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17 January 2015 at 11:01 #37346
“Why oh why don’t they just call this the Barbara Wright show?
Exactly. We have Coal Hill School appearing in more than the first episode, we have English and Maths teachers instead of History and Science, the schoolkid(s) they have to take care of can go home – and poor old Clara has to play Barbara AND Ian because her ‘Ian’ isn’t up to it. 😈
But Barbara and Clara would recognise each other. They’re playing very similar roles. 😀
16 January 2015 at 17:22 #37328By the way, for our UK members, BBC3 has the World Tour followed by a repeat of Deep Breath from 7pm tonight.
14 January 2015 at 14:43 #37307@brewski – as a variation on Capaldi Doctor meeting himself, I’d like him to meet Caecilius again.
The rediscovered Troughton, The Enemy of the World, has a ‘Doctor meeting his double’ plot.
14 January 2015 at 12:33 #37305It’s been done – most recently with Waters of Mars. However, ‘very dark Doctor’ is now considered the kind of story you can only tell just before regeneration.
They tried it just after regeneration with Colin Baker; it didn’t go well. They also tried it, to some extent, in Deep Breath (where the Doctor appears to have momentarily abandoned Clara). That they carefully established by the end of Deep Breath that the Doctor does have Clara’s back shows how much they learnt from the Baker 2 problems.
Trot over to the Edge of Destruction comments for some insight into the darker character of the First Doctor. At that point, Ian and Barbara were the ‘hero’ characters; the Doctor as hero was a slow development throughout Hartnell’s tenure. Personally, I’d say that Ian and Barbara taught him how to be a good man and that part of the Capaldi Doctor’s uncertainty is that he knows that he isn’t ‘good’ by nature.
14 January 2015 at 12:12 #37304Filming has now officially started on Series 9, and the first official details are on the BBC’s Doctor Who site.
As ever, don’t look if you don’t like any advance news – but this is from the official site, so we can presume that the eagle eye of one S. Moffat glared at it before it went out. 😀
13 January 2015 at 10:58 #37279@scaryb and @Purofilion – the subtitles definitely say “I can’t take you back, Susan.”
Theorise away!
12 January 2015 at 00:28 #37255Episode Two
Having left the audience with someone trying to strangle the Doctor, we find out it’s Ian. Who promptly faints. Meanwhile, it appears that the sleeping pills supplied by the TARDIS may be the first in the long list of dubious, often hallucinogenic, substances that the Doctor ‘just happens’ to have with him. I think he may have inhaled. 😉
Anyway, Gallifreyan sleeping pills may also have an emergency ‘stop working if someone screams loudly’ function, because Ian’s scream-and-faint wakes everyone. As Barbara tries to wake Ian without revealing whether he’s a boxer or Y-fronts man (boxers, or possibly William Russell looked at the length of the dressing gown and added a pair of football shorts), the Doctor threatens to kick Ian and Barbara off the TARDIS. Mid-flight.
Where the heck did they get that alarm? It sounded like nothing so much as the TARDIS blowing a raspberry… no wonder they later went with the Cloister Bell. But at this early stage, they’re still using the fault locator. If one bulb lights up, there’s a fault. If everything lights up, the ship’s going to fall apart.
At which point, the Doctor suddenly realises that this isn’t some evil plot by Ian and Barbara. I like the way that Hartnell has the Doctor instantly change attitude; that ‘change emotions in an instant’ is something many of the later actors picked up on for the Doctor’s character.
Incidentally, Susan’s nerviness at the idea of the power escaping from the console may have been one of the germs of RTD’s decision to make the heart of the TARDIS have semi magical powers. And there’s also a very strong implication here that the Doctor really doesn’t understand the TARDIS. As he later admits, he failed the TARDIS piloting course. He had to learn as he went along.
Here, he first says that ‘his machine’ can’t think, then starts to admit that perhaps it can; just not in the way that we do. Which is why the poor old TARDIS is trying to communicate by means of symbols, clues. Actually talking to people is something she had to learn. [It’s since ‘The Doctor’s Wife’, after she became Idris, that the TARDIS seems to be able to explain things verbally. Essentially, it seems to have been decided that being Idris taught the TARDIS how to talk, though even now she only tries when things are going distinctly pear-shaped].
