[HTPBDET @replies]

@bluepipsqueak

My personal hope is that, post 50th, we get a normal person or persons – no crack-in-yer-wall, no bring-people-back-to-life stuff, just ordinary people having extraordinary adventures.

Me too!

[HTPBDET @replies]

@whohar – Insolent whimsy is fine with me. 🙂

Yes, the “faces of a spinning cube” was my thought. Still is, although now there are even more faces.

I’m afraid I don’t like his acting at all. It is far too self-indulgent and over-stated a lot of the time for my liking. He is “acting” rather than “being”. I find the moments of honesty to be rare. But I enjoy them when they occur.

I do blame the writing. I think he has not had any consistency in the character as written – Moffat appears to regard that as adding to the programme, but to me it is detracting. He is not helped, in my view, by the overarching mysteries – the mystery of Amy and the cracks in time, the mystery of River Song and who she is and how and why, the mystery of the Silence, the mystery of prophecies and now the mystery of Clara. There is not enough about the mystery of the Doctor himself and, so at least it seems to me, Smith tries to compensate for that with his performance style.

For me, his best scenes have been the quiet ones with Rory, or Iain Glen’s death, or his conversations with Vastra or the Brigadier’s daughter and his wonderful wonderful moments with the little Amelia Pond or Idris. The over-the-top bellicose in-your-face grandstanding, whether it be in Pandorica Opens or destroying a Cyberfleet in Good Man Goes To War or the challenge to the vampiric sun-creature in Rings I find wholly unconvincing – precisely because I cannot see what character trait that is consistent in him sets it up. He just seems smug.

Moffat writes spectacular moments: things to remember, explosive situations, masterstroke plot twists – but I dont think he is very good at writing whole coherent continuing characters in Doctor Who (Rory is the one exception thus far and Clara does seem to be on that road too) or properly finishing a story. When I think of the other Doctors, I think of who they were, what kind of Doctor, how they approached mysteries and solved puzzles and fought evil, what the points of consistency were. With Smith, it seems the consistency is the inconsistency – which is fine if you like that, but I don’t. I can’t sum up his Doctor in any meaningful way, can’t say what he stands for or believes in, what he is capable of doing – although, to be fair, his testing of Clara in Rings and his speech to her about running from the shadows and not leaving people in the lurch does make a new point of departure, and if this develops into something concrete, then things might be different.

Decades after its first screening, I can still, quite clearly, remember the joy, the thrill, the excitement of, to randomly pick some, Dalek invasion of Earth, Galaxy Four, The Chase, Power of the Daleks, Web of Fear or Terror of the Autons or Pyramids of Mars or Stones of Blood or Kinda or Caves of Androzani or Curse of Fenric (even!) and pretty much all of Eccleston and Tennant. Because of the Doctors themselves. I think about them, I re-watch them or listen to them, I enjoy them – because the stories were involving (not perfect), the companions were mostly great, there was a real sense of unique adventure and you knew where you stood with the Doctor – you knew what to expect from each different incarnation after they settled in.

Except for the purposes of trying to undrstand the arguments very clever people raise on this and the Guardian blog, I never am even slightly tempted to revisit Smith episodes. Amy was not for me and Rory was not enough. River started well but she has been over and under used at the same time (tricky but there it is) I think and not in the ways that might have served her best. Clara is fabulous – and I did hope that, absent the Ponds, Smith’s Dr would anchor himself with Clara, settle and establish his take. But, No…the cube keeps spinning.

Also, I confess to being put off him by the constant carping in the press and on the blogs about how like Troughton’s is his performance when, as I have said over and over again, his performance is not like Troughton’s at all – and wearing a bow tie and occassionally standing as Troughton can be seen to stand in extant episodes or photos does not make it so.

I want Smith to be Smith’s Doctor – I just don’t feel he is or can be, both because of how the role is written and how he is allowed to play it. But I accept, as I must, that what he is doing is what Moffat wants and thinks is right – as incomprensible as that is to me, as incomprehensible as was Colin Baker’s portrayal to me.

Actually, truth is, I feel sad for him. Rather like Sylvester McCoy, I think he has not been given the right material and the way to shine as brightly as he might have.

I hope he gets a better series of final adventures than Tennant did.

So that I am clear, I don’t hate the 11th Doctor. I loathe the 6th Doctor. I just don’t understand or have any empathy with the 11th Doctor; I don’t care what happens to him and I don’t look forward to seeing what will happen with him next. On the other hand, I am very keen on seeing what happens with Clara – it is she who is propelling my interest now.

