondasians instead of blowing the former to high heaven, or at least find a nonviolent means of conflict resolution?  The Cybermen did just want to live.
• Why is the Doctor so pessimistic about saving Bill from Cyber-fate two weeks on? That’s two weeks for him to think over possible solutions to the problem after he makes his initial promise.  And the Whoniverse has a lot of potential options available, once they get back to the TARDIS.  The nanotech from “The Empty Child”/”The Doctor Dances” for instance, which would have been a great bookend for Moffat’s era as a Who-writer.
• Also, there’s the option of using all that regeneration energy he’s trying to hold back…two birds, one stone!  Seems silly not to explain why.  If he’d use it on Davros…

Anyhoo, I do want the Xmas show to be cheerful, but how can Twelve’s final end be cheerful if he has to give up his beautiful self?  Seems the only way that can happen is if he gets a BIG reward beforehand, something to enjoy in the here and now.

(Some of this broodiness on my part comes from the rough times I’ve witnessed in the U.S. since this finale aired.  Kindness to those in need is not in vogue right now because there’s no real gain in it — it just seems to ask for more trouble — and fighting injustice just gets people tarred as no better than the unjust…)

[Missy @missy]

@hiker: Knowing Steven Moffat, it will be a doozy!

@ichabod: That’s how I read it too.

@missrori; What would be wnderful is if someone tells him about Missy’s change of heart.

Missy

[Missy @missy]

 

I watched the final episode of the Doctor Who – The Doctor Falls – again last night (it’s on our recorder still). I really shouldn’t because I become quite upset.. Why oh why did Mr C have to give in his notice!

Just a thought, but what if  instead of  the twelth Doctor regenerating, the first Doctor does, and becomes her. Meanwhile, PC buzzes off in the first Doctor’s Tardis unchanged?

Bonkers enough for you?

It’s the sort of thing Steven Moffat would do, and he did say that this special would be different.

Missy

 

[ichabod @ichabod]

@missy  Oh, I’d go for it!  New universes to be conquered by . . .

 

[Missy @missy]

@ichabod:

Well, Peter Doc did say he would not change, and who is the one wearing the cloak?

What a lovely thought. *sigh*

Missy

[MissRori @missrori]

@missy Who would tell the Doctor about Missy’s change of heart?  Remember, it was without witness!  😉

Also, regarding the Doctor not wanting to change…it does seem rather unfair that Twelve must become Thirteen when he doesn’t want to when Bill got to be restored to a human shape, if not yet form.  If she had stayed a Cyberman yet made it work it would have been more thematically appropriate for what’s about to happen to Twelve.  Maybe she’ll decide she wants to be a Cyberman again in the Christmas show, accepting the change that was forced upon her the way it is being forced upon Twelve?

But then this double standard has turned up before with Twelve; the Doctor wasn’t allowed to enjoy the wiggle room with Clara but was forced to move on and accept her death, but Clara chose to enjoy what the Doctor’s suffering granted her instead of doing the honorable thing and going back to her death.  If someone else suffered so for me, I would either enjoy the new time with him or we would both have to suffer.  But then she was always selfish that way… 😉

[Missy @missy]

@missrori:

Hmm. I don’t think Clara was selfish in the true sense, she simply wanted to have her cake and eat.  Doesn’t everyone?

She was able to. Danny was the annoying one.

“Do you love him?” (Caretaker) He asks Clara.

“No, not in that way.”

“There isn’t any other way.”

What a twerp, hadn’t he heard of parental love? I thought he was slefish.

Plus, the Doctor would, I feel,  be glad for her. He knows the fascination and adiction of travelling through time and space- especially time.

As you say, pity no one can let him know about Missy.

My bonkers theory was based on the continual “I will not change!” The appearance of the first Doctor and the devious whims of Steven Moffat.

Add to them, the fact that every Doctor regeneration, shows him wearing the same clothes as the previous Doctor.

JD is not, she is wearing a cloak. PC isn’t wearing a cloak, but first Doctor is.

However, time will  tell and I’m probably completely wrong.

Missy

[gamergirlavatar @gamergirlavatar]

Alright, I was finally able to finish the tenth season. I’ve been sick the past few days so I just watched the whole season in one day. It was incredible. I think I can explain my reaction to this episode in one sentence.

I was crying throughout the episode.

