[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

It took a great deal of restraint not to make a ‘Prince Albert’ joke, let me tell you. 🙂

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

You misheard the line, @tournikate. It is:

He will have other names before the end…

Storm we already know as one of the Doctor’s names: the Daleks called him ‘The Oncoming Storm’. The Valeyard we also already know – that was the name of the Doctor’s dark side, who appears between his twelfth and thirteenth regenerations. The Valeyard appeared in Trial of a Time Lord in Before Gap Who.

The Beast – that might be The Beast of The Impossible Planet, or a reference to the Moffat script The Beast Below. Since we’re told that the adventure starts on 10th April, I’d take it as a reference to ‘The Beast Below’, which first aired on that date.

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

do you just know all of these amazing facts, like Double and Single Alberts for fob watches?

@Shazzbot – I trained as an actor – and in fact, I do still occasional acting jobs (and I’d do more if the buggers would cast me!). A very important job skill for actors is being able to research a part or a historical period very quickly – so yeah, I’m good at finding out stuff.

But I knew how fob watches were worn from this Victorian murder mystery I was in, playing a highly suspicious maid… 🙂

 

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@miapatrick

I’m not sure that people are quite getting my bonkers theory here 😀

It’s perfectly possible for people in real life to independently come up with the same nickname.

My bonkers theory, however, is that for them to do that in a script must have some significance. Especially since sticking the ‘Souffle Girl’ nickname into Journey would have been exceptionally easy – all you’d need to do is include it in the Doctor’s rant.

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

Yes, the juxtaposition is almost certainly deliberate.

Amazing grumpiness, wasn’t there? And yet we needed to be told very firmly that John Hurt IS playing the Doctor. Whatever Eleven says, we’re looking at ‘The Doctor’.

[Also, the poor man needs a credit. Size and placing of credits is very important in career terms; he’d given up his ‘above the line’ credit to preserve the surprise, so got a full screen ‘introducing’ credit just before the end-credits.]

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@misspawsintime – yes, it’s a strange stress. And combines nicely with the Doctor’s comments to Victorian Clara: “Clara. Nice name. You should keep it.”

It’s as if, at some level, he knows ‘Clara’ is the name she’s chosen – another hint that modern Clara may not actually be ClaraPrime.

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@tiddler – yes, I know the shot you mean.

Fob watches aren’t worn outside the waistcoat. The sort of waistcoat you can use a fob-watch with will have two small pockets, one each side of the buttons. The watch itself will live in one pocket, the chain will be securely hung from or through the button hole, and then the key will be kept in the other pocket – so the whole assembly is both safe (if the watch falls from the pocket, it’ll simply swing on the chain) and decorative.

The Doctor’s wearing a Double Albert chain, which has a T bar to securely hold the chain to the button hole. . The charm might be a St Christopher – very appropriate, if so. The watch, if there is one, will be in one of the waist coat pockets.

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

 I’m still intrgiued by her rash promise (“I’ll always find you” – did she have any idea just what she was taking on?!). 

@scaryb – yes, it’s interesting, isn’t it? Because when I was doing my rewatch, I took a careful look – and Victorian Clara’s mother does look to have been played by the same actress who played Ellie Oswald, modern Clara’s mum.

So her mother wasn’t joking when she said ‘I’ll always find you’. She always does find Clara, and always does become her mother.

But how?

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@scaryb – you know me and my spoiler fixation. Blame it on my gyppy tummy. 🙂 

Anyway, @juniperfish‘s Horus/Isis thing is looking more likely – those last couple of episodes really felt like a pre-regeneration sequence to me. First we’re reminded what regeneration is, then the ominous foreshadowing of death in Name otD.

But there’s that bloomin’ fob watch, which Eleven has been wearing pretty much constantly since River’s death. So I’d still go for them trying for a surprise regeneration at the 50th. And the way to keep it a surprise is to have MS booked for filming – but playing a different part than ‘current Doctor’.

If Merlin could afford John Hurt’s voice talent in most episodes, I dare say Who could afford him for more than one episode – but it would surprise me if he was in more than the 50th.