In this case, she resorts to pictures. They’re going towards the Big Bang, or at least the formation of a star. Which the Doctor finds very exciting. Other people have to remind him that possibly that isn’t a good idea. 😉
Finally, Ian uses the ‘try and remember what you were doing when you last had your keys’ routine on the Doctor. Who remembers that he used the (neatly labelled) Fast Return switch to get them off Skaro quickly. When he pokes at it, he realises that it’s stuck. Fortunately, a stuck switch is something he can mend.
The fault locator, it seems, can’t tell if a switch in the ‘on’ position should be ‘on’. The TARDIS, however, can.
Finale. Barbara can really, really hold a sulk.This may be a quality that the Doctor recognises.
He certainly knows how best to apologise. 😀
11 January 2015 at 23:29 #37254I don’t remember this from first broadcast, since I was busy with other matters at the time. [Crawling. Apparently I decided it was vastly overrated, and bum shuffling was definitely the way to travel]. As with many of the early stories, it continues directly from the end of the previous story – in this case, The Daleks. It must have been a bit puzzling if you’d watched the previous episodes, because Barbara is having trouble remembering who Ian is, and Susan is having trouble remembering who Barbara is. William Hartnell, meanwhile, is having a peaceful snooze on the floor. Unconsciousness acting, always tough. Just try not to snore. 😉
From the continuity point of view, Ian refers to one heart for the Doctor: ‘his heart seems all right’. They hadn’t invented the idea of ‘two hearts’ yet.
But, retconning madly, Ian’s talking in such a spaced-out way, I’m not sure this can really be taken as definitive evidence that the Doctor only had one heart until his first regeneration. Especially since we now know, from the Smith and Tennant Doctors, that it’s possible for one of a Time Lord’s hearts to stop. And that they will often collapse when that happens. 😀
We don’t often see outside the main console room, even today. Again, the totally different architecture that we see each time the story does go outside the console room has now been retconned (Into the TARDIS) – the TARDIS has an architectural reconfiguration system and can change things on a whim. Here, we see a machine that’s an early adopter of healthy eating: delivering water or milk, only. Despite telling Susan it’s empty.
And the TARDIS doors open and close by themselves. Also, Ian Chesterton’s many skills include knowing how to do a fireman’s lift. Presumably that was handy for recalcitrant pupils…
Those are some really vicious-looking scissors; I’m not surprised they later agreed the scenes where Susan threatens Ian and Barbara with them went a bit too far. On the whole, the writers and cast seem to have gone for ‘Pinter’ in the early part of the first episode; I think 1963 was when Harold Pinter had just hit the big time. There’s an air of seemingly normal lines with an undercurrent of menace that reminds me quite strongly of early Pinter.
Once the viewscreen comes on the acting gets slightly more normal – as if the characters are almost relieved to have external weirdnesses to cope with. And there are indeed external weirdnesses; the doors, the electrified or non electrified console; the screen that displays a sequence of images instead of what’s outside and the incredible melting clock. And watches.
Oh, and nice job, Barbara. Has any companion since managed to rip the Doctor a new one so effectively? Pity he knows where the sleeping pills are.
Although someone was one jump ahead.
10 January 2015 at 11:29 #37192@craig – ah, it sounds like everyone’s got the spam. Jennylve1, just signed up today.
10 January 2015 at 01:25 #37166I was going for ‘drunk’, myself. On his Mum’s sherry.
9 January 2015 at 22:59 #37155@craig and @blenkinsopthebrave
The reason The Gunfighters was suggested was because if you bought The Awakening (which we rewatched last time in the Peter Davison slot), The Gunfighters came with it. Why, nobody knows. But that means I now have a copy of The Gunfighters, together with anyone else who had to buy the DVD of The Awakening. 😉
Edge of Destruction, strangely, is actually cheaper if you buy The Beginning box set (which is currently cheaper still if you go to the BBC Shop). Great set; it has An Unearthly Child, The Daleks, and Edge of Destruction.
From my point of view: whichever. I have both. 😀
I wouldn’t say that the ‘Lost in Time’ DVD, with its one or two episodes from lost stories, is a good place to start, a good introduction, or anything but an add-on to other (complete) stories. I well remember watching Episode 3 of Enemy of the World as a young(ish) fan and not thinking much of it. When the entire story was finally restored, it was a revelation.
I have noticed that a few people on the Deep Breath and Last Christmas threads are already considering a rewatch of Series 8.
9 January 2015 at 01:16 #37116you will get lost/confused/not sure of what century you actually live,
A quick check I’ve always found useful (and one they could probably have done with in Last Christmas) is to ask myself ‘in which reality do I have to pay the gas bill?’