I can’t believe I cried, this was such a perfect episode. World Enough and Time was a great set up for everything that happen in this episode but this is the real gem of the season. I love every scene and what happens to all the characters. I feel that this season showed the best moments between The Doctor and Missy and we can really see why they were friends before. Missy’s death was sad, well written and performed fantastically. Bill’s story was also wonderful to watch play out. I’m glad she and Nardole got a happy ending. I’m also happy that there was a mention of jelly-babies before Peter left, I was hoping for that. But my favorite scenes are always with The Doctor, and I can’t give Peter enough credit for his acting. I love (this whole post is just me saying I love everything) his “just be kind” speech, the mention of “without hope, without witness, without reward” line from earlier was well placed and the battle between The Doctor and the Cybermen was sad to watch. It was wonderfully written and performed, I can’t praise it enough.

However, I think this episode proves that out of all the Doctors, the 12th doctor is the most broken. I think he has been thrown into the worst situations The Doctor has ever face and to him he never wins. In this episode alone, his childhood friend walks away from him and he never gets to know that she was siding with him. His companion is turned into a metal creature and he was powerless to help her. I know some people think that he doesn’t want to regenerate because he wants to die and maybe this proves that, I don’t know. I think he knows that after 2,000 years, everything that has happen to him has shaped him into a hero everyone needs, and he doesn’t want to forget that person and start anew again. That’s just how I see it and maybe I only see it that way because he’s my favorite doctor and I don’t want him to go but I think that The Doctor can’t become more broken beyond this point and his new face and personality are going to be relief to him. Maybe he even chose this up coming face just like he did with his current one, to be a reminder, to influence him.

I haven’t even mention the setting of this episode, I love the idea of a farm inside a spaceship and the affect gravity has on time was such an interesting factor. The blue tones used near the ending in the episode were beautiful and were perfect for the tone of the episode. For some reason the forest reminds me of the setting used for the trailer that revealed the 13th doctor. All the settings in this episode and World Enough and Time looked incredible and were fascinating to see.

Well, I can’t wait for doctor number 13 but it’s going to be sad saying goodbye to number 12. I’m going to miss Peter as The Doctor but I think this new actor will be just fine (I’m not mentioning the actors name just so this can’t be labeled as a spoiler).

[Missy @missy]

@gamergirlavatar:

Good post.

Missy

[janetteB @janetteb]

@gamergirlavatar What she said… I think you have expressed just what I feel about this episode and P.C. I recently re watched the series and have just watched the Christmas Specials. In the last one when he realised that it has been 24 years since he gave Grant the crystal the repressed grief was palpable. Peter’s face conveys such emotional depth, so much there, so much accumulated pain over so many lifetimes. The weight of that baggage shows but it is also a danger in narrative terms. It is time I think for the Doctor, as character, to shed some of that before the character/narrative is overwhelmed by it.
Cheers
Janette

[ichabod @ichabod]

@gamergirlavatar  @missy  @janetteb   Yes; Moffat and Capaldi used S9 and S10 in particular to push the Doctor as far into the dark as they could — without turning the show into something that younger viewers would no longer be comfortable with or understand.  Not that kids don’t experience loss, pain, heroism, and despair, on the scale of their own comprehension; but this went to extremes that I think really pushed the boundaries of the show’s remit, and for that matter the expectations of its audiences.

A re-set does seem to be in order, and I do wonder how that will be handled — how *complete* that re-set will be.

[Missy @missy]

@janetteb:

Seconded.

@ichabod;

Truthfully, I am full of dread. But that doesn’t mean I’m right.

Missy

 

[ichabod @ichabod]

@missy  I’m just — sad, I guess.  The show is resilient; whatever happens in S11, I trust it will endure, bounce back if needs be, and go on to thrive, with Whittaker/Chibnal or others.

The question for me is whether *I* will bounce back from losing the writers and actors who have made me an enthusiastic DW fan again: will it remain “appointment” television, or will I descend to “casual” viewing.  These last three series spoke to me and friends around my age with particular power.  To be fair, though, as an older viewer I’m hardly part of the show’s “target demographic”.  When my cohort dies off, DW will need lots of youngsters and their parents already well hooked, in order to keep the show afloat.

Whittaker looks good for that; Chibnal and a couple of writers he’s comfortable working with — not so much.  But I’m not the one who needs to be pleased.  And I suppose it’s unbecoming to be greedy for more when you’ve already been served such fine fare.

 

[Missy @missy]

@ichabod:

My sentiments almost exactly.

Fantasy. Simply a children’s programme, which has captured millions of hearts and imaginations.

For all I’m old enough to know better, never has a work of fantasy captured mine so completely, especially the past

three series with the perfect Doctor, writer’s, companions and music.

