[geoffers @replies]

i just had a thought, completely contrary to my previous thought, about what might be in the box…

what if the doctor found a way to make a zygon shape-shift PermanenT? (sort of like how he managed to stabilize the rebel flesh?) maybe those zygons who wish to live on earth, peacefully, will be given the option of being assimilated, and human in every way… except their origins? the zygon-osgood apparently didn’t mind always being in “human mode.”

hmmm…

[geoffers @replies]

that beginning: what, no, um “spoilers!” for anyone who hasn’t seen the 50th anniversary movie?! LOL…

i enjoyed this, realizing it’s only the first half of a nice chess game. i knew that clara had been zygonized by her reaction (or non-reaction, as it were) to the parents’ handling of the upset boy, but i didn’t expect the betrayal and the reveal at the end…

although i’m wrong 99% of the time at these guessing things, i’m going to put forth my theory about what’s inna the box… the transmitter/translator thingy the zygons used to hide themselves in the paintings (in the 50th). when the dust has cleared, i predict the doctor will use it to grant the zygons (who want to leave earth) the ability to do so. i remember that he offered to find a home for the empress of the racnoss and her children, and i believe he will do the same here, for the zygons who do not wish to live “in hiding” on earth anymore. how many of them will be left… that, i cannot predict! but i bet there will be some help from inside the zygon uprising, as well, to aid him in defeating the ones who are all for conquering the earth…

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@cybercat – i also think missy is involved, somehow. re: this exchange…

me – “just this once, you can’t run off like you usually do.”

doctor – “how do you know what i usually do? we’ve met once, in a viking village, i didn’t give you my life story…”

me – “it’s true, though. isn’t it? you’re the man who runs away.”

doctor – “ohhh. who told you that?”

that’s almost a direct quote of missy, from ‘the witch’s familiar,’ when the doctor is removing clara from the dalek. (if that’s what happened, of course. she may still be in there!)

that’s a very creepy thought, that me might be a clara imposter, at some point. i can’t see how it would work (even with missy’s help), but they do look so very similar. and there is precedence in the who universe, that the doctor can be fooled by mere appearances, if the circumstance allows. the rani did so to mccoy’s doctor, at one point, impersonating mel (if memory serves correctly)…

but as to why he refuses to take her away? he refused the young woman soldier in ‘into the dalek,’ merely on the basis that she was a soldier. surely he prefers companions who aren’t killers?* (or psychopathic killers, like missy, which is what he’s fearing has happened to ashildr?)

* at least in AG who. leela was a “savage,” who had surely killed, and four took her on, anyway. maybe the time war has made him wary (and weary) of humans who are too quick to take a life?

🙂

[geoffers @replies]

upon re-watch, i took extra notice of this line, from me to the doctor, when she’s telling the story of being accused of being a witch: “fortunately, i’m very good at holding my breath.”

an echo of clara! it almost sounds as if me/ashildr is talking up her abilities, maybe applying for the “job” of next companion?

also, @kharis , her highwayman character was given the name of “the nightmare.” perhaps a none-too subtle clue that she may, indeed, live long enough to become (to have been? lol) “the nightmare child?” it doesn’t strike me as too fantastical to think that the doctor might have accidentally “created” one of the worst things to happen in the time war. although, i’ve always imagined the nightmare child as much younger than 18-ish (like the boy in “the empty child/the doctor dances”). still, great bonkers-ing…

[geoffers @replies]

@ichabod

Did anyone else see the transfer of Clara and Ashildr to Odin’s space ship as something effected by half of the broken sunglasses, triggered by Ashildr being told to “think, open!” by Clara?  I thought the Mire had sent them up with the warriors, but that does raise the question: why?  They’r not aggressive, testosterone carrying males.

my take on this was that the mire had gotten what they came for, and were about to leave, but then the activation of the sonic device caused them to take notice (which, in a doctor-esque spur-of-the-moment move, is what clara intended, i think). “strange alien tech, out of place” sort of thing. so they grabbed ashildr and clara, so their leader could deal with them…

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@bluesqueakpip

thank you, i had no idea it’d been done before. i have watched a good deal of BG episodes, but ‘frontios’ is not one that i remember. i guess i could tardiswiki it, to refresh my memory…

@lisa

i’m certainly not magical, then. all my pockets produce are tons and tons of lint! (perhaps this might come in handy, if there is a magical creature that subsists on lint? lol)