Sadly, that usually turns out to be the right one. 😀
6 January 2015 at 23:56 #37040@scaryb True – but I think Capaldi was always running at a big disadvantage for this one. Voting opened when they were still only on Mummy on the Orient Express. And closed when they were still on Dark Water…
6 January 2015 at 23:38 #37036@scaryb – the list of very fine actors who also didn’t make the shortlist from the longlist includes Sir Derek Jacobi, Anne Reid, Keeley Hawes for her stunning turn in Line of Duty…
6 January 2015 at 23:01 #37030It’s not now the only ever TV story. I suggest we discuss The Night of The Doctor. Okay, I know it’s not technically BG, but we could discuss if it’s deliberately written as a BG/AG link.
If we must do That Movie again, could we at least also do Crimson Horror and Nightmare in Silver? Then discuss which episode is representing the movie period – the one where the Doctor is dipped in plastic or the one where he’s been taken over by the Cybermen? 👿
5 January 2015 at 23:07 #37000I wish we had seen a tiny bit more of Ashley, it’s not clear why she would be a candidate for dream-crabbing. She seems to live alone in a beautiful home. Maybe, like Clara, she lost someone?
I didn’t get that one until the second viewing, either. She’s in a double bed. She’s sleeping on one side, as if she’s accustomed to sharing it – but the dream crab falls back onto an empty pillow.
The other clue is the one in the dream, when Santa says that her parents wanted to buy her a toy microscope – but he went for a real one. I’d guess that, in real life, her parents bought her the toy. Since they didn’t support that early ambition to be a scientist, she’s now an account manager. So her life is financially successful, professionally successful – but she’s now alone, and she’s not even in the career that she really wanted to be in.
Shona put a big tick besides ‘forgive Dave’. I wonder if Ashley’s going to decide on a change of career.
5 January 2015 at 10:46 #36969@ichabod
That rather reminds me of the Sunday School lesson I took – where my little bunch of 7 and 8 year olds ended up confidently explaining to the Rector that Heaven was ‘in another dimension’.😀
5 January 2015 at 10:15 #36968although for a moment she tried resisting the Doctors attempts to wake her
Don’t think she did. She was the person who stayed longest in the dream state – but I think that was because she wanted the Doctor to wake her up.
She still believes in fairy-tales at heart; Sleeping Beauty has to be woken by her handsome prince. But also, I think, it was that if it was all a dream; no Danny and no Doctor – she really didn’t want to wake up from it.
4 January 2015 at 12:02 #36922@darkanian
There doesn’t have to be anyone who has to get out originally – it’s what the Doctor Who team have started calling a ‘Moffat Loop’, a classic time-travel paradox. The Doctor escapes because he’s a time-traveller able to travel back in time from after his escape to before his escape. After his escape, he’s able to travel back to give Rory the screwdriver, which sets in motion his escape, which means he can travel back in time to give Rory the screwdriver…
If you want a look at a diagram for a Moffat loop, try the Fez Diagram in my blog for The Day of the Doctor. You think the Pandorica’s mind-bending? That Fez was never even made…
1 January 2015 at 23:11 #36814Oh, and one minor thing: I love the running gag about this Doctor’s clothing choices always ending up making him look like he’s a stage magician.
Even when the poor bloke tries wearing a hoodie. It just changes the look to ‘street magician’. 😉
1 January 2015 at 19:49 #36802Given that the classic path of an addiction (in Clara’s case, to lying) is that you can’t break free until you’ve reached the rock bottom moment where you know it’s change or die, I’d say it’s unlikely that Clara’s arc is continuing downwards. Her ‘rock bottom’ was the dream-within-a-dream, when she chose to stay with Danny knowing that it would kill her.
That’s the liar’s rock bottom; the point when they are even lying to themselves. Not just to her parents (Time of the Doctor), not just to her various employers, not just to her boyfriend(s), not just to the Doctor. The the dream-within-a-dream is the point where Clara decides to live in the fantasy. There’s nothing real left; not her boyfriend (he’s dead), not her own flat, no mention of her job. Everything’s a fantasy.
There is, especially, no mention of the Doctor – she quite firmly rejects his attempts to break into her dream, until he finds a method that she can’t ignore.