If it’s possible to mourn for something which is unreal, then I’m mourning.

I’ve been spoilt rotten and they’ve taken away my favourite toy! *sniff*

Ridiculous innit?

Missy

 

 

 

 

[ichabod @ichabod]

@missy  Yep; purely ridiculous.  Yet here we are . . .

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

Missy:     Your sentiments of five years ago (22 Dec 17) are exactly how I feel about it.

Anyway, my brief impressions of this episode (though I was – as Nardole said about the Doctor in World Enough & Time, having an emotion for much of it, too absorbed to type)

Opens on a green and pleasant land – with slightly disturbing living cyber scarecrows.

Clever Doctor – to reprogram the cybermen to think that Timelords need ‘conversion’ too. Missy really doesn’t know whether to be good or bad. Though Nardole’s sudden appearance with a handy shuttle craft was a little bit convenient.

The scenes with Bill in the barn, slowly realising she was a cyberman, were heartwrenching.

When they rediscover the lifts, and Missy suggests escaping back to Floor 1, the Doctor points out that they would take a long time to get there and the Cybermen on Floor 1056 would have had ‘thousands of years’ (slight exaggeration) to work out how to stop them. Which sort of nullifies my theory about the sonic screwdriver being able to magic the lift into time travel.

And the Doctor will never, ever know that Missy was going to take his side at the end. Just another irony. (But – since the Master knows he shot Missy – howcome Missy doesn’t know that too? Presumably because their combined presence has screwed up the timelines and wiped the Master’s memory.

I felt so sorry for Bill, slowly resigning herself to the fact that there was no way out for her. And Nardole’s goodbye to the Doctor and Bill was touching. For a character who began as the comic relief, Nardole became a worthy companion.

I remember being surprised and delighted, first time I watched, when Heather appeared to rescue Bill and the Doctor. And (unlike Nardole’s sudden appearance with a convenient shuttle craft), this was entirely legit. Remember Heather’s attraction to Bill way back in Episode 1? Of course I do, just that I’d completely forgotten about it. And why wouldn’t Heather come to the rescue right now? I love it when the plot does that to me.

I found this a very moving episode, and not just because it was goodbye to so many characters.

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

– and the things one finds out reading this forum.   In the WE&T thread, pedant said  (24/6/17)  “For a moment, when they were walking through the “town” I thought I caught s glimpse of Heather in a window.”     Well, well.   I missed that (it was at 31:50).    I saw a face at the window but didn’t recognise it as Heather.   That’s excellent foreshadowing, Moff!

[winston @winston]

@dentarthurdent  This episode actually had me in tears more than once. Poor Bill, brave and reliable Nardole, who is on of my favourite companions, even Missy made me tear up.  So much loss in this episode, it is not one I watch a lot, it needs a certain mood.

I can’t say much more til I watch it again.

Stay safe.

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@winston   I know exactly how you feel, right down to ‘needing a certain mood’.   I don’t think I’ve ever actually cried over an episode (maybe got a bit damp) but this one was the closest ever.   Oh, and Riggsy painting flowers on the abandoned Tardis at the end of Face the Raven.

I actually find the (very well-written) moments of comic relief in World Enough & Time and this episode, help to make it watchable.   For me, they don’t detract from the sadness and horror of the ‘serious’ passages (in fact they even heighten those by contrast), but without those moments the story would just be too dark for me (and I usually like dark).

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

I’ve just re-watched it. I don’t think I can add anything to what I said last time.

This time round, though, I can follow the plot precisely, and the way the time difference is handled now makes complete sense to me. I even get the precise timing of how Missy was able to kill the Master and he was able to kill her, almost simultaneously but moments and decades after. I do miss Missy.

Bill was a tragic figure, realising she was a Cyberman and nothing could be done to fix it. I think of all the companions she had the most tragic – and heroic – fate. I was so relieved, surprised and delighted when Heather reappeared to revive her. I know that possibility was always there, right from episode 1, I do love it when the storyteller tells us exactly what’s going to happen – and then with the passage of Time, we forget it until it happens. After the sadness of the episode, the sequence in the Tardis was just so pleasant.

As a final episode for the season, and for Moffat and Capaldi’s era, this was a masterpiece.

(I regard Twice Upon a Time as more of an epilogue).

