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13 April 2013 at 16:39 #5339
@ardaraith – agreed. The first time I was on a film set I was shocked at how rough and ready the props were; for instance I remember being quite taken aback how the futuristic art deco table lamps (which looked fab on screen) were in fact recognisably badly cut off cuts of grey plastic drain pipe, haphazardly painted white and topped with a butterflied empty yoghurt pot. Knowing that, you can really see why shows have to be eased into HD because it requires such a leap in production values.
13 April 2013 at 12:15 #5315@theatreguy – you can’t upload, and unfortunately can’t embed images either …
Best you can do is link I’m afraid: http://www.flickfilosopher.com/flickfilos/art/dwfathersdayrings.jpg
Its the same make and colour, but not the same model (one’s a viva, one’s a cavalier). They would be roughly the same age in the time frame they appear in (if that makes sense)
13 April 2013 at 11:20 #5305@whohar – Stonehenge is off centre but inside the 4 points. (Enter “stonehenge” in the google maps link i posted to see it relative to the 4 points)
I’ve toyed with the idea that the centre is when the auton roman camp was …
Here’s how I read the numbers, do people disagree? Bit weird that the 3rd set have an extra digit:
51460434, -21194553
510603114, -13168051
50801987, -19155963
51211350, -26459549@ardaraith – I personally think so much effort has gone into creating and foregrounding this clue that it must be a signpost to some humdinger of an Easter egg.
12 April 2013 at 18:52 #5239@whohar – I don’t think these are (from – to) numbers – there definitely comma’s, they’re in the format 00000000, -00000000. Definitely coordinates imho (but not necessarily long/lat)
12 April 2013 at 18:45 #5237@jimthefish @ardaraith – @scaryb – you are indeed correct about the posts on Dans Blog … that was me (Bloody good memory @phaseshift!) !
I’ve reprinted the original post below. For your further study – here’s the 4 points (roughly, I used names from the post not the actual co-ordinates) on a map http://goo.gl/maps/zw4Jq
I’m wondering if the intersection point in the middle is what’s interesting (though it just looks like fields)? Any ideas? Are they filming anywhere near there?
I’m really interested btw that people are thinking that the painting shows 2 (or more) tardis (tardii?) colliding. Without know any of that, I did posit last week that I thought Clara will be fragmented by simply being in the Tardis when it explodes, and that the (still unexplained) cause of the explosion River was in would be a collision between their two respective Tardis …
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The numbers on the door of the tardis in the painting (if you add decimal points) are lat/long of 4 locations, all in the UK:
ivy lane, chippenham
symonds house, winchester
wimbourne minster
new street, wellsNow I would say “so what” … except … except … the first two have been locations (within a few yards) of a Doctor Who Exhibition in 2009 and a Doctor Who writers workshop in 2012. I can’t help think that the odds must be astronomical on that being a co-incidence and is a crib to indicate this is the right interpretation of the numbers, but other than that, I’ve no idea what this could possibly mean (if anything)!
11 April 2013 at 18:30 #5161@jimthfish @scaryb – I’m going to guess at 2 45 min episodes over consecutive Saturday’s (I had some numerology magic in a post way back to support that idea) and they’ll be combined into a 90 min overseas and limited uk cinema release.
The 2 different time formats may partly explain confusion at t’ rumour mill (in best northern accent)
11 April 2013 at 18:05 #5153@besd1 – you are most welcome! So glad we could tempt you over to the dark side (mwah ha haha ha ha ha – cue most ott classic who villain laugh)
I think you are absolutely right about the st johns logo only recently reappearing … If you were cynical you might think the “bells of …” title meant something else entirely and they just reinstated the logo to make it fit… :-O
10 April 2013 at 13:15 #4911@thommck – great comments, quite a few probably chime with the common criticism that the 45 min runtime doesn’t allow the plot to breath, and great ideas/designs (e.g. the vigil) get wasted because there’s just not enough time (I personally feel about 75 mins is an idea runtime for a stand alone story. Got that Peter “set aside a week to watch this baby” Jackson?)
