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5 October 2014 at 00:41 #32987
@pedant Very large single cell thing has precedent from a Tom Baker story – can’t recall which;
Could that be the Nucleus of the Swarm from the story The Invisible Enemy? Most notable for the first appearance of K-9?
4 October 2014 at 23:45 #32981@bluesqueakpip Which is why rationality is a terrible way to make life or death moral decisions.
I disagree. In fact, to analogise, an organisation such as NICE needs to do this all the time in order to ensure that it maximises the patient benefit of its resource expenditure.
In fact, I think that the issue is simply a variation of the Trolley Problem, which is an effective dramatic problem because the human brain typically decides that a sin of commission (killing someone) is worse than a sin of omission (letting someone die through inaction).
However, I know that I am emotionally unable to make a rational choice – it feels wrong to me to actively sacrifice someone, even if it is maximising the saving of life (or rather sentience), so I would rather that a rational external entity make the choice for me!
4 October 2014 at 23:15 #32977@miapatrick I’m not s scientist, so genuine question: would exploding 100 nuclear bombs on the moon definitely not have a harmful impact on the earth?
I’m not a scientist either, but we can do some back of the envelope calculations! Not all nuclear bombs are made equal, so to be fair, we should use the most powerful human built bomb, the Tsar Bomba, as a suitable reference.
Tsar Bomba had a yield of ~50 Megatonnes (50,000,000 tonnes of TNT).
100 Tsar Bomba equivalents would therefore be ~5 Gigatonnes yield (5,000,000,000 of tonnes TNT)
By comparison, the dinosaurs were wiped out in an event estimated to be equivalent to ~100 Teratonnes (100,000,000,000,000 tonnes of TNT), or roughly 20,000 times more powerful than 100 Tsar Bombas. This made a crater ~180 kilometres across (the Chicxulub crater), that’s about 25,000 square km, or 0.07% of the moon’s surface.
So, it wouldn’t damage the moon much, and any ejecta from the explosion that reached Earth would, in all likelihood, burn up in the atmosphere like a meteor shower.
Final thoughts – the space shuttle’s payload to *low Earth orbit* is ~24,000 kg. Tsar Bomba alone weighed more than that, at ~27,000 kg. This means that a single space shuttle would not even be able to get one 50 Megatonne bomb to the moon, let alone 100.
4 October 2014 at 22:24 #32971@miapatrick I think it came OK at the end. Clara was angry because the world made the ‘wrong choice’, she nearly made the ‘wrong choice’ and he didn’t know for a fact at the time that it was the wrong choice. And because the Doctor said it was ‘their moon’.
I’m glad you used the inverted commas around ‘wrong choice’, because from where I’m sitting, based on the evidence that was available to the world, them made absolutely the right choice.
Assuming Earth’s actions could be impactful, were four possible scenarios:
1) Hatching would be deadly, but Earth nukes, therefore Earth Survives
2) Hatching would be harmless, but Earth nukes, therefore Earth Survives
3) Hatching is harmless, and Earth doesn’t nuke, therefore Earth Survives
4) Hatching is deadly, but Earth doesn’t nuke, therefore Earth Dies
Rationally, and based on the available evidence, the only way to be sure is to follow the Ellen Ripley route, and nuke them from orbit.4 October 2014 at 22:09 #32969@spider Now I’ll never be able to look at the moon in the same way!
I just went out into the garden with the dog, and was looking up at the moon thinking about this episode. It is a beautiful starry night with a gibbous moon right now (I don’t know if it’s waxing or waning, though!)
The thing about Courtney in this episode was, the Doctor took her there, so yes, he had a moral duty of care for her, and yet he just abandoned her there, with Clara and the astronaut. He behaved inexcusably. He was absolutely reprehensible, and I find myself very much disliking him for that. This may be part of the character arc for 12, but for me he is dancing on the moral event horizon, and the writers will need to do a lot of work to bring him back from the edge.
4 October 2014 at 21:46 #32964@devilishrobby Oops!
Yes I’m still trying to marshal my thoughts about this one because I found it to be so awful, and yet others have said it was great. I’ve not even dared to look at the Graun’s blog, but my wife said that Den of Geek loved it.
4 October 2014 at 21:38 #32962I am so disappointed. There were so many things horribly horribly wrong with this episode’s story that I feel quite saddened.
