Excellent episode!  The music was too loud and madcap, but we turned on CCs halfway through, which helped immensely.  Here are my (largely disjointed) thoughts:

First, as has been mentioned but bears repeating, the Skovox was a means to an end — a minimally believable danger to provide the structural framework for an episode primarily about c…[Read more]

Actually, I like the way you describe it as other time lines that ultimately disappear when they are changed — like one basic timeline that is constantly being overwritten.  That’s pretty close to my viewpoint as well.

Someone in the Time Heist thread (I forget who) described the TARDIS seeing all of time as one static form in four (or more)…[Read more]

@Barnable you’re wonderfully clever and have clearly put a lot of thought into this, but you’re making my brain hurt.  (Or “making me giddy”, as Two would say.)

Your scenario certainly works (I think), but I find it much simpler to think of the closed loop idea.  Doctor and Martha receive a packet of information from Sally.  Later, they happen to…[Read more]

@blenkinsopthebrave – But if the Woman in the Shop is Susan at 65 and the picture in the Black Archives is Susan at 15, Clara wouldn’t necessarily have put two and two together yet.  Could have just been “she looks familiar…”  And I think we’ve established that, while Clara remembers some of what happened in Journey to the Centre of the TA…[Read more]

@blenkinsopthebrave – Jinx!  Here’s your Coke.

I think it’s entirely possible that Susan could be The Woman In The Shop.  After being left behind, Susan could have found her way back to Earth in the 60s, and simply come the long way round (or rather, for her, a short cut).  Therefore, for her, it hasn’t been another 1500 years since her grandfather left her, but only 50 years.  That way, Ca…[Read more]

I’m confused — doesn’t he do the “call me” gesture at Karabraxos, not Psi?

OK @BooksAreTheBestWeapon (nice name), I’ll bite:

1. I’ll use anything, but I’ve parked myself here since I discovered it last week because it’s delightful.

2. Read (and occasionally respond to) the Bonkers Theorizing on the most current episode.  Also, I’ve been slowly reading the responses in the “Faces of the Doctor” thread, which are truly f…[Read more]

@thommck – spot on!

I’m perfectly ok with closed loops (or acausal loops as @PhileasF so eloquently puts it) because I assume the Doctor has a more nuanced view of time and paradoxes than I do, and if creating one’s own time loop doesn’t bother him, it won’t bother me either.

When I feel close to head-asplode time, I just think back to this…[Read more]

@Bluesqueakpip – I LOVE the solution of the TARDIS rerouting the call to the most advantageous time/place.  A very elegant solution.  My working hypothesis had been that the actual heist happened 40 years ago or so (long enough ago for Karabraxos to have gotten old in the meantime) and the Doctor & Clara went back in time to prepare for the h…[Read more]

@Barnable – Excellent Bonkers stuff, but I think that this sort of paradox (the storyline only happens because someone at the end of the storyline goes back in time to make it happen) is a Moffat staple — see the entire episode of “Blink”, and the creation/existence of The Crack.  So I don’t think they have any problem whatsoever with the…[Read more]

AAA!  Moffat, you sneaky boy!

I just watched the “DW Extra” video posted upthread by @wolfweed.  Right around the 10-minute mark, the actors playing Psi and Saibra are asked what they think their characters are up to now.  The actress playing Saibra says something like, “And I think we see the Doctor and Clara from time to time.”  And they cut…[Read more]

I loved this episode!  I figured out the identity of the Architect about halfway through, but it didn’t lessen my enjoyment of the episode.  A couple minor comments, some of which have already been mentioned upthread (apologies for not @-ing where credit is due):

• Why did he bring Clara?  I think Clara is there to vouch for the Doctor after th…

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@Bluesqueakpip – True!  Actually, if you haven’t read it yet, Charlie Higson’s excellent short story The Beast of Babylon (from the super-fun 11 Doctors, 11 Stories collection) tells the story of where Nine goes between Rose turning him down, and coming back to give her a second chance.

@Arbutus – I’ll agree that, regardless, Nine seems to be…[Read more]

@Arbutus – Lots to think about, but I want to address the minor point of whether Nine was fresh out of the box.  I think the “Rose” episode is actually a bit inconsistent on that point.  On the one hand, Clive has a website full of sightings of a Doctor with Nine’s face throughout history, suggesting that he’s been mucking about for a while.  …[Read more]

In my view, the contrast between Faust and UrFaust suggests that, while the self-sacrificial characters appear to have been saved, they have in reality been damned. Missy is clearly Faust (or maybe Goethe; not really clear on that point– thoughts?).

But no; if the Doctor is a Faust character, perhaps Missy is in fact the devil, and her Nether R…

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Thanks, @Bluesqueakpip.

@RickGreen – I still can’t quite tell from your posts whether you are merely very confident in your theory, or whether you have some sort of outsider information that informs your conclusion.

If it’s the former, fine.  I just disagree.  The photo is blurry and could be any number of things.  The behavior doesn’t seem at all like Strax to me…[Read more]

@RickGreen – I don’t know if you’re joking or not, but the thing on the bed is entirely the wrong shape to be Strax.  The head is too narrow.

Greetings from Baltimore, Maryland!  I am so pleased to find you all!  I happened to find this forum while looking for more people to talk about “Listen” with, and here you all are!

I am another relatively recent newcomer to Who (“Whocomer?)  I did not watch Doctor Who as a kid, despite being the prime age during the Baker/Davison years and de…[Read more]