[geoffers @replies]

what a fantastic start to the new season! i was fearful that moffat’s other commitments might have somewhat watered down his plans for our favourite (time and) space faring alien (and perhaps last series was compromised, a bit). but i’m glad to see the show running full-speed, from the start…

my only contributions (everyone else is doing a great job of helping me understand what is going on, and i thank you all for that!), are:

i don’t think the sonic is gone, for forever. i’m betting something will happen further along to necessitate its return (perhaps the sunglasses get accidentally sat upon by clara, or get lost in the tardis’ couch cushions, or something)…

am i the only person who immediately thought, “where the heck did missy get that sturdy rope?!!” it didn’t manage to knock me out of the story, mostly because that whole scene was extremely entertaining, and very insightful (regarding the doctor’s cleverness). but do time lords and ladies have pockets that are bigger on the inside, or what? 🙂

and lastly, the tardis’ new ability to re-assemble itself from its scattered atoms. a new feature that the doctor has come up with on his own (perhaps by working out calculations all last season, on blackboards)? or just a big cheat?! lol… it was a great effect (and we all knew it hadn’t been blown up), but the d in HADS used to be “displacement,” right? now it’s (also?)  “dispersal?”

 

i am so happy to have the show back… and this forum!

[geoffers @replies]

<span class=”useratname”>@purofilion</span>

have never been a meatloaf fan, but he does sound a wee bit past his prime there. so sad when a singer begins that slide toward being obsolete. the young lady sounds much better, but i have no idea who she is. i’m more familiar with celine’s version, but i’m not a fan of her, either. i’m more a kate bush/tori amos guy. maybe if harry connick jr. covered this song, it would resonate with me a bit?

but it’s a big ol’ world of music, i’m just in a different hemisphere, i reckon!

🙂

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@serahni

wishful thinking on my part, as well! i was thinking she is chameleon arched way back before ‘the name of the doctor.’ it could help explain how a mere human could enter the doctor’s time stream, and survive, when the great intelligence could not. time lord dna hiding away, waiting to be reactivated. and last season, she seemed to be being trained to be more doctor-ish…

hmmm….

 

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@purofilion

http://www.amazon.com/Kahootz-01001-S-Spirograph-Deluxe-Design/dp/B009VE38CI

 

they weren’t just for girls… or, if they were, i didn’t care! those were fun!

🙂

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@devilishrobby

“I can’t shake the feeling that perhaps there is something going on that we can’t/haven’t seen yet…”

indeed. upon a second watch, i realized that the daleks knew exactly where/when the doctor was hanging out, because bors is one of their “puppets,” like the ones in ‘The Dalek Asylum.’ so, what reason do they have for keeping this knowledge of his location from davros? or were they just waiting for missy and/or clara to show up? if so, why?

or was this just a sloppily written scene, meant only to get the tardis to skaro? (i fervently hope not!)

🙂

[geoffers @replies]

“Did something happen?”

“No.”

“Was it recent?”

“Yes.”

i think the “that creature” she refers to is missy, and the quoted dialogue is a reference to the (seemingly/apparently?) false gallifrey coordinates she gave the doctor, the last time he saw her alive. possibly, he’s taken that lie quite personally, and is still trying to recover from the disappointment? it obviously wounded him deeply (as was intended), so i think he may be working through those emotions, still, and may not be ready to see miss missy, again, just yet…

if this prologue has anything to do with the last series, that is. it could simply be related to an event that hasn’t happened yet (for us, the viewers)…

one more week!!!!!!

gahhhhh!!!!

:- )

 

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@denvaldron @jimthefish

i think torchwood could come back (with jack as the lead, or a completely different cast), but only if it is first revived in the next series of who.  that would be the easiest way to generate interest in it (as with its first go round)… promotional tie-in to the larger franchise.

but… would moffat be willing to help bring it back? he is featuring u.n.i.t., these days, so i think the odds of a rebirth of torchwood (on telly) to be almost zero…

audio and print torchwood could go on just as long as audio and print doctor who, as the fan base is largely the same (i suspect)…

[geoffers @replies]

@camilazanoni –  coincidentally, strangely, i just finished a re-watch of these two episodes. not so strangely, i came here to see what everyone else has said…

my take on how pete knew to rescue rose, is that he was able to see through the breach in the walls of the two universes, as it was collapsing. (we don’t see this from the doctor/rose p.o.v., because the cybermen and daleks being sucked to their deaths block “the viewing window,” so to speak?) so he was able to see that she was in trouble, and was able to calculate where to run to, before using his teleport thingy. which also implies that it was an exquisitely timed (and terribly heroic) feat! almost doctor-ish…

as to why we weren’t shown that they could see through the breach? well, either rtd didn’t think of that, or… maybe he decided that it would give away the surprise rescue?