Once the Doctor breaks in, reality starts creeping back – represented by Danny. Whether Danny is ‘real’, or a near-perfect memory doesn’t matter. He died trying to save her. Dying now would be a final betrayal. Failing to live would be a final betrayal.
The final scenes, where she’s still sleeping and can’t wake up until the Doctor wakes her, are full circle from Time of the Doctor. There, Clara saves the Doctor (again) by doing something he can’t do – asking for help from the Time Lords. Here, the Doctor saves Clara (again) by doing something she can’t do – by herself, she can’t wake up from the fairy tale.
Incidentally, it’s entirely consistent with the various legends and fairy tales (notably Brunnhilde and Sleeping Beauty) that Clara can’t wake herself up, but needs her ‘prince’ to do it for her. 🙂
1 January 2015 at 16:33 #36795Even in a dream, she’s still Being The Doctor.
Yes, she is. It’s probably part of being such a good liar; she learns by pretending – until the pretence becomes the truth. She admires the Doctor, copies him, pretends she is him …
… and becomes somebody who can take his place. The Magician’s Apprentice indeed.
That, of course, is how an apprentice learns. They observe, imitate, attempt, and finally reach a point where knowledge of their craft is part of them, and they can use it to create new things (rather than just imitating what’s gone before).
I wonder where Moffat’s going with Clara? Is her ‘leaving the Doctor’ arc going to be a case of her acquiring her own means of time-travel? Or is she going to be one of those companions who leave because they’ve found a place and time that needs them to stay and be the Doctor?
1 January 2015 at 13:58 #36792@purofilion, @jimbomcmaster, @scaryb and @all
The entire debate has now been turned into a blog, so it can be read in one place.
All 15,000 words plus. 😀
Happy New Year!
1 January 2015 at 00:35 #36764Happy New 2015 to everyone and may it be for all of us a year that is better than last year.
And a toast to all our absent friends.
2015 is the year of Green Wooden Sheep
Somehow, I’m sure that sounded better in Chinese.
31 December 2014 at 21:56 #36754Also if we are going to do a Capaldi retrospective we might include some non Who. (Crow Road? Local Hero?)
Ooh, that sounds a plan. He’s been in loads, but The Crow Road is now available on DVD at a very reasonable price. He was also in the TV version of Neverwhere, which was written by Neil Gaiman. Also available inexpensively on DVD.
And, of course, there’s Local Hero – which I think a lot of people here like?
30 December 2014 at 23:16 #36692Arise, Sir Doctor of TARDIS…
John Hurt has been given a knighthood in the New Year Honours List.
30 December 2014 at 21:35 #36680@scaryb
If you have recording facilities, it’s on in the wee hours of Wednesday morning on BBC2 at 03:35. That is, in about six hours.Yes, 3.35 am. Dunno if that’s the one with somebody doing the BSL translation, or something.
30 December 2014 at 21:09 #36675Okay, finally been able to catch up with Episode 4.
I’ve not much to say that others (especially @phaseshift) haven’t said. I’d agree that this is an important story; mainly because it was one of those stories in Series 26 that made you think there was more to come.
And then, there wasn’t. But if the show had ended on Trial of a Time Lord, I don’t think it would’ve ever come back. Instead it ended on the McCoy/Cartmel era, where they’d found a direction and had stuff they wanted to say. Despite the low viewing figures (they were placed against Coronation Street), it gave everyone the feeling of a series abruptly cancelled, not one that had come to a natural end.
Very much the multiple layers that the AG Who would take up. Together with massive time loops, people creating themselves, clues to something you couldn’t possibly guess in advance, and a Doctor who really wasn’t human. At all.
@jimthefish Evil Since The Dawn of Time is traditionally obsessive about stuff. The story about the mismatched socks is a Pratchett invention, I think, but you can certainly delay a vampire by leaving a heap of millet at its grave (if Chinese, try a sack of rice). Possibly the Doctor reckoned chess was more classy. 😉
30 December 2014 at 20:45 #3667330 December 2014 at 19:01 #36667@rob I’m quite surprised at the general dislike for Children of Earth – I rated it as very good up until the last episode. Which, admittedly, was a bit pants – but honestly, one bad episode out of five?
Its major flaw was that it would’ve worked much better outside the Whoniverse; it had a very high ‘Where the Hell is the Doctor?’ quotient.
From the point of view of a ‘Three faces of Peter Capaldi’ rewatch, however, Mr Capaldi was superb.