In defence of this ep – I thought it has some of the snappiest dialog the shows ever seen: “I’ve seen bigger”, “really”, “are you joking!!! Have you seen the size of that thing!!!!” was just a joy to let wash over you, like a classic screwball comedy (you can see why spielberg snapped up moffatt to add dialog polish).
10 April 2013 at 13:02 #4907@Shazzbot – I can see how the theorising could be annoying (“just enjoy the show, dammit!”) but I suspect in our heart of hearts, none of us really want to guess the plot, we want to be as delightfully surprised as anyone else by what actually transpires.
But it gives us another layer to enjoy, to revel in the universe the show exists in between episodes. And how much sweeter it is when, despite all our million genius theories, we still get wrong-footed by clever Mr Moffatt. It’s like a high stakes game of I-Spy, and I think its one that the showrunners have deliberately cultivated and Moffatt taken to some kind of art form.
@dislikesswimmingalone – I’m not sure about all the number symbology – my you have *really* been thinking about this though! – but great work on spotting all those 5 and 6 reference! The most obvious explanation though is simply 5 + 6 = 11 surely?
I love the idea that in each Clara episode, the doc is channelling a different doctor, and it crosses over a little with my idea that the feel of each episode is reflecting “the times” of each doctor (bond-like Bells, Star Wars like Rings etc). I also think an actorly challenge like that is something Matt would jump at (if not indeed the one who thought of it in the first place)
@jimthefish & @htpbdet – dang it 😀 ! I bow to your better observation and judgement (maybe I should actually put the Ipad down when watching – just a thought..)
9 April 2013 at 23:47 #4875@htpbdet – ah gotcha. My take on it was that the doctor was speculating and trying to reason it out before it became apparent that the GI was behind it all along; with that, all previous guesswork went out the window. That Vastra’s sarcastic suggestion came to pass was both the setup for an ironic gag and also acted as a neat bit of plot exposition without the doc needing to actually say, “oh it wasn’t the snowmen in charge after all but there appears to be have been a disembodied alien intelligence behind them all the time”
Having said that I’ve got confirmation bias – I’d figured it was the GI pretty early on and was just waiting for the reveal. That the doc sort of wished the GI into being is an interesting reading I might simply have been oblivious too (or maybe it was ambiguous, which is even more interesting)
Anyone else want to cast a vote?
9 April 2013 at 22:13 #4871@juniperfish – I’m really liking the paradox of the doc and river founding the time lords as a race via exposure to vortex in the tardis (as distinct from rassilon founding their society). It’s a bit saucy for who though, since they’d have to be at it like rabbits …? Unless he’s got more than just 2 hearts …
I don’t know who suggested it but the idea that the reboot begins with the clean slate doc setting forth with his great-granddaughter has a really nice circularity to it too.
9 April 2013 at 21:37 #4869@htpbdet – doc created GI? Could you elaborate on that? The doc might have inspired it to attack the underground, but it had clearly been posessing simeon for 40 odd years, and we know it had already long called itself the GI because the institute was named after it …
The docs personal room 101 (actually room 11) in the god complex definitely contained a personification, not a thing/concept/idea as the doc says, “I thought it would be you” rather than “I thought it would be this” (or similar)
Strikes me the pheonix has 2 interpretations:
A) pheonix (nu who) bursting forth from classic who (Osiris). Hence worn by Oswin who represents the new show.
B) a pheonix – a non god doctor – bursting from Osiris (current old god doctor), representing the expected upcoming reboot.Just a passing note btw – joe sings oranges and lemons in the god complex which suggests some connection with the bells of st John ep… God it really is all one big self referencing ball of wool isn’t it. We need angry kittens to unravel this lot.
The camels did immediately make me think of Sutekh – arguably the greatest ever baddie? – and all the other subsequent Egypt references are just reinforcing that first opinion.
If you thought the Osiris sonic penis was a ripe subject for the Moff smut factory, if the GI turns out to be the matrix, imagine how the doc will break it to GI that he has actually “entered you many times” and that his second incarnation may have “left some seeds of myself behind”?