[janetteB @janetteb]

@dentarthurdent I agree that Bill’s fate was the most tragic. Clara’s fate happened as a result of her own choices, sad yes but Bill’s was as a result of trust betrayed. The Doctor should know better than to promise that he can keep his companions safe. He cannot. The scenes of Bill in the barn are heartbreaking. Nardole in his handling of the situation also acquires a noble dimension. He is so much more than just comic relief.

cheers

Janette

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@janetteb Entirely concur. The betrayal was more figurative than actual – by which I mean that it was not deliberate on the Doctor’s part, just a rash promise – which he did his utmost to keep in rescuing Bill. If he’d said “I can’t guarantee that” would Bill have gone with him anyway? – almost certainly. That doesn’t change Bill’s feeling, waiting years for him to rescue her.

I just watched Twice Upon a Time, by the way, and while that had – nostalgia on my part – for Twelve and Bill the avatar, it didn’t have nearly the same impact. Epilogue, as I said.

Well that’s it. Now I’m on to Chib’s reign (selected episodes only).

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@dentarthurdent @janetteb

Bill’s Mondassisn conversion is particularly powerful. The early cybermen, like the Ice Warriors seem at first sight ridiculous, and dismissed as classic examples of the shortcomings of early Who. Of course there were far worse designs, who never returned, but actually both Mondassian Cybermen and Ice Warriors were supremely creepy and were presumably so created: better than multitudes of bland facial prosthetics as per Star Trek TNG.

Also Moff and Gatiss were instrumental in redesigning and retconning both. But Moff’s vision for the Cybermen was particularly superb. The originals were creepy because they were not just robots; they retained a disturbing element of humanity: imperfect, wounded and wrapped in bandages. It’s the 70’s and 80’s incarnations that grew progressively more ridiculous. To be Cyber was to be a Mook.

What did RTD do? Firstly he expunged ‘EXCELLENT!’ from the Cyber vocabulary. Secondly he explored what it meant to be converted, which I think (but don’t quote me) was only ever touched on in the otherwise mediocre ‘Attack of…’

If ‘Attack of’ inspired the Borg, the Borg transformed RTD vision in Age of Steel and Army of Ghosts. Moff handed Gaimen a Cyber outing where The Doctor was nearly converted and that was the best thing about Nightmare in Silver.

Then 11 hung out with Handles for several lifetimes and Danny was converted in Dark Water (and by the way has anyone ever explained the parallel volcano scenes in that story and Last Christmas? Or where Orson Pink came from?)

Bill, I’m afraid, is the natural progression through regression to the origin.

I’ll return with some other comments when I’ve caught up.

 

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@ps1l0v3y0u @janetteb I had the impression that Moff liked the original Mondassian Cybermen. I was wrong, according to a comment by him on the DVD extras for The Doctor Falls, he thought they were pretty naff. Apparently Peter Capaldi loved cybermen, which is why the Moff humoured him by incorporating cybermen (and not Daleks or Weeping Angels) in his final story. Needless to say Moff changed his view of them, as did I, when their origin from reconstructed humans was explored. Supremely creepy.

I recall the volcano scene from Dark Water, and a very powerful scene it was. And with a neat reversal when it turned out the Doc had seen it coming. But I don’t recall any scene like that in Last Christmas?

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@ dentarthurdent

After Santa drops everyone off there’s a complex interlocked series of dream crab incidents, one of which occurs to the doctor outside the tardis seemingly in a volcanic landscape like the tardis key incident from Dark Water.

Now I remember that was actually a set up/test of the doctor’s… I need to look at it again. Maybe it was Clara’s dream crab dream?

Didn’t know Moff thought the Mondassians were pants; makes it an even better job!

Still no answer to Orson Pink though. If Clare is dead/frozen (and so is Danny) wherefore Orson? Unless the doctor doesn’t know what he’s doing and the tardis did it herself. Which I don’t like. Literally dieu ex machina.

[janetteB @janetteb]

@ps1lOv3yOu (I tried..)

I once came up with a very complicated theory to explain Orson, not as a descendant of Danny’s but his twin brother. There are a few hints that Danny has no family, the orphanage having trouble finding family etc, So my theory, which i have now mostly forgotten was that Danny had time travelled in infancy. He and Orson were descendants of one of the Doctor’s former companions, possibly Susan who is another loose thread. She left the toy solider with Danny and Clara returns it to the Doctor so it is circular.

cheers

Janette

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@ps1l0v3y0u I’d hate to misquote Moff, so I stuck the DVD in again and in the extra on Disc 5, ‘The Finale Falls’, at 0:41, Moff says “I thought oh my god those are cheap rubbish ones, I hope they never bring those ones back”. Or more fully, at 3:24, “I remember getting the very first Doctor Who magazine of any kind I’ve ever seen, and it had a picture of the original Mondassian cybermen, and I was horrified by them, I thought they just looked like balaclava men. I thought oh my god those are cheap rubbish ones, these are offensive to me, I hope they never bring those ones back.”
Peter Capaldi: “I’d always expressed an interest in seeing the Mondassian cybermen come back.”