1) All of the science was garbage. All of it.
2) The idea of letting humanity vote, and then overriding the vote, just because. (And only letting Europe and North America vote, apparently)
3) The Doctor abdicating all responsibility, despite being the only person in the know.
4) If the monsters were prokaryotes then I am a Giant Redwood.
On the other hand:
1) The performances were all top notch, except for Courtney, who was just an improvement over her previous performance.
2) The production design was nice, apart from the CGI monsters, and the CGI shuttle.
3) Clara’s telling off of the Doctor was well written and
4 October 2014 at 21:21 #32958Did anyone notice an anti-abortion vibe to that episode, or am I imagining things?
4 October 2014 at 16:51 #32952@mudlark What is the name of that Ian McDonald short story? It sounds very similar in world-premise to Tad Williams’ Otherland quartet of novels (which I thought were excellent.)
Unfortunately, my only experience of reading Ian McDonald novels was The Dervish House, which was atrociously dull. Set in Istanbul of the near future, it separately followed six or more different sets of unlikeable protagonists, whose stories for the first 3/5 of the novel failed to intersect at all. Not only that, but there were plot points that hinged on the sex of a character being identified from the pronoun used to refer to them, despite Turkish being a genderless language.
Worst of all, it was written in the Present Tense. I hate that. It makes a story sound like fanfic, or like YA fiction. (or a internet forum post!).
After slogging 2/3 of the way through it, there was finally an exciting action scene. Which immediately afterwards was revealed to be a simulation, thus robbing it of any dramatic impact it might have had. I rarely give up on a book after starting it (the only other one I can remember abandoning is Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged when John Galt goes monologuing on for page after page of his economically fallacious drivel), but it was at this point that I decided to give at away to a charity shop.
Present Tense isn’t always a dealbreaker, but I’ve never read a book that I felt wouldn’t have worked better if written in the past tense. I include the Hunger Games YA novels, Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl, and Kim Stanley-Robinson’s The Gold Coast, despite really enjoying all those stories. When I picked up Wolf Hall to give it a try, I had to put it down because I saw that it was written in Present Tense. After just having plodded through The End of Mr Y, I just couldn’t face more of it.
Does anyone else have a problem with novels written in the Present Tense?
2 October 2014 at 15:24 #32866@phileasf – Not forgetting the Time Scoop – which is one of my pet bonkers theories about how Missy is populating the Nethersphere.
1 October 2014 at 22:45 #32845@phaseshift To really admire it I’ve found it beneficial to stop a safe distance away from it. Yorkshire is perfect.
Too true! I lived in West Yorkshire for five years – and it is certainly civilised in a different way to London. Never lived in London, though – I don’t really understand the Time Lord’s constant interest in it. Just have to travel there all too frequently. (Mind you, I do get to see Spancras regularly, which is always a little uplifting)
To any of the non-UK based people on here – if you ever do get the chance to visit the UK – try to get out beyond the M25 for some of your visit (and I don’t mean just Oxford, Stonehenge or Stratford, lovely though they are). It really is like a different country.
Actually, one of the best things about AG Who is that they are more confident in using characters without the RADA tones of the BG companions (honourable exception of Tegan) – it shows that there is a wider variety in the UK that includes Welsh, Scottish and even Blackpool accents!
1 October 2014 at 21:59 #32838@phaseshift He was right, mist descending as I wound my way home, and the apple trees branches are straining. Lots of red about. It feels good to be alive!
I guess you’re not stuck on a miserable commuter train out of London in the clammy drizzle then! Autumn’s my favourite season, but London and the palaver of getting in and out is never pleasant. If only I had a TT capsule to get me there and back in comfort, and always on time!
1 October 2014 at 21:54 #32837@janetteb Please what story is that image above from. That looks like the White Man who gave me nightmares for years as a child. I am assuming that it is from a Troughten era story.
It’s from the 20th Anniversary special feature length episode “The Five Doctors” – a criminally underrated entry in the canon.
I find it most notable for having a dalek with red lights – the only time that this particular variant was ever seen.