Also I’m still waiting for the GI to demand “the finest wines known to man” …
9 April 2013 at 21:15 #4867@lula @juniperfish – given your Osiris penis/screwdriver theory, there are much worse colours the sonic could be…
If it had a purple setting, I’d be seriously worried… :-O
9 April 2013 at 11:54 #4791@scaryb – http://goo.gl/XeRzs … instant t-shirt.
9 April 2013 at 11:28 #4787@jimthefish – well of course if the silence were in the library all along … of course no-one would ever know/remember. Might be worth re-watching to see if there’s any indication of lost time or disconnected events …
Hmmmm if the above isn’t actually the plot, maybe I should be pitching it to Moffatt … 😀
9 April 2013 at 08:50 #4765Ok that is quite enough coffee I think …
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Oh just one more cup …9 April 2013 at 08:44 #4761Oh just one quick thought – time lords upload their mind/souls/memories to the Matrix just before they die and once there – just like the repository in silence in the library – its hard to tell its not reality… could these various mind repositories all be connected?
Could the GI actually be the Matrix, escaped somehow from gallifrey, now starved of new minds no longer fed by the TLs and gone rogue? Is the library repository also the GI, meaning River, the love of the doctors life – is actually a hostage of the GI (but it doesn’t realise who she is yet?)
As a twist, maybe the matrix isn’t something the TL’s manufactured but a lifeform like the grandfather the TLs captured, enslaved and like the eye of harmony forgot the origins of, over the aeons?
Maybe if rassilon created the eye of harmony, omega the hand of omega and time travel , the matrix/GI was originally enslaved (just like the beast below) by a third TL guilty of feeding it a million souls … a TL who tried to forget his crime and pay penitence for his guilt…
I wonder … Who?
9 April 2013 at 08:22 #4759My spelling auto correct keeps changing asylum of the daleks to asylum of the dales.
I now can’t get out of my head a scene where every significant dale in history – dale winton, Jim dale etc – is gathered in a single room to scream “help us” menacingly (and slightly campily) at the doctor in unison. I may not be able to sleep tonight…
9 April 2013 at 08:15 #4757@thedoctordude – by the point asylum occurs, earth has been invaded by daleks (and sent packing) and humans have had many skirmishes the doc name checks exxilon, spiridon and Kembel alone in the ep. It’s probably safe to say every human by this point in human history knows what a Dalek looks like from the history books.
More numerology: Episode one of “Destiny Of The Daleks” was broadcast on exactly the same day and date as asylum in 1979. Is 34 a significant number too?
9 April 2013 at 07:57 #4747@bluesqueakpip – If I had to summarise what it is about who i love in 3 words, “bit non standard” would just about do it.
Anyone for a “doctor who – it’s a bit non standard” t-shirt?
9 April 2013 at 07:50 #4741@janetteb – I think you’ve inadvertently nailed what’s making me uncomfortable: “whose only weapon is a sonic screwdriver”. Time was when the doc didn’t carry a “weapon” at all and how it was brandished in this ep at the Vigil (albeit actually as a shield) looked uncomfortably close to something that you would point and fire.
Of course this may be all deliberate hints of the docs suppressed bad leaking out in which case kudos. Or it could be poorly focused written characterisation which @htpbdet persuasively argued…
8 April 2013 at 23:03 #4723@wolfweed – it should have been the author.
8 April 2013 at 22:47 #4721@bluesqueakpip – interesting you mention the skeleton just after a scene where the doc made quiet clear that nothing could separate him from his screwdriver (implying the skeleton must be him, not someone he just leant his screwdriver to)
An interesting thought – the Vashta nerada spring to mind when seeing his (maybe) flesh stripped skeleton and the doc said (slightly awkwardly) “run till your out from under the shadow” … The Vashta of course live in shadows…
Also though I love your idea for Clara being not Oswalds biological daughter, ghost town (and the car) suggest he was rescued from a leafy death in 1981, but Clara was born in 1989, so theres no way Ellie was pregnant before they met. Doesn’t mean that they weren’t (Rachael sn Ross style) “on a break” though in feb 1989…
8 April 2013 at 16:45 #4691@Shazzbot – Off the top of my head: I remember from the dalek invasion of earth, opening the door (with a comb between the poles of the magnet) was an intelligence test that was part of the plot. In the Aztecs they build a complex pulley system while explaining in great Reithian detail exactly how mechanics work. In the android invasion, sarah pulls up cell floor boards and cables and electrocutes the guard in a puddle of water. In the visitation, the doc shoots the lock out (missing the lock but still magically worked – I’m not sure Mr Saward how this is better than the screwdriver…) with a flintlock (which Mythbusters showed was impossible anyway). In Frontier in space, the doc is carrying cheesewire which he uses to saw through steel cell bars (I well *eat* cheesewire if that works in real life)
8 April 2013 at 15:06 #4679@craig – please don’t get me wrong, in no way should you apologise for anything – we all have nothing but admiration and thanks for the time effort you’ve put in for us. I just mean that the incidents seem new and it might mean something’s begun to be amiss somewhere you’d want to keep an eye on if it escalates.