whatever the “real” reason/explanation, i don’t mind tying up loose ends like this, now and then, if only in my own mind! it’s one of the things, along with this forum, that makes the show a somewhat interactive experience…

🙂

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@nerys – I guess the “three months” Post-It note was a classic case of misdirection. Now I’m not sure what it meant. But we saw Clara neither pregnant nor dying

misdirection, or…

it could still simply be the amount of time that passed in danny’s and clara’s relationship, in which he believed she had quit travelling with the doctor, and she had really been lying to him, instead? that’s how i look at it, now… 🙂

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@fatmaninabox – I know it may seem a dodgy reason to believe they’re still dreaming but I find it hard to believe that a single, relatively new teacher in London could afford such a place.

there’s that, but wasn’t it also a point that there should be a wound on everyone’s right temple, after they had survived an attack by a dream crab? none of the survivors seemed to have a single scratch on them, from what i could see!

it could be an oversight of the production crew, or…

to be continued?

🙂

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@timelordnessa – So many dreams within dreams and Santa is real. So real he gives 12 his wish even though 12 never acknowledges that “Santa” is real.

i don’t know that i would read it that way. i think it’s ambiguous, at best. perhaps the doctor’s mind was working through the dream crab problem, at breakneck speed, and merely used an “ideal santa” as the means to clue him in that something big and deadly was happening? in the same way that hallucinogenic pollen created the doctor an alter ego (the dream lord), santa might also be an alter ego? we never actually see “santa” in the “real” world, only the tangerine on clara’s windowsill… which anyone could have put there.

and the doctor did say something to the effect that the dream crab that attacked him probably got clara from his mind, and that’s how one was able to get her (and the others were just collateral damage). perhaps the whole thing sprang from his mind, after he was attacked…

but it would be really trippy if next season started out with a story that brings these same characters together, and at the end they are attacked (individually) by the dream crabs!

also, the setup for this story reminds me of ‘time heist,’ where the memory worms were used to bring together the bank robbing crew, and reality wasn’t necessarily what it seemed…

[geoffers @replies]

@juniperfish – why have the bit at the start where dancing girl tells us and her companions the Professor put his hand on her knee unwanted – unpleasant and unnecessary. And did we really need it spelled out for us in words that the dream crabs were face-hugger tributes?

i think that the inappropriate hand on the knee was to set up that it’s ok not to like this guy (and later he’s munching the turkey leg so very disgustingly). then the payoff, that he’s the only one who doesn’t make it out alive. they establish that he’s not so nice, so that when he dies, it’s not an emotional moment…

i was wondering, when shona is going over her christmas day list at the end, is the guy she’s forgiving (“dave”) the same as creepy professor dude? did she know him in real life, unlike the others? or was she broken up, and alone on christmas day, from her boyfriend (“dave?”), whom she needs to forgive? i really hope she comes back, and that we learn more to her story in the coming season (like oswin from ‘dalek asylum’), because she was the most real of all the “dream characters,” for me…

as for the obvious ‘alien’ shout out, i think that was more for the younger audiences, either to make it obvious that it was an homage (and not just “stealing a plot”), or to point them in the right direction for a movie they should check out in the future, if they really want to be scared silly!

i really, really enjoyed this episode. the mixture of christmas and doctor who fantasy was perfect, unlike last year’s “a town named christmas,” which was totally buried by the super serious regeneration story. not enough whimsy in that one for it to feel like a true christmas episode, but this one had whimsy all through it (just like the robin hood ep, in fact)…

and the happy resolution was needed, after the slight downer that was the season finale. i do wonder, though- along with @fatmaninabox -whether clara and the doctor are really out of the dream crabs clutches, just yet? i can even see how a few of the past season’s episodes could be explained as dream crab induced, especially ‘listen,’ with its obvious blackboard parallel…

ugh! it’s going to be such a looooong wait till ‘the magician’s apprentice!’

happy wholidays, everybody! 🙂

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@bluesqueakpip – ah, thanks for the clarafication™! sadly, tis not the first time i’ve misunderstood things…

since i re-watch every episode at least three times (to try) to get all the details, perhaps i should re-read all doctor-related articles three times, as well?