One thing I do blame this episode for was ruining my first experience of Sarah Jane – she is so whiny, wimpy and whimpery in this episode that for ages I couldn’t see why everyone thought that she was a strong role model. (Being born in 1975 I was never able to see her adventures when they were originally broadcast). It was only recently, when I watched Classic Who prior to “Keeper of Traken“, that I saw what an awesome upgrade she had been to the immediately preceding portrayal of a female companion.
30 September 2014 at 17:35 #32784@thommck I finally managed to watch the episode last night. It felt very much like an episode of the Sarah Jane Adventures
Exactly! I knew there was something about the episode that I couldn’t put my finger on. The Skovox Blitzer now reminds me of the robots from the SJA episodes The Empty Planet.
Re: the Skovox Blitzer being attracted by artron energy – Yes, I remembered that from the episode, I was just wondering what was the source of the Artron energy in the area. If it was Clara, being a time traveller, then surely the Blitzer would have gone straight after *her*, unless there was some other source of artron energy that was confusing it, and could that source have been related to the Doctor’s previous activities thereabouts.
30 September 2014 at 16:47 #32780@mudlark All I intended to convey was that, in a different story, told in a different way, the Skovox Blitzer could have been developed into a much scarier monster.
Agreed. As a maguffin it was perfectly adequate, but it does have the potential to have been more.
For me, in terms of one-shot adversaries it is a bit like the Raston Warrior Robot – i.e. it would be cool to see it again with some context such as who built it, where it comes from, against whom was it originally designed.
Oh, and can it slaughter cybermen?
30 September 2014 at 16:26 #32778@lisa I was just reading your link to Wikipedia regarding the matrix, and it mentioned Romana. That led me thinking into another bonkers direction: perhaps Missy is in E-space, and is a regeneration of Romana. True, we haven’t seen her with a tin dog, but her referring to the Doctor as her boyfriend is certainly suggestive.
30 September 2014 at 16:07 #32776@bluesqueakpip Well, that’s physicists for you. If you want anything practical doing about the heat-death of everything, you’ll need to ask an engineer. 😉
Perhaps an engineer will be able to reverse the polarity of the universe, and that will cause a Big Crunch?
30 September 2014 at 15:44 #32774@phileasf There is a theory, the reputation of which stands somewhere between semi-respectable and totally mad, called the Omega Point. Google will explain much. In a nutshell, the theory is this:
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Unless someone stops it, the universe will eventually collapse in a ‘big crunch’.
Alas for the Omega Point theory, current observations of the universe indicate that its expansion is accelerating, and that it is unlikely to collapse into a Big Crunch. Instead we will have a long slow drawn out winding-down of everything, until there is pretty much nothing left happening except proton decay, until the eventual heat-death of everything.
(Unless of course Lister finds the jump cables on Starbug and gets a second Big-Bang going!)
30 September 2014 at 14:58 #32771@mudlark @purofilion Interesting that you describe the Skovox Blitzer as a clever and scary monster when the majority of us who have commented on it at thought otherwise. I agree with @serahni that it could have been different if the monster had been the focus of the story; a robot soldier capable of destroying planets, whose apparent default was to identify everything animate as a threat to be destroyed, clearly has potential to be terrifying. As it was, there was no sense of jeopardy;
I found the Skovox Blitzer an odd sort of threat. On first viewing, I quite liked the idea of its design, although it did kind of remind me of the Trade Federation mechno-chair from The Phantom Menace with a little bit of a droideka and Davros added in.
Looking back, all that now sticks in my mind is that the weapons system on it seemed weirdly off-centre, and the voice was less threatening than it ought to have been.
Mind you, an *army* of these things might have a little more impact!
Still, I believe that it fulfilled its function as an unthinking robot soldier to act as a contrast to Danny as a human soldier who is quite capable of either regretting fulfilling his orders, or even disobeying them.
29 September 2014 at 20:48 #32708@mudlark I forgot to add that I am amongst those for whom Capaldi is now 100% The Doctor
I would like to add my name to that list, too! It doesn’t take me long to accept the new guy as the Doctor, usually. In fact, it was probably Sylvester McCoy whom I took longest to warm to. It wasn’t until Remembrance of the Daleks that I felt he was the Doctor proper. All of the others had me convinced by the end of their first story (bearing in mind that the first Who I can remember being broadcast is the Keeper of Traken, and therefore the first regeneration was in Logopolis).
concerning the Doctor’s remarks to Clara about her appearance … I think it is deliberate, if rather clumsy. After all, he cannot really think that she looks the same age as he does, can he?