30 December 2014 at 12:37 #36660what is the situation in regard to camp fires?
The camping ground has to allow it – I’m not certain if they need a special licence. Quite a few do, because obviously they’re popular with organisations who take kids on camp holidays. Nothing quite like the childhood experience of sitting around a real campfire.
You have to remember; the UK is one of the biggest islands in the world but it’s still a rather small, crowded country. There are a LOT of people trying to use our open spaces; everyone having campfires would damage the environment quite quickly. So there has to be a limit – and most people do indeed use gas stoves, or paraffin/petrol stoves if you’re backpacking light.
29 December 2014 at 23:58 #36636@juniperfish – I agree it’s still possible – and Missy would certainly find it incredibly funny to use the Doctor’s own daughter against him. If there is such a plotline, I’d expect Alex Kingston to be booked for a return; I don’t imagine they could explain it without her. There would probably be a perception filter on the Oswald family, so that they’d all forgotten that Ellie or Dave couldn’t have children and that Clara is actually adopted.
However, the thing that makes me doubtful is the point that the TARDIS does not like Clara. Obviously, that’s because Clara was invited on board by Missy, and Missy is the person who turned the TARDIS into a paradox machine – the TARDIS probably hates Missy. But there’s another possible reason for the TARDIS’ resentment, as well. She loves River; but the Doctor’s ‘daughter’ is by his Mistress, not his wife.
Question: does Missy ever seriously try to kill Clara in Death in Heaven? Or does she treat Clara like the Doctor throughout; leaving her in dangerous situations to escape if she can?
29 December 2014 at 16:08 #36619Personally, I would love to go back and rediscover some of the lost fragments of early Who.
I think we have time for both. 🙂
29 December 2014 at 15:12 #36617Okay, as a suggestion for that long haul between now and Series 9:
We’ve had a Moffat retrospective, an RTD retrospective, how about a Three Faces of Peter Capaldi retrospective?
His three incursions into the Whoniverse. Fires of Pompeii, followed by Torchwood: Children of Earth, followed by The Day of the Doctor, The Time of the Doctor and Series 8-plus-Last-Christmas.
That’s twenty-one episodes in total, which would take us through to nearly June even if we started this Saturday. 😉
Other suggestions are available (I seem to recall that The Gunfighters is up for grabs, since it came in a box set with Earthshock).
29 December 2014 at 13:00 #36614I doubt she ever was thinking of leaving but even if she were it is the story that we have now that matters not what might have been.
Quite.
I suspect that she always had the option to leave at this point, just as Peter Capaldi had a one-year contract for this first year. Peter Capaldi because it was a big risk (both for him and for the BBC) and an older Doctor might not have worked. Jenna Coleman because – while I’m pretty sure Moffat cast her with his ideas for the next Doctor in mind – she and Peter had never worked together.
So the story line for Series 8 was planned with the possibility in mind that Jenna might take up her option to leave. But at some point after she confirmed she was staying, they decided it would be fun – with that storyline – to spread the rumour that she really was leaving.
I’m going to take a slightly different tangent to @juniperfish‘s ‘Clara as daughter/grandaughter’ idea. I think Clara’s the Doctor’s daughter – but emotionally, metaphorically, not biologically. We saw in The Name of The Doctor that she really was born only because she had to be born – to save the Doctor. The Doctor is the person who is truly responsible for Clara’s existence.
He’s her Space Dad. He’s the reason she was born.
[Since it turns out that Missy is the Woman in The Shop, she’s equally responsible. Essentially, Clara is the ‘daughter’ of the Doctor and Missy. 😯
Which is why they both call her ‘My Clara’. ]
Looking at the storyline in that light, you can see how it repeats and repairs the story of his first granddaughter. Susan travels with the Doctor – but while he thinks he’s looking after her, she’s actually trying to look after him. She’s his ‘child carer’.
She falls in love, he lets her go to live a normal life – by leaving her behind, on Earth, with her boyfriend. And a promise of return. But he didn’t – he stayed away, for centuries.
With Clara, she’s his ‘daughter’, she acts as his ‘carer’ (an adult, this time), she falls in love.
It’s pretty obvious throughout that the Doctor (this time) doesn’t think the new boyfriend is good enough for his Clara; he doesn’t think Danny’s that smart (PE). He also doesn’t think Danny can be trusted (he dragged Rory on board – but he kicks Danny off. When he’s thinking of something to distract Clara, his first thought is of Danny having an affair).