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@scaryb – and I would point out that Moffat has now carefully established that it’s possible for a Whoniverse character to play a very active part in proceedings despite being extremely dead. 😈

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@scaryb – oy, spoilers!

 

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@satsumajoe – it’s not just not liking Occam’s razor – it would be bad scriptwriting. It would have been so easy to have the Doctor use the nickname in front of Clara – but if there was such an occasion, I didn’t spot it. (If anyone else does, let me know and put me out of my misery 🙂  )

In real life two people might come up with the same nickname independently. In a drama series of 42 minute episodes, two people coming up with the same nickname independently should demonstrate … something. That Clara has more memories than she should? That she and the Doctor have the same type of mind? Something.

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

And if he didn’t do what he did in the name of the Doctor, in whose or what’s name did he do it?

Given the importance the Doctor now attaches to hiding his birth name, whatever the Hurt Doctor did was clearly done under his birth name. And is quite possibly in all the history books (History of the Time War?) under that name.

So what the Doctor is trying desperately to protect is ‘the name of The Doctor’. He doesn’t want that deed to ever be connected with ‘The Doctor’.

I think we’re going to find out that he ordered the death of his own grandchild.

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@scaryb – the gravestones are certainly the same style as at Trenzalore – so Hurt Doctor is not only not running, he’s standing out and staring at the site of his grave.

Which makes me think that part of the 50th will be the discovery that the Eleventh (who’s really the Twelfth) has come up with his private answer to the problem of all these dark hints/the Valeyard etc. He’s planning to not regenerate when his time comes. The Hurt Doctor has meant the Doctor has learnt the hard way what darkness he’s capable of – and he’s not going to risk it happening again. The Hurt Doctor is in the timeline staring at his final battle because he’s the reason it was the Doctor’s final battle.

Which would explain why the Great Intelligence describes the Doctor’s final battle as not ‘the most dangerous place in the universe’ but as ‘a comparatively minor skirmish’.

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@EcclestonTennant – welcome!

“Dumbed down” is definitely the wrong phrase. I have a great admiration for Russell T as a writer, but I don’t find that Series 1 to 4 support the number of rewatches that Series 5 to 7 do – enjoyable as they are.

Series 5 to 7 are more child-friendly. The difference is probably because Steven Moffat is writing the show, in part, with an eye on what his own two boys like. I get the impression they’re his personal ‘audience focus group’. But again, we might find this ‘child-friendly’ focus is part of the S5 to S7 arc; that the Eleventh Doctor’s story was all about the children. 🙂

 

 

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@satsumajoe – ‘too simple’ is definitely a drawback in the wonderful world of bonkers theories. 😀

I can easily believe they both came up with the nickname independently; the question then would be why? It would have been extremely easy to include the nickname in the Doctor’s rant in Journey. So why leave the audience with a situation where the Doctor and Clara both independently come up with the same nickname?

I hesitated over including the 699th Wonder of the Universe, but the point is that after Exillon there are  699 wonders left. Usually when someone is trying to sell something as amazing, they use the phrase ‘8th wonder of the world’, that is, it’s extra to the official 7. So ‘699th Wonder’ implies that there’s now a different number of ‘Wonders’ to the previously official version.

@scaryb – concentrating on Clara was an awful lot better than concentrating on my stomach bug… 🙄

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

 Claricle in AotD uses that phrase as an echo.

@Shazzbot and @timeloop – except, she doesn’t use it as an echo.

That’s why I put it down in ‘continuity’. Clara doesn’t call herself ‘Souffle Girl’ in Asylum – the Doctor gives her that nickname. The Claricle’s response is “Could always call me Oswin. Seeing as that’s my name.”

So in Name ofTD, she calls herself by a nickname she shouldn’t know and doesn’t give to herself. There’s two differences between events in Journey ttCotT and the memories we’re encouraged to believe Clara has retrieved from that memory. Not one – which could be a continuity error – but two. Clara is remembering a) something Clara-Prime was never told and b) something which, as far as we are shown, no Claricle has ever experienced. 😉

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@Shazzbot and others

So, due to various circumstances, I ended up rewatching all of the ‘Clara’ episodes, from Asylum right through to The Name of the Doctor. I made some notes on both continuity and Clara losing consciousness 🙂

Asylum
Continuity:

• Skaro, destroyed in Remembrance of the Daleks, is now restored (if a bit of a wreck).
• The Daleks refer to The Doctor as ‘Predator of the Daleks’ rather than ‘The Oncoming Storm’.