I agree that it is deliberate. I’m just not sure why. It seems like the kind of thing that a bloke would say to another bloke in a teasing manner, but for a man addressing a woman, it seems like the sort of thing an insensitive (but not malicious) father would say to a daughter, again as a tease.
28 September 2014 at 20:40 #32642@Cath Annabel I just read through the Guardian blog, and the ranting about atheist subtexts was getting rather tedious. The worst of it all was the fact that I couldn’t understand what point the poster was trying to make. It was all about nihilism leading to series cancellation or somesuch.
Anyway – new bonkers theory: Missy is Rassilon regenerated from Timothy Dalton, and is using a timescoop to capture combat veterans from all over time and space to begin a new league of the Game of Rassilon.
That would mean that Missy’s heaven is in fact…
drumroll
28 September 2014 at 15:56 #32625Don’t know if anyone has mentioned this before, but could the references to “Mr. Pink” be an homage to Reservoir Dogs? And if so, could that give us a window into his character history, as the sole survivor of a mission that was compromised by a traitor?
28 September 2014 at 10:31 #32610I was wondering just precisely why the Blitzer thingie was attracted to the Coal Hill School area…
Might it have something to do with the fact that the Hand of Omega was located in the area for many years? Perhaps some Imperial Dalek tech was still around in the school’s basement?
27 September 2014 at 21:45 #32568I enjoyed this one, but not as much as Time Heist, as it was wasn’t as Timey-Wimey. A solid and enjoyable, if not effervescent entry in the series: 3 to 3 and a half stars.
My wife was a little put off, as she said that she found the attitude to Clara, dialogue between Clara and Danny at the end, to be rather sexist, as if she was some trophy to be handed from Space Dad to Soldier Son.
22 September 2014 at 23:03 #32381The diagram, like so many of Moffat’s stories, would be a perfect circle.
Aww – but wibbley wobbley circles are so much more fun than perfect ones!
@bluesqueakpip – Actually, I really like the TARDIS solution to the Ouraboros plot (doesn’t Karabraxos sound a bit like Ouraboros – same rhythm of syllables) – after all, we know that Sexy can be reconfigured into a Paradox Machine!
20 September 2014 at 22:30 #32211I’m confused why she phoned him, presumably she felt guilty about the Teller’s mate in the cell, wanted him/her freed.
I was a bit disappointed about her motivation – I was hoping that she had had some sort of change of mind about her clones, and that she was going to ask the Doctor to rescue them one-by-one as they were each about to be incinerated, as only someone with a Time Machine would be able to do.
Although, on second thoughts, that is exactly the modus operandi of Missy. Thus, my first bonkers theory of this season is to suggest that Missy will have a clone army of Karabroxoses, rather like Palpatine had an army of Jango Fetts.
The “mated pair, last of their species in the universe” seems to be a tired trope to me, although the only other example I can think of at the moment is the pocket universe creatures from Hide. Unless the Doctor and Missy are a “mated pair, last of their species”… ?
20 September 2014 at 21:14 #32199So the chap that got souped was just an innocent bystander? I must be missing something here – was he part of the set up all along, who volunteered to get souped?
20 September 2014 at 21:05 #32197I believe that they teleported to a ship in orbit, where the Tardis was also stowed.
20 September 2014 at 20:55 #32193I really enjoyed that episode.
I have 2 questions though:
1) How did the Doctor know that there would be another bank robber trying to enter the bank at the same time as them? (easy enough for a Time Traveller, I guess, but it wasn’t explicitly pointed out in the episode as far as I remember)
2) If it was that easy to get into the BankTrooper armour, why not do that from the get go?
It still gets 5 stars from me, though, because I believe that these are not insurmountable problems, and I really enjoyed the whole feel of the episode.
Best episode of the season so far.
4 November 2013 at 18:33 #20031Just finished a contract and I now have some free time. Therefore, I thought, what better or more productive way could I spend it than in watching all four parts of TotC back-to-back.
Now, I understand that ,strictly speaking, back-to-back is not in the spirit of this week-by-week episode thread, but I do hope you’ll all forgive me!