But, Clara is determined – and like Susan, the struggle between staying with Danny and staying with the Doctor is tearing her apart. So, he tries to repeat the same action he took with Susan. He leaves her for her own good.
The final dream-scene with Old Clara is probably the Doctor’s dream, because it repeats what he’s done with Susan, with Sarah Jane, with the Brig and with Jo (we only saw the reunion with Jo in the Sarah Jane Adventures). He leaves them for their own good (maybe not the Brig) and then he stays away until they’re old.
And it’s a mistake.
But this time, with Clara, he gets the chance to repair that mistake.
29 December 2014 at 11:17 #36610I am not sure that Clara’s step-mother would tolerate an open fire, “smoky, messy things.”
This is one of those cultural differences things. The Clean Air Act means that having an open fire in the UK is a) relatively rare and b) aspirational. It’s like having an Aga.
28 December 2014 at 23:55 #36565Thank you for opening up the conversation.
I am beginning to wonder whether part of the reason for the Robin Hood episode was to introduce the audience to the idea that characters who are fictional in our universe might be real in the Whoniverse.
This means that we can’t be sure whether or not Santa is real – in fact, even by the end of the episode, we’re still not sure whether Santa is somehow real, since Shona, Fiona and Ashley were all in the dreams and yet were also real.
Yes, the rivalry between Santa and the Doctor was very like the rivalry between Robin Hood and the Doctor. For the same reason, I think. This incarnation of the Doctor hates being the guest star in someone else’s legend.
28 December 2014 at 22:43 #36559Are you aware that the story is yet to be filmed and you are judging/dismissing something that hasn’t been made yet?
Are you aware that you signed up six hours ago, and you haven’t posted on anything apart from the possible return of the Celestial Toymaker?
What are your other theories or observations on Last Christmas? While people do often have favourite theories, it is usual on this site for people to make observations on more than one topic.
28 December 2014 at 21:59 #36555real magic because it doesn’t exist
Have you watched Battlefield? Or the Shakespeare Code?
Any sufficiently advanced form of magic is indistinguishable from technology
[The Seventh Doctor]
Also, as Santa Claus’ species is listed as ‘Guardian’, one would come to the logical conclusion that he would be The Celestial Toymaker
Where is his species listed as Guardian?
28 December 2014 at 21:38 #36553@purofilion
firstly you’d need to explain ‘meme’. It is a truism that the concept is poorly understood by some.
Frankly, I think the concept of ‘meme’ is poorly understood by everybody; it’s a pseudo-scientific theory that ideas and concepts can be self-replicating units of transmission.
But in popular terminology (according to the dictionary), it’s “an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture.”
So ‘bring back the Celestial Toymaker’ is a meme; it’s an idea that spreads from person to person within Doctor Who fandom. I think I’ve seen it crop up in comments on the Guardian every year since I started reading @danmartinuk‘s blogs, and it is weird. Because, what? Of all the BG villains that could be brought back, they want the one that only people in their mid-fifties and above or a serious fan would even know about? The GI made more sense; it tied in with the rediscovery of a rare Patrick Troughton story.
A rare Patrick Troughton story that people really did want to see, because as well as a chance to see Patrick Troughton, the Web of Fear introduced the character of Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart (who even the kids knew about).
The only way the Celestial Toymaker would return would be if a writer gets a stonkingly good stand-alone idea to reintroduce the character. I can’t think of any other reason to bring him back – apart from the three missing episodes being retrieved.
28 December 2014 at 21:17 #36552One of life’s little mysteries, the Celestial Toymaker fan club. It’s not even as if it was a much loved story at the time.
So, what are your other theories or thoughts on this episode? Not involving the Celestial Toymaker?
28 December 2014 at 20:49 #36546What is it about the Celestial Toymaker?
Is it that story that he was due to return in Season 23 of the BG series? Because it’s like some kind of weird meme; every year someone starts saying ‘they should bring the Celestial Toymaker back’. To shouts of ‘who the heck is the Celestial Toymaker??’
The GI was brought back, I think, partly because the production team were informed fairly early on that the retrieved Web of Fear was almost certainly restorable and partly because it was appropriate, in the 50th Anniversary year, to have the Doctor face off against a BG villain.
[And also because a disembodied entity is fairly easy to recast. 😉 ]
If, by any chance, the three missing episodes are retrieved, then we might get the Toymaker back. Otherwise, I’m with @pedant. The chances of bringing back a one-story villain from a story with only one surviving episode, from forty-eight years ago, with the original actor now dead, are – minimal.