The Snowmen
Continuity:

• The Doctor takes a drink of red wine – which previously (The Impossible Astronaut) he’s spat out.
• The TARDIS, halfway through the episode, is visibly more battered and paint-peeling than at the beginning.
• The control room has changed.
• The Doctor barely remembers the Great Intelligence.

And finally, once you know what’s happening, you can see The Great Continuity Battle taking place. The Great Intelligence comes back to life after Simeon dies: the Doctor is disbelieving – “that’s impossible!”. Then the Claricle manages to melt the Snowmen with her tears.

The two Claricles never faint (though they do sleep) or get knocked out.

Bells of St John
Continuity:

• All the monks lack tonsures.
• The Doctor takes a very strange route from the South Bank to St Paul’s – but it is one which takes him past the maximum number of tourists with cameras.

Clara drops dead when uploaded – but so does everyone else.

Rings of Akhaten
Continuity:

• The combination lock to the temple – which is supposed to be impossible – suddenly lets the Doctor through.
• We see when the Doctor should win – by feeding the planet with his memories – and then it suddenly wakes back up again. This is the point where Clara races to the rescue.

Fainting: she doesn’t exactly faint: both she and the Doctor are knocked against the wall in pretty short order. The Doctor is actually worse affected – it’s Clara who retrieves his sonic; he still can’t move.

Cold War
Continuity:

• For the first time in centuries, the Doctor decides to fiddle with the HADS. It doesn’t go well.
• He also talks about “I’m running her in.”

Clara fainting: again, she doesn’t exactly faint. The explosion happens, she’s knocked forward, goes underwater, sees the sonic in front of her – and loses consciousness. And while she’s unconscious, everything goes a bit to pot. She wakes up with the Captain threatening to shoot them both.

Hide
Continuity: tons

• The Doctor can’t remember how to pronounce Metebelis.
• The Doctor now has a crystal from Metebelis Three – which he’d previously returned.
• The Doctor can’t remember that there’s now no hatstand by the TARDIS door.

Probable GI interference – first the Doctor can’t find the exit to the pocket universe, and then he pauses for a vital second to work out what the banging was. It’s Clara who persuades Emma (via the Professor) to carry on when she thinks she can’t, and Clara who probably persuades the TARDIS to attempt the rescue.

Fainting: none by Clara. Instead, we have an odd moment – as Clara runs through the Doctor’s chalk circle, it starts to smoke. Then it turns into a time well.

Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS
Fainting: Clara doesn’t actually faint – again, she and the Doctor are both knocked out by the explosion. Again, while she’s unconscious, the Doctor’s normal persuasive abilities desert him – it’s not until Clara wakes up that the Van Baalens agree to help in the rescue.

Continuity: two items for later

• In all his ranting, the Doctor never once mentions the nickname ‘Souffle Girl’
• In all their wandering, Clara never once gets visibly dizzy in the heart of the TARDIS. She also never mentions feeling dizzy.

It’s possible the GI influenced the Doctor to take the shields down and so destroy the TARDIS.

Crimson Horror
Continuity:

• The two pictures of the Doctor aren’t the same.
• The Doctor can’t remember why Tegan wanted to get back to Heathrow.
• The hymns are not contemporary.

Fainting: again, the Doctor and Clara both get knocked out. While Clara is plasticised, the Doctor is imprisoned and helpless – the Paternoster Gang are his rescuers.

Nightmare in Silver
Clara stays conscious throughout.   🙂

Continuity:

• the possible influence of the GI is seen in that the Cybermen now use non-humans for parts. Which means the Doctor is vulnerable to being taken over, and used as a Cyber-planner.
• The Cyberman is the 699th Wonder of the Universe when it should be the 700th.

The Name of the Doctor
See Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS for the ‘continuity differences’ between what was seen on screen and what Clara and the Doctor assume she remembers from those events.