😉

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@bluesqueakpip – i didn’t know that. at some point he had to have (at least verbally) committed to a fourth season, since some of the scripts were written for his character (such as ‘flatline,’ according to the writer’s blog). i wonder, then, how long he waited before letting them know he’d changed his mind?

if i recall correctly, there was a bit of a scramble to hire his replacement so that filming could begin on schedule. or that might have just been my take on the whole “is he staying, is he leaving” media blitz surrounding the 50th anniversary special (“will there be a regeneration in the 50th, or in the xmas special?” and so on)…

also, was the whole “darker doctor” idea purely a result of the need to regenerate, then, or was moffat’s original idea to take smith’s doctor down that path? it would have been very weird to see smith’s happy, child-like portrayal turned onto its head. i love capaldi’s portrayal, but i don’t know if i would have wanted that from smithy!

🙂

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@lisa – don’t put a space between your @ symbol and the name of the person you’re including, it doesn’t work. some will miss your mention, by not being obsessive like me!

example – @lisa works, @ lisa doesn’t…

🙂

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@stormintheheartofthesun – Have I gone too far?

no, indeed! i would love for river to be able to return for the odd guest spot, here and there. i don’t know about clara being her child with the doctor, but anything’s possible! since this series was originally intended to be smith’s last, there is evidence (in ‘the name of the doctor’) that such a scenario might have been in the works. river was linked to clara, and ended with her usual, mysterious “spoilers!” maybe smith’s doctor would have used the nethersphere to give river the full “saving” that he didn’t give her in tennant’s run?

@lisa – i see the reflected phone box in the windows of the other, but i can’t say for sure that there’s smoke coming from it. it looks more like warpage due to that one pane of glass, as the pointy spire things at the top go all wavy, as well. it is worth noting that the kid who says “look at that” is pointing “at” that reflection (if you look at it as a flat image). if it’s a purposeful digital effect, then might they have been drawing attention to it? 🙂

also, in the previous scene, when the doctor whispers to osgood, it’s totally obvious that capaldi has knee pads under his trousers! i guess using a stunt double for being drugged to your knees was just too expensive?! lol

[geoffers @replies]

ah, and another point i wanted to make, that i don’t believe has been addressed (apologies if it has)…

even if missy was shot by the cyber-brig, and killed (not teleported, somehow), perhaps her mind was automatically uploaded to the nethersphere? where, assuredly, she had a backup plan to get herself out, again? this raises as many questions as the little boy getting another body, the biggest being, is regeneration something that happens primarily in the mind? would it still work on whatever body missy downloads her consciousness into? i would think, yes, since river wasn’t a time lord, but regenerated a couple of times, too…

or, perhaps a backup human body can be made, using the cyber nanotechnology, from the initial saved information when a mind/soul is uploaded (i.e. before emotions are deleted, or edits are done)? but without any cyber components left in? (or, maybe the boy that danny returned to clara is partly cyberized, and we just don’t know, yet, to what extent?!)

hmmm… come on, fellow hive-minders, help me figure out this returning from the dead/nethersphere stuff!! lol…

🙂

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to clarify the osgood returning scenario, it will only work if the real, human osgood returns, and the zygon-osgood was the one killed by missy. if the host template dies, a zygon will revert back to its natural look. that’s why they keep the host template alive (if i’m remembering correctly?)…

@mudlark – as for the master surviving the rassilon episode, in ‘the end of time,’ was it obvious that the master was pulled back into the time lock, along with the time lords? i don’t remember it that way. i thought there was some wriggle room that the master could have been knocked unconscious and/or crawled away before the doctor regained consciousness? if he wasn’t pulled back into the time lock, he might have died from the battle, and regenerated into missy. he (she) did, after all, spend a great deal of time setting up the nethersphere, collecting the minds of dying people throughout all of time and space…

if missy is not lying here –indeed! “there is always collateral damage with you and me,” and the line “you saved me!” may be the only two true things said in this exchange…

but, now that i think about it, it makes more sense that she found another way out (probably through the crack on trenzalore). otherwise, how/where would she have gotten the time lord tech (nethersphere), and another tardis to use for all that zipping about in time and space (as intimated, but still not definitively shown). he didn’t have his own tardis in ‘the end of time,’ as i recall, he was still trying to steal the doctor’s…

😉

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@arbutus – Nor does her death have any lasting impact on the story or the Doctor. He likely regrets her death, but it doesn’t seem to change him in any real way, or alter the outcome of the story.