A bit of background – I first came across the novelization of this story in the ’80s when I was 11 or 12, and loved it. I was unfamiliar with the 2nd Doctor outside of the Five Doctors story, so it was very interesting to see how he compared with the Doctor I already knew. If my memory serves, in the novel he seemed much more mischievous and avuncular than Davison’s Doctor. I suppose I only had memories of the Cybermen from Earthshock and the 5 Docs, so it didn’t seem out of place to have the post-Invasion Big Ol’ Headphones design of Cyberman on the cover – as far as I was aware, that’s what all Cybermen had ever looked like!
Disappointments – Upon viewing Tomb for the first time, I was struck by how different the set and planetscape were to my imagination. In my mind I had seen a moonscape, with a black sky full of stars, instead of the sunlit Telos daytime of the show. Also, I imagined the tomb’s entrance to be larger and the doors somehow weightier. Also, my imagination made the tomb’s interior far more impressive – dark, foreboding and ancient, as opposed to the swinging ’60s decor of the show. Also aside from the notable exception of Troughton and companions (and Viner), the performances of the actors were no match for the written versions of the characters. On screen, they seemed one-dimensional and underwritten – behaving as cardboard cutouts as opposed to realistic scholars and adventurers with understandable motivations and actions.
Positives – Troughton’s performance was awesome! Of course, @stevethewhistle – I was familiar with the catchphrase “When I say “run”, run!” from the 5 Docs – but it was great to see it in its natural habitat, so to speak. Victoria was much less wussy than I had feared, and Frazer Hines was full of great interactions with Troughton, showing how comfortable he was in the role of Jamie. I was concerned that the Cybermen themselves would be a grave disappointment, but they were better than I had expected (although not quite matching up to my imagination from the novel). The Cybercontroller was truly imposing when compared with Troughton’s diminutive stature. Also, the voices seemed much more cold and emotionless than some of the Davison era Cybermen. @jimthefish – I agree that AG Cybermen have been underwhelming – especially their brainless “Delete” catchphrase which seemed like a redundant retread of the Daleks’ chilling “Exterminate!”
@phaseshift – the appeal to the underlying humanity seemed well used – Toberman could be seen as the dramatic predecessor to Locutus of Borg.
@bluesqueakpip – The power of “lurve” defeating emotionless beings seems appropriate for a ’60s show, but to me it seems unsophisticated for 21st century drama. We’ve moved on from portraying foreigners as conniving traitors and non-white ethnicities as simple servants – perhaps we should also expect more psychological resilience from adversaries. After all, the new Cybermen no longer have the physical weakness to gold that was prevalent in the old series, so weakness continuity is not essential to the species’ character.
@craig – Thank you so much for posting the Curse of the Cybermen’s Tomb video clip – it really makes it clear what the writer was aiming for, and seeing the allusions to ancient Egypt and mummies suddenly gave the story a lot more historical resonance for me.
Conclusion – I really enjoyed the show, and the great performance by Troughton really sold it for me. It was never going to match up to my imagination – but I’m very glad to have seen it.
5 June 2013 at 15:20 #11887Finally reset my password to get back on the site!
My suggestions for a male doctor:
- I know he has been mooted as a possibility before, but surely if he was available Benedict Cumberbatch would be awesome?
- For a little bit of an older look, how about Alan Davies? He can definitely do quirky *and* cerebral.
For a female doctor:
- Lena Headey would be a great choice if she was available – although it might be difficult with all her other high-profile sci-fi fantasy roles past and present.
- Kelly Reilly would also be a good quirky redheaded female doctor with a good combination of fire and ice.
However, I agree with many commentators on this site that it really should be an unknown actor/actress with a strong theatrical background.
I was cynical about Matt Smith when he was announced, and then saw an interview with him where he wiggled his fingers *just so* and I immediately realised that he was right for the part. I am confident that the BBC will choose someone splendid!
28 May 2013 at 20:05 #11244I apologise if this has been brought up before on other threads, but with all the @pennyintheair bonkers theorizing about blood calling to blood, and the heritage of Clara…
Amy and Rory are human, right?
Their daughter is Melody Pond/River Song, who must be human because her parents are human, right?
River gave her remaining regeneration energy to effectively double the doctor’s life, right?