Fainting:

• Clara is drugged for the Conference Call. While she’s ‘unconscious’, Jenny is murdered, Strax and Madame Vastra are kidnapped, and less seriously – the kids blindfold the Doctor and nip out to the cinema.
• Clara gets dizzy in the damaged TARDIS.
• The Doctor gets dizzy in front of his time-line.
• Clara faints immediately on being told that the Hurt Doctor is ‘the one who broke the promise’.

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@ljb19 – yes, your post got moved. Not deleted. We have a thread especially for spoilers, so that those who love insider information and those who love wild theorizing can live in (relative) peace together. The Spoilers Thread is kind of like the Dalek Asylum, only with fewer chains and a constant supply of milk (and eggs).

Anything factual should go in the Spoilers thread until the episode concerned has aired on the BBC. And  – welcome. 😉

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@miapatrick – it depends very much on your tutor. I had a great tutor for A215 and loved it. It also improved my writing quite a lot. But yes, it’s hard work.

A363 is the more difficult one – but after all, that’s third level. That was really hard work.

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@satsumajoe – just finished A363 – advanced creative writing.

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@miapatrick – thanks for giving me a near-heart attack regarding the possibility of the OU losing my EMA – just when I thought the nightmare was over.

But yes, I do have an email with a receipt number.

😀

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@craig – I’d stick with the Rose and Crown. I think, to date, it’s the only named pub where one of Team Tardis has actually worked.

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@danmartinuk – yes, the billing of “The Best Doctor Who Episodes of All Time” isn’t exactly great on the wiggle room, is it? 😀

I think the only way you could get round that one would be by starting your blog on Timelash with “In a strange way Timelash is one of the best Doctor Who stories of all time – once seen, it is never, ever, forgotten.” 🙂

Adjust as required.

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@scaryb 10th April 2010 was the broadcast date of ‘The Beast Below’. Perhaps the Hurt Doctor is the Eleventh’s ‘Beast Below’? The terrible truth that he keeps wiping out of his memory?

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@danmartinuk

Oh, another McCoy fan, great. 🙂 Even though he was about the fifth Doctor I remember, McCoy has, ever since, been ‘my’ Doctor.

Yes, I’d go for the old ‘little-known dictionary definition’ ploy. ‘Greatest’ can also mean ‘most important’ or ‘most remarkable’ – and Timelash  certainly was quite remarkable. And The Happiness Patrol was as well – but for different reasons. Sort of an ‘exactly what was the scriptwriter smoking?’ episode.

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@LBJ19 – Wrong thread for spoilers! Spoilers are posted in the spoilers forum ONLY and all discussion of any spoilers stays there.

@craig – can you move post #10871? Thanks.

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@blenkinsopthebrave – two thoughts come to mind.

One is that we’ve now found the meaning: oswin means ‘God’s friend’ and she was indeed the truest friend of the Lonely God. Her surname was ‘God’s power’ or God’s rule (divine power, basically) and she did end up The Boss of the Doctor. 🙂

Two is that we haven’t yet found the full meaning: because when we first meet her, in Asylum ofTD, she uses ‘Oswin Oswald’ – which means she’s using a male name as her first name. Likewise, in Victorian England, Clara has a male middle name. Which they probably wouldn’t notice; giving a child the mother’s maiden name as a middle name wasn’t terribly uncommon, and ‘Oswin’ is a surname, if a rather rare surname.

Or in other words (and you know what I’m leading up to) Clara selects a male name as her user name, talks about ‘going through a phase’ of fancying girls, and thought River was the opposite sex to her. All of this could be Moffat pulling our legs – but there is a pattern here.

Consistent with a subconscious memory of having previously been a man.

 

 

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@phaseshift – but does the Master still hate the Doctor quite so much, now he’s learnt who really turned him into the Master? 😈

We’re still stuck with that ‘Last of the Time Lords’ title, though – a ‘time can be rewritten’ survival of the non-Time Lord Gallifreyans would be a way around the problems that result from the Doctor being permanently stuck with a backstory involving his personal responsibility for the genocide of his entire race.

Not that I’m blaming RTD, or anything. He came up with that backstory when the main problem was to get Nu-Who renewed for Series 2, and no one thought that’d happen. And it worked; it’s just that it’s become like the ’12 regenerations limit’ – an albatross around the neck of the Ancient Doctor.