i have to disagree. i think when he picks up her glasses, there’s a bit more to his attitude than “this is just another senseless killing.” true, he had little personal interaction with her (in this incarnation), so far, but she was known to him, from the (relatively) recent zygon adventure. but he did compliment her about her nice bow tie (whilst surely realizing its significance), and even hinted that she might be a candidate for some adventures in time and space. that doesn’t seem like something this incarnation would do randomly, without any sincerity behind it…

consider also that he was intrigued by her intelligence, as a science person working for u.n.i.t. (a post he has held, himself), but not a soldier. if the situation hadn’t been so dire, he might certainly have wanted to have her hanging about, much like he wanted the engineer to stay on board in ‘mummy on the orient express.’ she was someone just clever enough, with whom he could interact for a little while…

lastly, though, my personal opinion is that the doctor’s decision to kill missy himself began with that scene in the airplane. it escalated quickly to a no-brainer, only upon his meeting cyber-danny, and missy’s casual attempt to kill clara. he was forced to accept some culpability for missy’s actions, just as clara pointed out. having let the master live on, after so many previous horrible encounters, he was brought to the ugly realization that he would have to punish him/her, himself, in order to keep clara’s hands clean of doing it.

if missy hadn’t killed osgood and kate in such an off-hand, lunatic way, i think the doctor could still have bargained with clara that, somehow, some other punishment would be suitable. and in saying, “you win,” the doctor is acknowledging to missy that she has finally created the perfect trap for his conscience, one he can’t escape. she has forced him to act in a manner totally against his sense of right, in order to keep clara untainted by their shared history…

🙂

or so it seems to me! i might be overthinking it, though. i do that much too much. on a lighter note, though, did no one else think it cool when the doctor did his free fall, using the tardis key as a sort of homing magnet? i was reminded of ten’s heroic leap, in ‘forest of the dead,’ when he dove into the cal mainframe core-thingy, to upload river’s consciousness…

😉

[geoffers @replies]

i had the thought, after losing osgood, and (seemingly) losing kate, that the doctor was truly ready to destroy missy. or at least resigned to it needing to be done, which is why he wanted to do it so that clara wouldn’t have to?

or am i projecting my own emotions onto his character? i would have come to the same conclusion as clara! although, she doesn’t yet know about osgood and kate dying, so she’s only reacting to danny’s sacrifice, i think?

 

 

[geoffers @replies]

@pedant – No, a blue bolt came from behind and to the right of the Doctor.

you beat me to it! although, the doctor did push a button on missy’s device. it made a beeping/clicking noise, and nothing appeared to happen, then the blue bolt struck her.

also, he was holding the device at the wrong angle? the two round, red “death things” are on one side, her “smartphone” screen on the other. he was pointing the “top” at her. so, there’s wriggle room as to whether he knew something other than disintegration was going to happen, anyway? (just another big lie to clara?!)

🙂

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@drben – Of course, there are so many things I want from this episode, it’ll be impossible to get them all into a 44 minute show.  Is this one going to be longer?

yes, it’s (at least) an hour…

http://www.kasterborous.com/2014/10/death-heaven-one-hour-finale/

[geoffers @replies]

@macphisto96 – I’m not sure if we’ll get any type of story about how the Master escaped either before or after Gallifrey was shifted to the pocket universe this week.  It seems there’s a lot of story to tell beyond that.

i agree, in this series. i think we might get more hints this weekend (beyond “the one you abandoned, the one you left for dead”), but moffat will probably keep us in the dark for a long time about what happened to the master after his battle with rassilon, just to tease us. i’ve said many times, i do hope michelle gomez is committed to the next series, for one or two stories, at least…

but look on the bright side… we get more opportunities for out-of-this-world theories! and that’s half the fun! 🙂

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@badwulf @thebrainofmoffat –

If there has been enough time for a memorial to be built, why is Danny only just now being inducted into the nethersphere?

I was also wondering that…. I figure it’s just a true plot hole, and will never be referred to or resolved.

danny’s consciousness has been lifted from his brain at the instant of death, and transferred to a machine. perhaps the gap between the transfer and his waking up in seb’s office isn’t instantaneous? perhaps there’s some processing to be done, or some checking to make sure his brainwave functions are stable enough? or whatever…

or perhaps there’s just a whole lot of other dead peoples’ consciousnesses being processed, and he had to wait in the queue? like being stuck at the d.m.v.?

or, the most probable thing: the tardis took clara and the doctor back in time a bit, to the mausoleum, at the very instant that danny woke up in the nethersphere…

🙂

[geoffers @replies]

@macphisto96 – i disagree.

as i proposed before, perhaps clara was on the near side (inside) of the gallifrey painting, keeping back as the dalek was destroyed and propelled through the glass. after the doctors exit the painting, she grabs the edge to look through, still hiding behind that wall, to make sure the coast is clear (of dalek debris, or whatever other possible danger).