Sorry if that offends anyone.

[HTPBDET @replies]

@ Juniperfish: I don’t mind some darkness in a Doctor – each of the first six Doctors had moments of darkness. That is part of the richness of the character. Eccleston and Tennant were excellent at conveying the sense of loss, darkness and infinite weary sadness that comes inevitably with over 900 years of travelling the Universe.

That’s not it.

I just don’t believe he is the Doctor. Just as I never believed Colin Baker was the Doctor. I dont like what he is asked to do and I dont like the way he does it.

Its wonderful, and just as well, that many peope adore him – otherwise, the programme would die. And I would rather it continued, with new blood, companions and Doctors than it be stopped cold dead again. So please – love him to bits – you have my complete support in that.

[HTPBDET @replies]

@Bluepipsqueak – I see. Yes the fob-watch solution would explian why and how Clara’s mother could be a Time Lord, I see that. Thanks.

But the Doctor left Susan on 21st Century Earth and, ever since the fob-watch thing began, I have always satisfied my romantic inner-self by thinking that Susan chose to use one to make herself human so that she and David Campbell would have lives that were likely to be of similar length. That she died in his arms, happy and content.

So, do you think Clara’s Mum is Susan? Is that the idea?

Or is she the Dr’s real daughter, not Jenny, hidden on Earth and Chameleon arched by the Dr to protect her? Which makes Clara Susan?

But if Clara is Susan, then who has put her in at least three different time streams? The Time Lords? Omega? The Dr? River Song? And why doesn’t she know who she is and what she is to the Doctor? Why does she want him to remember? Or is the idea that he has to remember what he has done in order to fix her?

[HTPBDET @replies]

@whohar – I am so sorry to disappoint you (and understand that you are just prodding the sleeping bear to see if it can still growl) but I am quite quite quite sure that there will never be an S. I cannot wait for a regeneration.

Reading the massive outpouring of bilious drivel on the Guardian pages makes me profoundly sad. There is no point in watching Doctor Who if your intent is to hate it. Or worse, if your intent is to see what you think you want to see. The only way to watch it is with an open mind, to see what happens and then (a) accept it has happened and was intended and (b) deal with it.

This story was about a lot of things. But first and foremost it sought to be wondrous and fun – and deadly serious all at once. Something, for instance, of which you could never accuse Horns of Nimon (Apologies to that earlier poster who loves Crowden’s appalling turn in that show – but…Good Grief!!)

This episode is chiefly about Clara and the Dr trying to work her out. But that is completely disguised by everything else that happens.

There are many distractions here – quite deliberate ones. There are the homages to famous and important films – no more or less creative and interesting than previous Dr Who riffs on famous and important films.

But at the heart was a very awful and savage story – that a young child would be trained and then sacrificed to an insane cosmic vampire, that people misunderstood the “God” they were worshipping, that the Doctor abandonded his new companion temporarily on a completely alien world where she could not speak some of the languages, and, importantly, that the Doctor had not stopped this evil when he was there before.

There is much to think about here: the title refers to the Rings, there were 8 of them – seven celestial ones and Clara’s. Does Clara’s have meaning we dont understand yet?

It seemed pretty clear to me that, at one level, this story is about fandom. The watching crowd of aliens represent the fans, the seven celestial rings represent the seven Classic Doctors, the insatiable vampiric foe, capable of defeating everything and wiping the Doctor out forever, represents the howling protestors who hate everything that is offered them, consume it, but want more and Clara’s leaf is the notion of possibility, of what might happen if it is allowed.

Its not the first time Doctor Who has raised notions about false Gods and the way the Doctor himself can be perceived – maybe its time to dust off Face of Evil and have a refresher?

The back story about Clara is also important – we see the Dr hanging around at different points in her apparent history, apparently watching what is happening. But is he just watching – or is he actually manipulating? Does he make the leaf hit the man’s face so the woman can rescue him? We see them cradling a baby – but is she theirs or has the Dr left her with them somehow? (I will be very profundly sad if she turns out to be Melody and this is how she was raised) Where is her father now? The “mother’s” journey starts at 11 – the number of Smith’s incarnation. That can’t be accidental. The number 27 keeps appearing – there were, I think, 27 companions of the classic series (up to McCoy’s final ep and counting Romana as one).What does it all mean? There is enough just there to make the episode worthwhile.