I’ll maybe take this conversation offline and message you directly – I might be able to help out on the hosting front … I have a rack or two to my name …
8 April 2013 at 13:24 #4657OK this is a question I’d like some feedback/voting on. It’s grown out of a conversation between myself and @scaryb :
I think Eric Saward was right to kill off the sonic screwdriver and it should never have been brought back. On the one hand, it expedites the actual plot and stops it getting bogged down with repetitive “open a locked door” type incidental problems. On the other it encourages lazy plotting and becomes a one size fits all panacea for every obstacle the doctor faces.
Evidence for the prosecution: the ingenious (and hilarious) bluff of using a hat stand as a weapon in Frontios would never have happened with the SS in play. Also given the SS current capabilities, can you really argue that the doc is “unarmed” these days?
Evidence for the defence: nu who rattles along at a breakneck and exciting pace these days, which still finding time for the important emotional scenes and this is because the SS rightly reduces physical obstacles to incidentals.
Your opinions please!!!!
7 April 2013 at 22:31 #4547@craig – seem to be a few people mentioning losing posts (including me, just now – I got a DNS resolution failure)… might be something you want to check out…
7 April 2013 at 22:28 #4545@juniperfish – *cough cough* … did someone mention a memory wipe/amnesia reboot theory …
NP its a collaborative effort, yada yada etc etc 😀 !
7 April 2013 at 21:58 #4537@shazzbot (my most favourite ever swear word, followed closely by phooey) – my take on it was that 9 had awareness of TL’s anywhere in time as well as space.
i.e. The Time War didn’t just take out TL’s from that point onwards, but all TL’s both before and since – presumably hugely changing history for all planets the TL’s interfered with such as the Minyans
7 April 2013 at 21:38 #4531@tiddler – The Master was temporarily transformed into a human and so undetectable (the Doc did the same to hide from the Family of Blood).
Technically you’re right, I should have included that as a 4th option for Susan (but personally it seems unlikely – what would she be hiding from and pulling the same trick 3 times is a bit too repetitive for the writing team to consider imho)
@bluesqueakpip – good point about Jenny though: my assumption here is that 9 could feel Timelords other than himself. Jenny was his clone (somehow a female clone – don’t ask) and therefore she would have been filtered out as apparently one of himselves.
Interesting question (well to me, anyway) – if you’re a TL transformed into a human (with no memory of who you are so Ellie, say, could conceivably be Susan, though she’d still have to get back in time 2 centuries without a TARDIS) and have a child … is the child TL or human? If you change back into a TL does the kid remain permanently a human or change when you do…?
7 April 2013 at 16:40 #4461@scaryb – no apologies required. Criticism from anyone on this board is just a much needed prompt to get my ideas more cogently assembled.
Yeah I felt the “looks different” was significant but was framed to be passed off as a “my old world seems much smaller now”. Either the doc meeting her as a child has changed something subtle or GI was busy while the were away…
Re Susan. Well 9 said he would know if any other TLs were left so only conclusion is one of: Susan is dead (presumably in the time war), time locked on Gallifrey or Susan was neither a blood relative or indeed a time lord (but given she spoke of “our people”, didn’t know)
7 April 2013 at 13:04 #4421@jimthefish – I much preferred the last one too. Can’t help noticing this one is much smaller, maybe it was pure practicality – the last one took up too much studio space. It really reminds me of how mission control was scaled down to basically a server room/bunker in series 2 of space 1999 …
7 April 2013 at 12:57 #4419@scaryb – I know what deus ex machina means! But i obviously didnt explain myself very well: IMHO God-Rose and Doctor-Donna are archetypal such moments – “a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly resolved, with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character or ability” (Wikipedia).