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

Probably is time to move to 50th speculation. I know I’ve reached the point where I want to discuss the implications of the whole of 7.2 for the next stage, not just last Saturday’s ep. 😀

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@blenkinsopthebrave and @phaseshift

Yes – I watched most of the Gallifrey episodes on first broadcast (barring Trial of a Time Lord, where I gave up early on and didn’t come back until Colin Baker was replaced). I definitely got the impression that the ‘Time Lords’ were Gallifrey’s aristocracy, and there were also a good number of ‘lower class Gallifreyans’.

If that’s the case, then introducing the repairmen might be part of the plotline for the 50th Anniversary. When the Doctor destroyed Gallifrey, he didn’t just kill the TimeLords – he killed everyone – including those who had no hand in what the Time Lords had done.

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

 Is there any discernible difference between how JLC plays the character and/or the writing of the episode for her character changes, before and after that blackout?

@Shazzbot Not that I can see. And she doesn’t actually faint, as such. The sequence of events is: there is an explosion, the boat shifts violently, she’s thrown forward, goes underwater, sees sonic as she’s losing consciousness.

And while she’s distracted by being (probably) whacked on the head and then nearly drowning the TARDIS does her ‘screw this, I’m outta here’ and the Doctor gets into a furious row with the Captain. She wakes up to threats that they’re about to be shot.

Given what we now know, the Doctor’s decision to reset the HADS might be part of the GI’s interference – it takes his TARDIS away when he most needs it – and the GI might also be subtly changing things so that the Captain suddenly becomes more antagonistic. When Clara’s awake, the Captain’s generally much more reasonable.

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@whohar – yes I know. And I was being pedantic because I think the meaning in-show is ‘the smell of rain on dry dust’. 🙂 The Doctor’s soul is full of ice/dry dust – and the rain needs to fall.

It’s starting to: we saw him crying in Name ofTD. But when Clara goes into his time-line, it’s got enough dust for a dust-storm; it’s a ruined desert of a place.

 

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@whohar – Petrichor isn’t dust. Petrichor is rain on dust; the smell of the rain after the drought.

I agree that the Doctor’s time-stream is full of dust. Clouds of dust, in fact. If the only water in the forest is the River, the Doctor’s time-stream is a place where it’s very apparent that the River has died.

Zygons are on the Official BBC Doctor Who site as appearing in the 50th, so do count as a ‘teaser’ rather than a spoiler – though yes, I am one of the people who suggested that their real purpose is to ensure that we can’t be sure any character appearing in a ‘spoiler’ photo is actually that character. It could be a Zygon in shape-shifted mode.

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@scaryb

I’d definitely go for Clara: simply because she’s the only female person on-screen at the time that couplet is spoken/hissed. 🙂

Okay, so: possibilities: 1/It’s meant to be simply a threat. The whole set of couplets are threats, not meant as prophecy.

2/They’re prophecies. In which case, they have multiple meanings.

This man must fall as all men must/the fate of all is always dust.

That’s fairly straightforward in a sense: Eleven will die. Everyone does. After all, he’s looking at his own grave. 🙂

But it could also mean ‘fall’ in a different sense; be defeated – death as a defeat. So we’re back to ‘The Doctor must die’ again; basically the theme of the episode. Everyone must die. Everyone does die. The only person who makes it through the episode without dying/being in their grave is Madame Vastra – and that’s probably because somebody had to carry the exposition.

But everyone who dies in this episode – doesn’t stay dead. They may be ‘dust’, but this episode contains the liveliest set of ghosts in existence; practically a haunted house party.

River’s playing an active part, Jenny is brought back twice, Strax comes back when the timeline is mended, and the Great Intelligence lives on in terms of his effect on the Doctor’s timeline. Clara dies a million times: but is still alive at the end of the episode. If unconscious.

Death is death – but it’s not necessarily a defeat. That’s one of Steven Moffat’s constant themes; everyone dies – but that doesn’t mean everyone loses. Those who die become memories, stories – and if that story is a good one, it’s a victory, not a defeat.