try it with a doorjamb in your house. as you stand to the left of the doorway (the side nearest the camera in the gallifrey painting), grab the door frame with your right hand, lean out (don’t step, just yet) to have a look around, and as you poke your head further through the doorway (without letting go)… imagine there’s a camera right beside your hand.

also, look at the scene with zygon-kate and the vortex manipulator (as i proposed before). screen grab when clara reaches, with the same right hand, to pick up kate’s phone, and you’ll see that the rings are the same, and the sleeve of her jacket is the same…

i know you want it to be missy (and that would open up many cracking possibilities for the current story), but it’s not. it’s just a narrow focus angle, or whatever technical camera term applies, of clara’s hand as she’s leaning out of the painting…

if you can screen grab one shot of missy’s right hand from this series, and she’s wearing those exact same rings, i will concede that you could be right. but, i’ve already looked, and missy only has one ring on either hand, and neither of them have that little “pearl” looking thing on them. they’re both flat bands…

😉

[geoffers @replies]

@craig – have you considered writing a show along the lines of a “who-y horror picture show,” by any chance? let’s do a time warp (and a gender regen), indeed… 😉

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@barnable – i can make most of that pregnancy theory work… BUT…

i think you’ve reached the pinnacle of bonkersising, if you really think the doctor and missy are going to have a child!!! think of what you’re saying, man! half the who fanbase lost their minds when missy was revealed to be the master regenerated… do you think moffat would want to kill those poor souls, now… and the rest who remain?!!! LOL

he would shack up with that dinosaur before he’d get all intimate with his oldest, dearest enemy…

😉

[geoffers @replies]

another random thing i noted, upon a (fourth!) re-watch…

i really wish the dream inducing patches and the 7 tardis keys ideas had been introduced in earlier episodes (like the teselecta was seeded early on, as a clue to the doctor’s death in ‘the impossible astronaut’), instead of being written into and explained in the same episode. i still love the episode, but it would have been much more fun to try to piece together the significance of those two things, had they been randomly introduced a few episodes ago…

just a minor quibble… 😉

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@thebrainofmoffat – Someone earlier got me to thinking about the hand in Day of the Doctor: when the Doctors emerge from the painting, Clara follows them out, but we first see a hand that, if I remember correctly, seems to be the hand of the opposite side. Who would reach across themselves to grab onto something like that? It always looked weird to me, because it looked like an awkward thing for Clara to do.

that’s a brilliant theory, about missy following them all through, to escape from gallifrey! i remember thinking that hand looked weird, too, at the time…

but… i just went back to investigate, and the hand on the picture frame is clara’s. as awkward as the angle is, it’s her right hand, and she’s pulling herself around the edge of the picture, as if she had been hiding just to the inside of it (to avoid the exploding dalek, i assume). if you go back to the scene where zygon-kate and clara are getting the vortex manipulator, when clara picks up zy-kate’s phone (with the activation code picture in it) with her right hand, you can see that the jacket, and the rings on the middle and pinky fingers, are exactly the same. (i even went back to earlier appearances of missy, and she is only wearing two rings throughout: one on either hand, on the middle fingers)…

still, great bonkerizing! if half the stuff we come up with in here were true, the “casual,” non-fan watchers would be driven off in no time at all, due to the denseness and complexity!! 🙂

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@scaryb – if clara is pregnant with danny’s child already, she can still live through this, to have at least the one great-grandchild, orson, whether danny is rescued or not. but i don’t see danny getting out of this alive, since the doctor told her that fixing his death would cause a massive paradox, the results of which would (presumably) be catastrophic…

i was thinking about this earlier, and had to re-watch to get the exact quote, where seb says to danny, “this isn’t really an afterlife… it’s just more life than you were expecting.” and later, missy says to the doctor, “the nethersphere… the people who live inside that think they’ve gone to heaven.” “imagine you could upload dying minds to that. edit them, re-arrange them… get rid of all those boring emotions, ready to be re-downloaded.” this means that danny’s “mind/soul” (or “essence”) is separate from his (soon-to-be-cremated) body, and that it’s going to be uploaded into some other corpse that has already been “upgraded” to an “empty” cyberman…

now, if he can be “saved” from the nethersphere into a cyberbody, can he also be “saved” to an uncyberised body, like his own, so that he can go on living? (or is his own corpse being “upgraded,” even?) the next episode will tell! but i think it was insinuated that the people “living” there are not who they were. they are reconstructions of consciousnesses (“souls”) only, which are only necessary to complete the process of cyberization on the corpses in the tanks. indeed, having re-watched the danny/clara conversation where she’s trying to get a scrap of info from him to guarantee he is who he seems to be, it looks to me like danny isn’t complete, anymore. he seems like bytes of information that have degraded somewhat, or been put together nearly correctly, but not close enough. so, if he does get put in a new body later, it won’t be the same danny that clara fell in love with…

it’s very reminiscent of the ditzy girl in ‘silence in the library,’ except in reverse. she became much smarter once she was uploaded to CAL, but her avatar was corrupted. in this case, danny’s “mind/soul” would be corrupted, even if his own body (or an exact body double) could be obtained for it to go back into…