That there’s some half hearted attempt to explain these abilities (time vortex, meta crisis) retrospectively is moot, the point is that they up till that point those abilities were never referenced to in the previous narrative. Basically deus ex machina refers to a cheap narrative device to surprise the audience not by clever misdirection (hard) but by simple omission (easy).
7 April 2013 at 12:27 #4411@jimthefish – probably this should go on the sofa stream but my filing is notoriously chaotic:
I found CIF is now just a horrible experience and I suspect Dr Who is now subject to professional trolling; at least on person this week was canvassing for people to vote up “I hated it” comments, which is a hallmark of paid-for negative PR campaigns (however I may underestimate the self loathing of who fans).
It’s a high profile show,there are plenty of commercial rivals to the beeb who would like it to see it devalued in the publics eyes, especially on an ep with an apparently high budget so they can roll out the “wasting tax payers money” argument too.
7 April 2013 at 12:12 #4409Also it being “all about the future, not the past” is a theme that keeps cropping up (you’d think as a reference to the anniversary and maybe an admonishment to old fans) but equally could apply to Clara. The doc is wasting time digging into her past when it’s her future that is significant (and it’s her future not past selves he’s so far met which weirdly doesn’t seem to have occurred to him).
I’ve said elsewhere what I think that future might be; unlike every other nu who companion, she’s about to be a tragic victim, not some dues ex machina saviour (Rose, Donna esp)
7 April 2013 at 11:58 #4405@chickenelly – good catch on red riding hood: lots of nursery rhymes and children’s stories woven in, in a story about singing lullabies…
The hover bike FX have been getting a lot of stick but I’m prepared to believe that was deliberate as homage the the ropey 80s Flash Gordon movie (shot at similar angles too). The same applies to most of the other criticisms as well – star wars and Raiders is mostly implausible, weakly plotted shallow spectacle held together with wit, cracking dialogue and bombastic music (and we loved them all the more for it). What people are calling weaknesses of this ep to me just seem a fun, one-off celebration of them, though given the reaction, maybe a miscalculation.
I wonder if the movie blockbuster nature of the episodes is also a meta reference to the kind of contemporary movies Who was competing with over the years and incorporating into itself e.g “bells” was James Bond (pertwee), this week was 80s space opera, dinosaurs maybe 60s Harryhausen etc?
On the numerology front, 5th march makes sense as the date ClaraTheShow becomes separate and distinct from and no longer protected by the parent who gave birth to and nurtured her/it (ie the classic series). 1960 is tough to weave into that though as neither Newman or Lambert even worked for the beeb that far back. Maybe a reveal for AAISAT?
Also – tardis doors. Maybe this was a test of the doctors. He knew Victorian Clara had a key, would this Clara know she would need one ? (it appears not, doesn’t even occur to her – the “tardis doesn’t like me” is redolent of a technophobe thinking the computer doesn’t like her rather than that she’s doing something wrong). Seems like just the kind of test you might do to see if her incarnations are connected or even just unconciously share knowledge and her innocence is all artifice, which the doc clearly suspects.
6 April 2013 at 23:15 #4359Also notice that the doc once again didn’t take the tardis into battle (even though they were halfway back to it) but once again took a bike… (***SPOILER**** Clara has been seen riding a bike filming the special – connection?)
Hmmmm… the back story to the leaf (which for all the clues being dropped like confetti we could never have guessed, it came out of nowhere) in no way explained the doctors weird way of examining it. But it really was just a leaf.
If Claras fear is being lost (and what her mum promised would never happen) … Well that’s pretty much what is about to happen to her if she’s fractured…
6 April 2013 at 22:35 #4341@bluesqueakpip – Susan was something precious which the doctor ran with; I rather like that but remember we also know now that he not only had Susan with him but also the hand of omega … (though precious doesn’t seem the right description for that. Valuable maybe, dangerous definitely, but precious?). And we have no idea when he picked up nemesis for that matter.