We’re back to rebirth again. The Doctor dies: and comes back to life. The clock ticks over from Twelve (who may be The Doctor Currently Known As Eleven), but doesn’t reach Thirteen. It resets to One.

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@Shazzbot – I wouldn’t go for River, simply because the couplet says ‘girl’. River isn’t a girl – she’s a woman, a married woman. And it’s fairly easy to substitute words that would still keep the rhythm: “His wife who died he tried to save/she’ll die again inside his grave.”

 

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@brotherjohn – yes.

• This man must fall as all men must
• The fate of all is always dust.
• The man who lies will lie no more
• When this man lies at Trenzalore. 
• The girl who died he tried to save
• She’ll die again inside his grave.

Cheery bunch, aren’t they? But it’s an interesting set of lines.

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

Clara fainted after seeing Hurt Doctor, and after hearing ‘he’s me’ from 11

@Shazzbot – not quite. She faints at a much more interesting moment – on hearing 11 say “he’s the one who broke the promise.”

I really must start making a list of where and when Clara faints. 😀

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

Anyway, another possibility is that Clara is an ‘echo’ of the Doctor – the light side  ‘echo’ to the Valeyard’s dark side. (Can’t remember who mentioned this, sorry).

Which would explain why the actress keeps ‘mirroring’ Matt Smith, but would more probably lead to a storyline resolution like the one for the Princess Astra fragment in Key To Time. Clara doesn’t fade back into the Doctor, she gets to stay ‘Clara Oswald’.

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@thommck – she can’t see the Doctor change into her if she’s only a potential Doctor – if her real job is to change his timeline so that he has a future (and not the Dark one). As I said above “If she doesn’t save ‘The Doctor’ she will never be born at all”.

Hence the Pinocchio reference – she’s not a real girl. She’s someone who can become a real girl. Right now she only exists as an echo of the possible future.

Unfortunately, what you’ve just ‘proved’ is that the show has to finish when Matt Smith leaves.

😀

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

12 regeneration’s … That’s 13 incarnations of The Doctor. so there are 2 more actors. either Hurt plus 1. or two more post Smith if Hurt is erased or not the Doctor or whatever.

Exactly. And we know what happens for the 13th incarnation. Somewhere between the twelfth and thirteenth regeneration he becomes the (KnackersYard, Junkyard, nope, sorry) Valeyard.

All these dark hints about the Doctor’s future – and we’ve just discovered that in all probability, that future is his next incarnation. Twelve is fine; Thirteen is Really Dark Doctor. The Beast, the Storm, the Valeyard. And even if that incarnation sees himself as fighting in a good cause, he’s so damn terrifying that half the universe is willing to fight a holy war to make sure the Doctor never reaches that incarnation.

So damn terrifying that Eleven might be willing to fall in a ‘minor skirmish’ rather than become that Doctor.

Moffat’s getting rid of the past continuity as a drag on the creativity of future producers; if he’s going to do that, he has to get rid of those prophecies of a ‘dark doctor’, a ‘Valeyard’, that they landed the show with back in the days when they thought they’d never, ever reach ‘The Thirteenth Doctor’.

So I think he’s making ‘The Thirteenth’ the future that has to be averted.

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@budinacup – the bonkers theory is that Clara is the Doctor’s future. Therefore she will only be played by Jenna Louise Coleman, just as the current Doctor is only played by Matt Smith.

If you want to go on a bit more: we’re told very specifically that the time-line contains the Doctor’s past, present and future. Which is presumably why ‘Trenza-lore’, a trenza is a braid, three pieces twisted together. Trenzalore is where the story of the Doctor’s past, present and future gets twisted.

Anyway, while in the time-line Clara says very firmly – I saw all eleven of you. And then we see Hurt Doctor. The implication is pretty clear; the Doctor’s future is running out. There are only twelve incarnations. We see only twelve incarnations. If the Hurt Doctor is his future, he doesn’t get past Hurt. If the Hurt Doctor was the Time War Doctor (implied by the Doctor’s referring to him in the past tense), the Doctor never gets past the Smith Doctor.