Then there is the TARDIS question. At first I just thought that she had no key and could not get in. But, perhaps, that is Hartnell’s TARDIS she tries to enter and as it is too early in the Dr’s timestream the TARDIS does not permit her entry.

Or perhaps this is some other TARDIS…

Perhaps Clara is the shattered, scattered through time representation of Idris? Say, in the Dr’s future, the Great Intelligence takes control of the TARDIS and ejects the Idris soul (we know it can be done from Doctor’s Wife) and disperses it through time and space and becomes the ultimate battle weapon (note the discussion about that in Bells) – perhaps in aid or support of the Daleks? – the Doctor is ejected somewhere and left to rot, his memories drained. TARDIS Clara, the impossible creature that she is, helps the Dr remember who he actually is, permitting him to defeat the GI and become, once more, the Captain at the helm.

Or something else…

It doesn’t matter. The point is the episode is rich with possibility. And it has a superlative performance from Jenna Louise Coleman at its core. Plus good special effects, silliness, scary bits (those faceless powerful 3 were fabulous) and sentimentality.

You dont have to love it. You are free to hate it. But, if you embrace it, even the bits you don’t care for, then there is something there for everyone. There really is.

As to 101 – I am simple, so to me it was 10 plus 1 – another 11 reference.

And weren’t the Bells  Monks in 1027? Ten doctors, 27 female companions? I think, if you count Romana twice and add River Song, there have been 27 female companions.

I quite like the idea that Clara’s Mum was a Time Lord, but it does not seem to make sense – she would regenrate, not die, surely? And why would her offspring be able to exist in three (at least) places in time and space separately? Although, it is an interesting riff on Thee Doctors – perhaps the title of the last episode this season is The Three Claras? In Three Doctors, the Time lords took the Doctor from different points in his time stream and placed all three together for a common good; perhaps, here, Clara has been taken from one point and separated. although, why she has no memory of what has happened to her is another mystery.

And does anyone want to take my bet that during the Anniversary Special Tennant will say to Smith “So you’re my replacement, eh? A dandy and a clowm!”

[HTPBDET @replies]

This will probably come as a shock to some of you – but I quite liked this episode. But then, perhaps I see it differently from others.

I don’t think the TARDIS rejected Clara. She didn’t have a key. She didn’t know she needed one because the TARDIS had been unlocked by the Doctor when she entered it in BSJ. The translator did not work because she was not yet a traveller – this is just her first journey. ( I am not fixed on that, but I think it fits).

I thought this episode was straightforward – the Doctor trying to investigate Clara. He took her somewhere he knew, where he thought she would be safe – and then went back to investigate her past, to see if her backstory, the one she believes, makes sense.

It might well be that Smith’s Dr left Clara there knowing that Hartnell’s Doctor was about to arrive and that, therefore, Clara would be safe. That might afford another explanation to the locked TARDIS if one was needed.

Whatever – the episode was about Smith testing Clara, seeing who and what she was.

I don’t really think he gave any of his memories up – there is certainly no extant sign that he did – but he pretends to see what she will do, to see what card she will play. He does not know if she is friend or foe, but he likes her and wants to find out. Lets not forget – he likes the Master too.

What seemed crystal clear to me is that at some point,  possibly the Anniversary Special,  we are going to go back to the point where the Dr left Gallifrey in the first place. I suspect that we are going to see him being entrusted with Susan – the reference to her here cannot be accidental, it is the only time she has been referenced in Nu-Who directly (as far as I can remember anyway) –  and told to “run you clever boy and remember” probably by his mother. Gallifrey invaded, under attack, by the Daleks maybe, or the GI or both, and his family being killed – and he is told to take the grand-daughter and run – and he does. This looks to me to be the Moffat reboot. Note too that when he tells Clara that they will run “until they are out of the Shadow” we are reminded of the first Eccleston episode and the reference to the Shadow Proclamation.

The Doctor’s tale to the Queen of Years is wonderful. Not the first time Lewis Carroll was referenced in Dr Who though. The emphasis on the individual is excellent, very old-style Who.

I did not like the Dr’s speech to the creature – until I thought of it as a test for Clara. He makes the speech to try and make her show her hand – what is important to her? I thought the leaf was simply wondrous – such a great idea, the lives not lived, the alternative realities never achieved causing an evil force to, effectively, stuff itself into unconsciousness.

The episode looks great – the sense of the alien nature of where they were was wonderfully realised. Actually, if you can’t find enough to enjoy in this episode of Dr Who, then really – why are you watching? The singing is alienating and alien – it’s all fine in my book.