I’ve said this before but it’s yet to be explained how and why he arrived in 1963 London apparently tooled up to the eyeballs like a galactic gunslinger.
Can’t help thinking the “take the all” speech was there to prep us for how much he’s going to lose in the upcoming Memory Wipe Special.
I don’t think the tardis was refusing Clara entry, it’s just she never actually tried to unlock it. For that matter, does she actually have a key yet?
6 April 2013 at 15:06 #4261@bluesqueakpip – oh I just think they’re just giving the international (particularly US) market what it wants.
Coming up next: Dr Who and the Beefeaters of Death
6 April 2013 at 15:04 #4259@phaseshift – to a certain extent like the GI is as much as it’s trying to persuade lonely children to invite it into our world and promises them their own perfect world in return – Christmas day, every day, forever.
However it doesn’t possess anyone and is described like a God with complete direct control over the environment (no snow machine here); it literally occupies the whole sky and has many, many eyes. It seems much more powerful than the GI, which seems much of a nudger/influencer than a powerful being in its own right.
6 April 2013 at 12:00 #4239Well i just read Summer Falls in the name of research (its actually by James Goss)
Reminded me of Wintersmith by Pratchett and similarly not actually very good I’m afraid. The doc (11) is in it but there’s no clues leaping out at me. There’s references to petrichor (as the smell left by the tardis), the tardis is in need of some repair. There’s a cat who can talk due to exposure to the tardis, a key/arrow/weathervane, a ring, some witches who repelled the lord with chants) and a weird reference to digital cameras but I guess that’s a reference to Amy’s own anachronism supposedly writing it in mid C20 NY.
The lord of winter seems like a daemon/Fenric class baddie, who enters this dimension by invitation only, creates a frozen pocket universe and needs further invitation to cross over completely and take the rest of the world.
Chapters 10/11 is sad because the cat sacrifices itself and then (in an echo of “Dalek” where it wants to feel the sun one last time) dies (though it’s implied later it’s survived, probably back as an ordinary cat)
6 April 2013 at 07:36 #4221http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2013/apr/06/the-reunion-david-hepworth
Dr Who reunion – Could be interesting – I believe it’s on tomorrow.
5 April 2013 at 18:59 #4215I can’t help but think that DELSA is a little MISTERSAXON joke, and help but notice that’s its an anagram of DALEKS with the K missing. But K kind of looks like a open book, edge on and its printed on a sort of “missing letter”. Yeah – tenuous I know.
Could indicate that Clara is in some way still connected to / part of the Dalek pathweb? And/or she’s still almost (but not quite) still a dalek.
5 April 2013 at 18:36 #4213@chickenelly – to be fair, in TV Land, there is simply no window in existence in London that does not look out on to Tower Bridge, topographically challenging though that is.
3 April 2013 at 18:58 #4123Iain Banks – while I still can’t entirely rule out that there is definitely no God, I can at least now be 100% certain that if He is there, He definitely doesn’t like a good book.
Ohhhh …. Bollocks.
3 April 2013 at 09:47 #4105@IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan – “As for Eccelstone, where zygon?” .. a-boom-tish!
Another possibility is that’s not a Zygon, but Ecclestone has really let himself go recently …
2 April 2013 at 20:52 #4077Hey, remember a few months back when we were all about references to lights?
Maybe we should be asking “how many elevens does it take to change a lightbulb?”
2 April 2013 at 20:12 #4067I hardly dare say this @juniperfish but Zygons almost certainly mean YADD (yet another doppel-doctor)
2 April 2013 at 19:48 #4063Ok if we look at Clara’s enhancement through the lens of “Clara as show”, why would the “show” need to become IT literate ? Reference to moffatts own history on usenet where the show lived on in chat and fan fic?
Or just a plot point with no meta reference at all?
2 April 2013 at 19:39 #4057@wolfweed – I can only see moffatt needing to flee the country if Richard e grant and Matt smith in a monkey suit then proceed to twist their way through Kensington on the back of a flat bed truck.
They probably won’t make that mistake again.
… Did that really happen or did I just eat too much cheese before bedtime?
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