@nine9, you’d better keep your fingers crossed that they find those episodes.
28 December 2014 at 15:41 #36531the most unbelievable “yes this is a dream” moment was Clara standing outside at the North Pole. In her nightie.
Yes. Though I did notice that in a number of shots she was dressed in a nightie … AND a dressing gown, AND a coat, AND some lovely warm sheepskin boots. 😉
28 December 2014 at 09:18 #36522@Serhani
It was a joke. The maths was dream-maths; most of the answers were wildly wrong. She’s an English teacher; they can’t do maths.*
She did get some of it right when she was asking herself the questions.
*Apologies to those English teachers who can do maths, especially since I’m one myself. But – admit it – most English teachers can’t. 😀
28 December 2014 at 09:08 #36521it was a great beginning except for the part where the creature invasion scene was cut out.
The invasion may have consisted of six creatures. I think at one point, the Doctor theorises that the dream crab got him first, then traced Clara through him. That suggests that – somehow – they don’t just eat people’s brains, they travel along their dreams and memories.
The others are described by the Doctor as ‘collateral damage’. They may have been vaguely connected with the Doctor somehow, or it could be that – to keep the Doctor trapped in a dream – there would need to be real people to rescue. The danger to Earth was that, if the crabs all succeeded, there were enough now on Earth to start breeding. Yummy!
I note that the character who most recently referred to ‘collateral damage’ in her ongoing game with the Doctor is Missy. 😉
28 December 2014 at 00:38 #36511In all of the very best monster stories the monster is not the story, but a device through which to tell a story.
Exactly. In the story, I note that:
- Clara has just lost Danny, and is so grief-stricken that staying in a fantasy world and dying seems a practical option.
- The Doctor has just been betrayed by Clara AND his former best friend, failed to find Gallifrey and has solved Clara’s inability to choose between him and Danny by leaving her.
- Shona has clearly had a massive row with someone called Dave, and her flat is such a mess it strongly suggests she might have kicked him out (and feels miserable about it).
- Fiona Bellows is in a wheelchair.
- We don’t know about Ashley – except we do know that she feels she might have been a scientist if only her parents had taken that ambition seriously (they gave her a toy microscope, in the dream Santa gave her a real one).
Why did the dream crabs snatch these people? Because for all of them, there was a real temptation to just give up and drift away into the fantasy world.
Which is what the story was about: helpful dreams – versus a fantasy world that stops you living in the real one.
28 December 2014 at 00:16 #36510@purofilion
How could Cordelia survive that?
Weirdly, she actually did. I don’t know whether it was a story she’d told on set, or that they decided the scar was noticeable enough that it would be more convenient to just ‘explain’ it.
But that scene is essentially a repeat of an accident she had as a child, with the injury in the same place. :-~
27 December 2014 at 13:53 #36489No, it’s definitely not Clara’s flat.
She could possibly have moved to a big old house with a Victorian street lamp outside – we know perfectly well that the Doctor has a habit of making sure that his After Gap companions have enough money to live on, and tends to miscalculate by a spare million or so. (Probably an after-effect of meeting Sarah Jane years later and realising, from that, that he shouldn’t just dump them and walk off).
It’s just that, it being Christmas, and having seen her family visit her – I’m guessing that this time, she’s at her Dad’s. The Christmas tree has a family sized group of presents around it and the house is much too big for one person – but about right for Dad, Stepmum, Gran living-in and a guest-room for Clara to visit.
Something where we’ll have to wait and see in Series 9, I think, unless it gets mentioned in an interview.
27 December 2014 at 13:38 #36487By the way, did anyone get the sneaky Titanic reference in the ‘old Clara’ dream?
And I learned how to fly a plane.
27 December 2014 at 12:37 #36484I mean The Doctor explained how the dream crabs work.
Yeah. In the dream. To be precise, in the nightmare. That’s very much a nightmare description, don’t you think? That teeny tiny pain is the result of a big hole in your head (half an inch? It’d be messy), and an alien creature slurping on a straw at your brain.
Yet we’ve seen from the Teller that some alien creatures don’t need a physical wound to turn your brains into soup. And in the final scenes of everyone waking up in real life, no-one has a massive hole in their head.
So I reckon the dream description is the Doctor making it up as a sort of nightmare-explanation for the slight pain he can sense.
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