If the doctor’s life has been doubled, and he received half of his life from a human, doesn’t that make him half human? (ducks all kinds of things being thrown)
Anyway, it is my fervent hope that Clara remains unrelated to the Doctor, as I feel she works better as the brave human who risked herself for her friend, than as a family member.
25 May 2013 at 12:34 #10867Personally, I like the notion of the Cushing Doctor as a real rather than fictional entity in the Doctor Who universe.Ergo, for these reasons, I think that my theory of the Cushing Doctor as a ‘suppressed Time Lord, under the thumb of Gallifrey and put into a Groundhog Day’ situation works better.
This means no disrespect to you personally, or your ideas. It’s just my take. I hope that I have not offended.No offence taken! This is the place for bonkers theorising.
I fully understand your reasoning, and you have very good reasons for disfavouring the “simulation” suggestion – in particular it doesn’t pack the emotional punch (in an RTD style way) that a groundhog day-ish entity reliving those events again and again.Regarding the “unreality” of a simulated doctor, based on imperfect knowledge of The Timelord, I suppose I was influenced by the Star Trek: Voyager EMH doctor – he is a simulation, but has become self-aware and has all the behaviours of a sentient entity. I still feel that a simulated Doctor based on the knowledge that the Daleks had after their earliest encounters addresses the key differences between CushingDoctor and TimelordDoctor quite parsimoniously, (of course, Dalek chronology is terribly complicated, so what “early” would have meant in that context is difficult to unravel).
- Why is CushingDoctor human? – Because the twice that the Daleks have encountered the TimelordDoctor he has been accompanied by humans, and on one of those occasions it was on the home planet of humanity. Also, he looks like a human. If it looks like a human, quacks like a human – a fair assumption is that it is *human*!
- Why is the interior of the Tardis so very very wrong? – because the Daleks have never seen the interior of a Tardis, and have no frame of reference other than the human technology that they have seen on Earth after their invasion.
Finally – Why would the Daleks run training simulations? Well, because they are living beings, simply programming them with battle tactics might not be as effective as allowing them to experience it.
24 May 2013 at 19:03 #10738I always imagined that the Cushing Doctor was a construct of the Daleks early in their history, using information that they had actually gleaned from their two early interactions with the Hartnell Doctor, and that they were training simulations for the Daleks to:
(A) Train new Daleks in combat against their most dangerous enemy
(B) Explore “what-if” scenarios to see if these interactions could possibly have been won by the Daleks.
This would explain the differences between the *real* events (as chronicled in the TV series), the glamorisation of the Daleks appearances, and the gaps in the Daleks’ knowledge of this adversary.
24 May 2013 at 14:14 #10698My favourite companion would probably be Amy, as I felt that she seemed to be the most fleshed-out (but not necessarily well-rounded) character to accompany the Doctor.
As my first memory of the show is the Keeper of Traken, Nyssa and Adric were the companions who introduced me to Who. I never really liked Adric (although he really seems to have made a strong impact on fandom 😉 ), but I always enjoyed Nyssa, and I feel that her story could have an interesting continuation.
Turlough was the first *complex* companion I encountered – it was weird having an untrustworthy character aboard the TARDIS. It would be interesting to see how his story has developed.
However, one thing that I would really like to see would be Melanie Bush return as a villain. Bonnie Langford was not given much good material to work with, and her character is quite reviled by fans. It would be interesting to see her control-freak bossiness shown to develop into despotism with the power of a vast and potent spacecraft at her disposal.
22 May 2013 at 19:29 #10392@budinacup – Lorna Bucket (in A Good Man Goes To War) embroiders a prayer leaf with the name of Amy and Rory’s baby. The Tardis translates the name “Melody Pond” as “River Song”, this proving to all that River is in fact the Ponds’ missing baby.
22 May 2013 at 13:08 #10340Aha! – It makes perfect sense that GallifreyClara is a projection of the TARDIS and not a Gallifreyan – that had already been hinted at during Hide when Clara appears to appear to herself.
So, to reiterate our options regarding where in the Doc’s timeline the Hurt Doctor comes from:
1) Pre Hartnell
2) Between Troughton and Pertwee
3) Between McGann and Ecclestone
4) An offshoot of Tennant
5) Between Tennant and Smith
6) After Smith (but not as the Valeyard)
7) As the Valeyard (somewhere between 12th and *final* incarnation – doesn’t specify how many incarnations there are , though)
8) Something else…
My vote goes for (3), despite finding (2) to be an intriguing option.