 

er, i might be obsessing over this a bit! 😉

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@gothamcelt – When Missy was sitting on the steps outside St Paul’s , did anyone else start singing ‘Feed the birds, tuppence a bag’?

nope, but i did think, “how the hell did she get so far ahead of the doctor, to be casually sitting there like that?” 🙂

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@purofilion – lol. er… i do find a sense of humour extremely attractive, and maybe clara does, as well… but, i’m thinking danny would be the father? not brave, brave sir robin. how else would orson look so much like danny, his great-grandfather?

IF there’s a pregnancy, and IF the timey-wimey loops from ‘listen’ are as straightforward as they seem, of course…

🙂

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oops! and the jazzy music when she kisses the doctor is fabulous, i really hope it’s on the soundtrack for this series…

meant to say, soundtrack album, of course… 😉

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@ everyone – so many great comments, so little of my own to add! lol… i’ve watched the episode three times, now, and i’ve cried every time at the “do you think I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?” line. this incarnation is so “emotionless” that he can only resort to words to try to get clara to realize how much he still values her friendship, and how much he cares for her. she’s just so unable to read him, like she used to with eleven. but i love it! for everyone who hates the clara/danny dynamic “taking over the show” all series long, if THAT didn’t prove to you all that it’s still about the doctor and the companion, then there is no proof available…

as for the rest of it, i love michelle gomez as missy/ the master. i don’t care about the gender controversy (just never had a man crush on the master, i guess?), so i’m just gonna love watching her do her thing with the role. so far, so very, very delicious!! the mimicking an android bit is probably my favourite part of the episode (MISI, mobile intelligence systems interface, indeed)… (@ScaryB – too funny, the parallel with b. bunny!!)

and the jazzy music when she kisses the doctor is fabulous, i really hope it’s on the soundtrack for this series…

now, if she doesn’t return next series, i will be disappointed about that…

as others have predicted, i also believe that clara is pregnant. i think she was phoning danny to tell him that, as well as to tell him that she would have to give up travelling with the doctor because of it. due to the nature of the nethersphere, though, i don’t think danny will be coming back to the real world. he may have a role to play as a cyberised version of danny (won’t happen, surely, but wouldn’t it be evil if the boy he killed convinces him to delete himself?), or not, but i can’t see how the doctor will be able to get him physically back, once he’s undone the mistress’s diabolical scheme…

unless he downloads his consciousness into a backup/duplicate/flesh/auton/android/etc. body, of course! LOL

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@brewski – Sorry. I missed a piece of it: The history WE know is the one where the 12th Doctor has come back to ensure they get saved. The ORIGINAL history (that we didn’t know about) had him leave the family behind.

timey-wimey, indeed! are you saying that tennant doc originally left the family behind, and lots of things were different, but that capaldi doc has taken on the face, to tell himself that he needs to go back and save that family, to right the timelines? the only way that would work, is if there’s a tennant guest appearance coming up, where capaldi doc tells him he has to go back!!

(i don’t have to say)… that would be awesome!!

@glenisterm – I’m curious how Missy was able to monitor the Doctor so easily without him knowing (apparently).  Which brings to mind, where is the Master’s Tardis, and in what form?

so far, there’s no evidence missy has a tardis. the master didn’t have his when he came back in ‘utopia.’ he stole the doctor’s there, and then tried to steal it, again, in ‘the end of time.’ if he’s come back through a crack/regenerated because of bubbleverse time lords, they might have given him another one? but, so far, i’m assuming he’s using other tech to carry out his/her plan…

@phileasf – thanks for the post-it list, there were a couple of those i couldn’t figure out. the one on the far left is BLINOVITCH…

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@stormintheheartofthesun – good spot. i had noticed the red police box, but it hadn’t triggered my bonkers radar. haven’t the real ones all been converted to book exchanges, now? if so, one that still looks like a phone box might be very conspicuous, indeed?