Moff (I’m paraphrasing here): “Is there a way to make the Mondassian cybermen work for Peter Capaldi’s last stand … I was nervous of it but I’m really pleased with how it came out.”

I know you weren’t casting doubt on my comment, I checked back for my own benefit as much as anything, I have been known to recollect wrongly.

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@janetteb The only way to get ps1l0v3y0u right is to copy & paste. Some of those characters in his name aren’t even on a terrestrial keyboard, at least they never work when I type them, I suspect he’s an alien. 🙂

Danny, Orson and that toy soldier caused me much headscratching trying to explain it. But I could never make it fit. I’d love to see a coherent theory of it.

[janetteB @janetteb]

@dentarthurdent. I will try that. I confess I used to have trouble with your name too, until you pointed out that it was Dent, Arthur Dent. How did not not see that at once?

I enjoyed trying to work out an explanation for Danny?Orson. I love a narrative puzzle, the word equivalent of Mr Squiggle, a reference that probably only Australians of my generation will get. It was a kids tv show where the puppet with a pencil nose would be given a canvas with random “squiggles” on it and they would connect them to make a picture. The trouble is that my explanation for Danny/Orson was so convoluted that I don’t really remember it all now. Must be buried somewhere probably on the Listen thread. Must hunt it down. Something useful to do when I am procrastinating.

cheers

Janette.

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@janetteb I think it was Slartibartfast (what a name!) who called Arthur Dent Dentarthurdent. It was of course Doug Adams’ satirical take on Bond, James Bond.

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@dentarthurdent @janetteb

after ps digits alternate with letters.

Orson Pink… I think Mr Spock would say ‘insufficient data, Captain.’

Most likely explanation is that Danny had a previous relationship, and the Tardis mined that through Clara being distracted. Except there was s female relative who was a time traveller?? Maybe th

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

Duh… except there was a female relative who was a time traveller?? Maybe the doctors ‘dad skills’ weren’t up to much and Danny remembered Clara under the bed?

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@ps1l0v3y0u I’ve tried that before and it didn’t seem to work. Maybe it will this time. I’ll know when I hit Submit.

I had my own theory about Danny/Orson, but I’ve long forgotten what it was.

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@dentarthurdent

it worked!

this whole Orson thing as well The Girl Who Died makes me wonder about abandoned arcs. Maybe its as simple as the execs looked at the drafts and thought ‘what is that going to cost?’

with a little bit of kickback against the loons.

That’s you and me that is…

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@ps1l0v3y0u I think maybe it was just the writer and/or showrunner leaving an opening for future development that never actually materialised.

A bit like The Doctor’s Daughter (Jenny). That was just begging for a semi-regular part for Jenny. She’s still out there (along with Clara, Me, Bill and Heather)

I guess sometimes these threads just don’t work out or no story crops up that suits them.

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@dentarthurdent

well… I would say ‘same difference.’ In the case of Jenny, her disappearance probably has something to with becoming Mrs Tennant. Don’t ask me who exactly made what decision, but you can see how it might work.

Real events leave marks in the narrative, like Shona being lined up for a companion hand over in Last Christmas before Jenna Coleman decided to stay. Or BBC policy giving everyone a headache with the problem of how to handle Jodie Whitaker.

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@ps1l0v3y0u Well Jenny – that is, Georgia Moffett – was already in real life a Doctor’s daughter, just not Ten’s. (I think it was Five). I can’t see why her becoming a Doctor’s wife in real life should make a difference. Incidentally, no relation to Steven Moffat. Although she was also the daughter of Sandra Dickinson, Five’s real-life wife, who played Trillian in the TV version of Doug Adams’ Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. A conspiracy theorist could have a high old time with this, I guess.

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

<p style=”text-align: left;”>@dentarthurdent</p>
I’d kind of forgotten about the Peter Davison aspect. Point is if some said to Georgia ‘hmm too much Who’ you can see why she might agree.

and maybe it was an RTD/Alice Troughton pitch for a spinoff, or character to feature in some of their existing spinoffs.

No conspiracy; just connections, synchronicity and maybe occasional outside pressure.

[Author]

Posts