21 May 2013 at 23:29 #10303At the end of The War Games (series 6), the Timelords exile the Doctor to Earth, wipe his companions’ memories of their travels with him, and force him to regenerate into Jon Pertwee for series 7.
However, there was a serial called the Two Doctors, where Doctor 2 meets Doctor 6, that includes one of the memory-wiped companions and the 2nd Doctor travelling together, working for the Timelords, and looking much older than at the end of The War Games. This has led fans to speculate that there was a period of stories that they refer to as series 6B between The War Games and the arrival of the 3rd Doctor, where the 2nd Doctor and Jamie worked as time agents for the Timelords. This is further corroborated by comments by the 2nd Doctor in The Five Doctors where his shows knowledge of the memory wipe of his companions, despite still looking like Troughton.
My suggestion of a series 6C takes this one step further – Series 7 opens with Pertwee falling out of the TARDIS (in colour for the first time!) – But, we never actually saw his face change from Troughton to Pertwee, therefore there is space in the Doctor’s timeline between 2 and 3 for the Hurt Doctor to exist.
21 May 2013 at 23:14 #10301So are we back to HurtDr being possibly preHartnell (has that one still got legs?), between 8/9, or between 10/11 or he’s after 11?
You forgot between 2 and 3. I see that as the only other good possibility, because we don’t actually see the regeneration.
21 May 2013 at 22:48 #10290I’m still going for Hurt being Doc Nine.
I’ve not visited the spoiler thread – I’ve kept well clear of spoilers since I read the novelisation of Return of the Jedi in 1983, which kind of ruined the movie for me!
Anyway, the way that I see it is that there is room in the Doctor’s timeline in four places for the Hurt Doctor:
1) Before Hartnell
2) Between Troughton and Pertwee
3) Between McGann and Ecclestone
4) After Smith
Additionally, some people have speculated that the Hurt Doctor might be:
5) Parallel to Smith
I am tending towards (3), as are most people on the interwebs, but my reasons for discounting (1), (4) and (5) are as follows:
- A promise can’t be broken before it’s made (despite this being a time travel story), so the Hurt Doctor cannot be before Hartnell;
- Smith seems to know about the Hurt Doctor’s actions, and refers to them in the past tense, therefore it must be an incarnation prior to Smith’s;
- We saw the full regeneration from Tennant to Smith – there is no time for the Hurt Doctor to exist and commit his crimes (unless he pulled a Face of Evil stunt).
That leaves (2) and (3). We’ve discussed (3) a lot, but not (2). I’ve not heard anyone suggest it before but, could the Hurt Doctor be the equivalent to series 6C?
21 May 2013 at 18:19 #10225Apologies if this has been suggested before:
Perhaps we have been treated to A variation on the bow-tie theories mentioned ever since Time of Angels:
Red: Timeline as messed up by the GI
Blue: Timeline as fixed by Clara
Patterned: Original timelineThis ties into the hue change seen in the control room after both the GI’s and ClaraPrime’s intervention leaps.
21 May 2013 at 18:06 #10223I now expect that in every episode until the end of the series, even long after JLC has left, we’ll see Clara, in a crowd scene, on a screen, peeking around a corner. Not participating in the episode, just being close by. (I don’t really expect this, but wouldn’t it be neat?)
Does that mean that the BBC should insert a Clara in every DVD reissue from now onwards, as a kind of where’s Wally/Waldo game for everyone? It might even get all the fans to buy a new set of DVDs!
I think that the Clara first encountered in tBoSJ is ClaraPrime – it just makes narrative sense to me that way, especially as in Hide etc. all the checks that the Doctor makes about her indicate that she is totally ordinary.
However, I am not convinced that SwingClara in tBoSJ: a Prequel is ClaraPrime, because she is having a helping-hand role there.
21 May 2013 at 13:45 #10194@badwulf – no. We see little Clara’s mother, and it’s the same actress who plays Ellie Ravenwood Oswald in Rings. Plus, this little Clara Oswald has a heavy Lancashire accent, as does her mum.