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@scaryb – Re a “thing” being a “thing” in this series… I think it’s just a thing! (And yes wasn’t the Thing thing a great thing!!)

so, is this “is this a thing” thing… a meme? or a trope? 😉

if i’m not mistaken, a thing only became a “thing” in smith’s era, no? so, every “thing” is now a smith’s doctor’s “thing,” like jelly babies are a baker’s doctor’s “thing?”

!

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@scaryb – no worries, i would post it in the spoilers thread, if i could. (i put foxes’ “don’t stop me now” in there, because it doesn’t fit anywhere else.) it is surely un-official and spoilery, since the bbc didn’t want it released. but the young man in that scene can’t be made to be quiet forever, can he? even with a non-disclosure type agreement? eventually he will be wanting everyone to know who he is… er, or, Who he Was? LOL

i volunteered @craig to do the screengrab, because he would know to do the right thing! 🙂

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@davros – if you can obtain a copy of the leaked black and white (“unfinished”) episodes, in the one for ‘listen’ the digital blurring hasn’t yet been applied, and you can just make out what the boy looks like, as he’s sitting up in the bed. i’ve tried to post pictures before, but don’t know how to make it work (and i’ve got that b&w episode)…

our benevolent emperor, craig, might have it, too, and maybe could do a screengrab for you? couldn’t hurt to ask…

🙂

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@scaryb – thanks for the link to mathieson’s blogs. lots of cool, behind-the-scenes info in there…

one thing in particular i noticed, in the ‘tiny tardis of terror’ blog, he says, “I was two drafts into Flatline, which up until this point had been a conventional Doctor Who episode in many ways; the Doctor and Clara running around together and try to figure out exactly how to defeat the Boneless, the flat ‘aliens of the week’. Only the version of the Doctor I’d been writing had been a generic vaguely Matt Smith version. Capaldi had only just been announced and this was supposed to be the meeting where I discovered Steven’s vision for the new Doctor’s character.”

also, “Draft three was a lot of work. I had to completely rewrite the episode from scratch incorporating a whole new character for the Doctor based upon 12’s new direction, figure out exactly how Clara would behave without him (Doctor Clara! Of course!) and make sure the logic of the tiny Tardis all held together.”

this reminded me of earlier discussions (can’t remember in which episode thread, though) about capaldi having trouble making the role his, since the bulk of the series had already been written with smith’s portrayal in mind. we are on episode 9, so i’m guessing all the episodes were written before capaldi was announced?! thus, all had some major re-writes to go through, to adjust the doctor’s character to suit peter’s strengths and/or to diminish what smith had established…

good stuff! 🙂

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p028gvgl

nowhere else on the site to put this, i guess? just to be safe (there are a couple of tantalizing clips towards the end of the video)…

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just wondering…

prof moorehouse’s lines:  “the number of evil, twice over. they that bear the foretold stare have 66 seconds to live.”

so the number of evil is 33? any thoughts or connections to make of that?

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@oblique – i think ‘mummy on the orient express’ is an obvious homage to ‘murder on the orient express’ (by agatha christie)?

i watched ‘the robots of death’ just a couple of weeks ago! didn’t know it was a tribute to her…

🙂

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@mtgradwell – however, the moon is our neighbour. Men have landed there, and brought back samples, which have been analysed and which are not noted for their resemblance to eggshell.

please note, i’m not arguing with you. you were disappointed in the science of the “moon egg.” but…

take a neighbor of your’s, for example. your next door neighbor. let’s say you’ve known him for thirty years. you know his schedule, his wife and kids, what sorts of cars he likes, where he vacations, all the times he’s been sick (and what caused them), and on and on and on…

now, put the two of you in a doctor who episode, and you just find out, today, that he’s an auton. or a hard light hologram. or a replicant/duplicant/dalekised human… whatever! he is still all those things you knew before, but now there’s more to him that you didn’t know. and the things you start knowing today contradict everything you knew before!

you said, The story could have worked if set in a place where story takes precedence over science. that is every episode of doctor who that i’ve ever watched!

😉

oh, and your neighbour is now hooking you up to a machine with tubes, for some nefarious reason. will the doctor be able to save you?! does he even know, yet, that this monster has you?! or is he dawdling about in space, in a spaceship that looks like an old police box, with ___ (insert companion’s name here) floating out the door to have a look around?!

Now we might try to come up with pseudo-scientific answers to some of these questions… But any such answers would only raise more and bigger questions, because there’s nothing in our body of scientific knowledge which could even begin to accommodate …

the tardis, for starters…

🙂

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