But, there’s also Clara.  Clara, who was born ‘to save The Doctor’. And who can somehow survive the Doctor’s time stream; even if she ends up not knowing where she is or who she is.

So: the bonkers theory. Clara is a future incarnation of the Doctor. And right now she only exists as an infinite number of copies – because if she doesn’t save ‘The Doctor’, she will never be born at all. Like Pinocchio, she has yet to become ‘a real girl’.

🙂

 

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@budinacup – yes, you’ve missed the ‘Clara is the Doctor’ theory. I mustn’t have gone on about it recently. 🙂

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

If everything inside the Doctor’s time stream is actually THE Doctor, how do you explain Clara’s leaf  flying around?

@jose – the leaf itself is reasonably easy – THE Doctor brought his memories of Clara’s life with him. Remember, he watched her grow up.

The better quote is:

There’s only me here, that’s the point.

Which sounds rather like one of Steven Moffat’s extremely precise lines.

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@budinacup – well, personally, I don’t want to know The Doctor’s name! 😀

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

@budinacup – we won’t hear the name. We got told in this episode, his name in itself isn’t important. I’ve always thought that the reason he uses ‘John Smith’ as a human name is because his birth name is the Gallifreyan equivalent.

He was born John Smith from Gallifrey. He chose to become ‘The Doctor’.

The arc isn’t, and never has been about his birth name – it’s about the name of ‘The Doctor’. Doctor Who? Is ‘The Doctor’ a soldier? A mighty warrior? A mass murderer with ethics?

Or ‘the man who makes things better’?

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

I right in thinking that Eccleston was credited as ‘Doctor Who’ rather than The Doctor in the end credits?

@osakahatter – several of the actors have been credited as ‘Doctor Who’. William Hartnell was credited as Doctor Who. David Tennant got sniffy because, as he correctly pointed out, the character’s on-screen name is ‘The Doctor’. To rephrase, Hurt is the thirteenth actor to have officially played the character of ‘The Doctor’ in the television continuity.

I think the symbolism of Matt Smith’s Doctor continually making self-referential jokes about ‘Eleven’ is that he’s wiped the Hurt Doctor out of the continuity. The Hurt Doctor doesn’t count as ‘The Doctor’. He’s not worthy of the name. I am the Eleventh incarnation to live up to that name. I am the Eleventh Doctor.

He’s lying to himself. On screen, and in plain sight. All the time.

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

If an unethical act is required to save all life does that make it ethical?

@janetteb and @scaryb – ooh, entire books have been written about that one. Generally, no. See, that was easy. 🙂

The phrase ‘the lesser of two evils’ sums up most of the books. An unethical act required to, say, save the universe is still unethical, but in an imperfect world it’s recognised that sometimes the choice is between ‘bad’ and ‘worse’. And you have to distinguish between ‘the poor bloke who had to press the button’ and the people who really made the original unethical choice (i.e. the Cybermen, by deciding to cyberise people – without giving them a choice about it).

So I think that if Moffat is going to discuss ‘the poor bloke who had to press the button’, we’re going to find out that – somehow – he either didn’t need to press it (the Doctor’s lying to himself when he says ‘I had no choice’) or that he did – but there was something else he could have done as well.

The man who lies will lie no more

When this man lies at Trenzalore.

If that’s another prophecy, are we talking about the Doctor’s death? Or we talking about a situation where – once the Doctor tells a lie at Trenzalore – it’s his final lie. He’s run out of lies; only the truth is left to him.

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

 I suspected that Clara’s story about creating the fish to keep her company was a reference to our very own fish.

Well, if in S8 someone is referred to as ‘bonkers as a bathful of fish, we’ll know’ 🙂

Not sure I’ve mentioned this on here – it may have been T’Other Place – but John Hurt is the thirteenth actor to be officially credited as ‘The Doctor’ in the television continuity. Because the First was played by both William Hartnell and Richard Hurndall. Whatever his actual ordering in the continuity, he’s got to be the Dark Doctor.

[Bluesqueakpip @replies]

On a minor note (Trenzalore is starting to make my head hurt) – am I to take it that the never-explained switch between TARDIS desktops between Angels in Manhattan and The Snowmen was a result of The Great Continuity War?

 

[Author]

Posts