Interesting to note that there are seven races involved – the followers of the seven Classic Drs perhaps? The last singer keeps referring to “the old guard” – I suspect that is Moffat talking about people like me…

The reason Clara thinks her house looks different when she is returned home is simple – the Doctor has walked in her past and changed her perceptions. When she looks at the house, she remembers and things are different. We may yet see other ways in which he has altered her life.

I will be interested to see if the Dr is responsible for the leaf hitting Clara’s   Dad in the face. Or if Clara has a metal sphere in her chest. Or if Clara is some fractured version of Jenny or Susan or the Dr’s mother- I really don’t think she has anything to do with River or the Ponds.

And the Ice Warrior story looks fantastic….

And I love Clara…totally, absolutely, unqualified LOVE her.

[HTPBDET @replies]

Right – must watch Rings of Whatsey…

[HTPBDET @replies]

Sorry – not good at mastering this blog technology…

Re 4245 above and the Gospel according to St Terrance :

What I said on the Guardian site was:

“As to the Great Intelligence – well, it bears no resemblence to the foe with that name that Troughton fought twice (three times if you count the frozen Tardis in the web in space). Troughton’s GI did not feed on minds – it possessed them to achieve one end – to take on corporeal form. The BSJ GI does not seem to be interested in corporeal form; so it both is and is not the GI.

When Troughton defeated the GI in Web of Fear, it was dispersed into the Universe – so, not really likely that it could have, or would have wanted to, possess a 7 year old child then. Still, its possible I guess.

The GI must have some wider role to play in this arc – Troughton sought to possess the GI, to contain it within his mind but Jamie stopped that. Perhaps the GI has taken some essence of the Dr as a result of that process?

Has anyone else looked at the photo of the Whispermen the BBC has put out? The creatures who appear in the finale of this episode block? Do they seem to be multiple copies of Matt Smith’s features hidden behind a mask (apart from clearly being derived from Buffy’s Hush?) Is he facing his fear – some aspect of himself?”

Actually, I think Phaseshift eloquently (and with citations) makes my point stronger.

Previously, in times Troughton, the GI was a disembodied entity that wanted corporeal form and used domination of the minds of humans to achieve that end. In Snowmen, the GI was intelligent snow, it took knowledge from humans and sought to conquer Earth.

The quote mentioned occurs towards the end of the story, but not at the end ( ep 5 maybe? It’s been some time…) and it does not affect my musings about how the nature of the GI seems to have changed under Moffat.

In WOF, the GI wants the Dr’s knowledge, not the power or essence of his mind. If the GI is refused by the Dr, it threatens to take that knowledge from as many humans as it takes. This is all to permit its conquest, its transformation to corporeal form , to proceed smoothly.

What the GI precisely does not do in those Troughton stories is feed on the minds of humans. Which seems to be its sole intent in TBOSJ.

Which I found curious. Not because feeding on minds is impossible for the GI – just that it was different. So, if different, then why? Discounting lazy writing, the sense one gets is that there is a larger plan afoot. But what?

It is interesting to consider the timeline of the GI’s interactions with the Dr. What comes first? And why doesn’t the Dr remember it? Assuming, as I do, that Snowman is meant to represent the Dr effectively creating the GI, then AS and WOF occur after it and then BSJ. S works looked at this way – the Dr has – well, Clara actually – turned the snow creature into a disembodied entity and it seeks corporeal form – but it doesn’t feed on human minds.

I don’t really understand why the GI uses the image of Richard E Grant either – that form was abandoned and, so we were told, the GI mirrored the tears and then evolved into a disembodied entity. How could it – and why would it – copy a form it had abandoned and had no way of mirroring?

Clara and her “run you clever boy and remember” motif – it occurs to me that prior to Asylum of the Daleks, the Doctor may have heard that phrase before.
When he stole the TARDIS and ran away from Gallifrey with Susan? Perhaps his mother said it to him? Could Moffat be proposing a re-imagining of the start of the Dr’s travels? Some catastrophe that sees the Dr’s family destroyed and his mother getting him to run to safety ( in the TARDIS ) but to remember her and his family?

So is Clara the Doctor’s mother – somehow scattered through time and without her memory?  Would explain a lot…

What is the Dr being exhorted to remember? His mother? The Great Intelligence? Who Clara is? All three? And are some of the answers the same?

[Author]

Posts