I’ve just checked iPlayer, and at 35.20 there is part of Clara’s second montage showing a Victorian woman holding a baby Clara – this actress looks to me like Nicola Sian, who played ClaraPrime’s mother. I guess this means that we can’t assume that the Clara in tBoSJ: A Prequel is not a ClaraShard, despite her mother being Nicola Sian!
20 May 2013 at 20:30 #10103LOL @badwulf re facial hair. It’s as persuasive as anything else. But just to throw something else into your mix – the Master also had facial hair…!
Precisely…! Evidence of a conspiracy of epic proportions here. Borusa mentions the Master’s parasitic existence of unconventional regenerations – a technique that the Master learned when absorbing River Song’s back when he was the Doctor!
Facial hair *is* crucial!
20 May 2013 at 20:14 #10096OK, new off-the-wall theory about who the Hurt Doctor is, and whether we have seen him before:
Maybe he is the War Chief?
Perhaps his crime was to travel throughout time and space building and training an army to participate in the Time War. When the Troughton Doctor sees him and recognises it as himself, he call on the timelords to help out, because he knows that he cannot defeat a future incarnation of himself without aid.
When forcing Troughton Doctor’s regeneration, the Time Lords lock knowledge of his future as the War Chief – they cannot execute him, because that would cause a paradox – and exile him to Earth.
The timelords then heal the HurtDoctor/WarChief of his injuries, and tell him to continue his work, this time under their supervision. He does so, and builds an invincible army to enable the timelords to win the Time War, but at the last moment, he decides that he cannot hand unchallenged power to the timelords, and destroys all participants in the war, creating the timelock so that he can escape, and stealing the Eye of Harmony to prevent the timelords escaping. In doing so, he is critically injured, and regenerates into EcclestoneDoctor.
My main evidence in support of this is that both Hurt Doctor and War Chief have facial hair. I think it’s pretty watertight…
20 May 2013 at 19:52 #10089@davemorris316 – no apology necessary!
As to Trenzalore being Gallifrey – the Timelords do have form already with the ol’ “move a planet around and pretend it’s called something else” trick with Ravolox, so it’s a definite possibility at this stage!
(Regarding Ravolox – why did the Timelords move it only 2 light years in 2 million years? By my estimate a planet orbiting our Galactic centre at roughly the same distance as Earth would travel more than 1000 light years anyway!)
Regarding your second point above – I think that the Hurt Doctor’s part of the Doctor’s timestream is “locked” somehow, so that is why she doesn’t have access to it. Also, because the Hurt Doctor “broke the promise”, he is not one of the “Doctors” – he didn’t deserve the title.
20 May 2013 at 15:39 #10040@davemorris316 – “We have seen through the last few series what would happen without The Doctor – stars and galaxies disappear, evils run riot through the galaxy. What if the Hurt Doctor (#12 in this theory), old and ancient after avoiding death for so long with no regeneration, realised that for peace to exist in the universe he must be around forever?”
I like this! Perhaps, in order to be around forever, he had to steal all the regenerations from the entire Gallifreyan people, by stealing the Eye of Harmony, and eliminating their ability to generate regeneration energy?
20 May 2013 at 15:32 #10039The promise of “The Doctor” – we have some possibilities as to what it could mean:
A) Healer – the Doctor’s role is to heal the scars in time and space left by his culture’s meddling in the timestreams.
B) Teacher – his role is to pass on knowledge, introduce people to new worlds and new civilisations, or train people to become time travellers.
I strongly think Moffat is going for (A), although the remit of the programme was originally (B).
Or could it be a combination of the two, or something I have missed entirely.
20 May 2013 at 15:05 #10030@davemorris316 – when Clara reappears and hears the Doctor speaking, and then sees the Hurt Doctor looking away, they are almost certainly on Trenzalore, because in the background we can see Trenzalore style gravestones.
20 May 2013 at 14:30 #10016@bluesqueakpip – Dang – I thought I had something there! Although… if Clara’s appearance can be replicated, then surely her parents’ appearance could also be replicated throughout time? Probably not. 🙁
As to whether or not the Clara who jumps into the time stream is ClaraPrime, I would say it *has* to be ClaraPrime, by definition. (i.e. the Clara who jumps is the Clara who becomes fragmented, and is thus the template for each ClaraFragment).
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