A bit more on “making amends” (my post #49171, above) (this just won’t leave me alone).  I thought that at the end of S8, the Doctor was ready to go out and attend to those “many mistakes” he spoke of in Deep Breath; now I think I was very wrong about that.  He still had to get past something first: his obsession with Clara, a total distraction i…[Read more]

I just posted this over on Doctor Who TV, and thought I’d bring it here too — if it’s repeating stuff others have already posted here, apologies, since I have no time to catch up on the latest right now —

But really, I am an idiot.

@Rainbow Kidneys loves “Sleep No More” Good grief. You’re right about the basic problem. I just put something…[Read more]

@mersey  And the Zygon Inversion is not the answer for my fear, grief, anger or helplessness. So I think I was correct in my opinion about this episode. It LOOKS TO ME shallow, naive or silly. But thankfully my opinion is not a rule and it can change.

Thinking about your post, above, for which my thanks.  The conversation here does tend toward t…[Read more]

@spud  You’re fine, don’t sweat it.  Maybe a Big Finish audio series for Clara and Ashyldr — that would be neat, and much easier to schedule around these actors’ screen work.  Here’s hoping!

SPOILER, SPOILER, SPOILER...

@notime You’re welcome!

@pedant  All of the times I thought the Doctor knew something, those sideways furrowed-brow glances (leading to the whole “Are the episodes in the right order?” debate) can now be more easily and more realistically interpreted as becoming increasingly concerned: the difference between “bad luck” and “an accident waiting to…[Read more]

@mudlark  The inner eye of memory is no longer capable of *seeing* her there, nor can he recall how it felt to be in her company; and crucially as @Arbutus and @tardigrade observed, the emotional connection which bound them together so tightly has gone.

@bluesqueakpip  After all, if the idea is to protect Clara from ever being traced through t…[Read more]

@ozitenor  right after she realized the Doctor suffered for billions of years for no reason other than to save her. She says “People like me and you, we should say things to one another, and I am going to say them now”. I wonder if it was just something simple and sentimental, an expression of gratitude and love. Anybody have any insights?

I thin…[Read more]

@arbutus  Did anyone notice that the Doctor, on being ordered to “lay down your weapons”, dropped his spoon to the table?

Yes!  Loved it, and a call back to what he’s come to get paid for by the instigators of the Dial ordeal: eating soup in the castle, asking himself if he’ll have to stay there . . . forever?  And the spoon slips out of his ha…[Read more]

@bluesqueakpip   Oh, and — Yes, the fatal flaw is more his than hers, as he recognizes when he talks to the chalk board:  Doctor: “What would (Clara) do?”

Board/Clara: “The same as you.”

Doctor: “Of course; that’s what got you killed.”

Rory’s judgment is validated: the Doctor, fooling about saving people and showing off, brought out the l…[Read more]

@bluesqueakpip  As devious plots by Missy go, she couldn’t have been more honest and less devious about it. She flat-out told him what she was doing in Death in Heaven, and then gave him a further massive hint in The Witch’s Familiar. And it’s also a very ‘hybrid’ plot: Clara is the enemy inside the friend and Missy, who sent her, is the friend…[Read more]

SPOILER, SPOILER, SPOILER...

@puroandson  Son of puro — I thought, after Heaven Sent, that the most satisfying end for Clara would be the raven death (or something like it).  But I’ve changed my mind about that, and I agree, it’s better in emotional terms for the viewers and in story terms for the characters for her to “graduate” to a “rest-of-your-life” full of heroic and e…[Read more]

@pedant  Everything in the last few minutes shows Clara’s absolutely desolation and heartache as she gets confirmation that the plan had worked, if not as intended then as expected (the purpose of the diner scenario being to run that test). The close-up acting (sorry, don’t know the technical term) by Jenna was stunning and screamed this, and it w…[Read more]

@mudlark  This: . . .  all the oblique and coded references in their conversation and their body language left me with a strong feeling, if not certainty, that the Doctor and Clara had reached a mutual, if unspoken understanding. When they parted he knew perfectly well who she was, even though she was no longer ‘in his mind’ and his memori…[Read more]

@mudlark  I got the impression that even when he first walked into the place he had some subliminal awareness of its significance, else why did he start picking out Clara’s theme and launch into his narrative? And then, at the end, he played the theme in full, which again I think is significant. And then he sees the diner dematerialise around hi…[Read more]

@bluesqueskpip  Love your post #48897, above — great.  This:  it’s the Doctor who thinks he’s playing the starring role in a tragedy. However, the universe – in the person of the current producer – knows he’s playing the starring role in a comedy.

And this:  When we see Face The Raven in hindsight, as the ‘regeneration’ story of Clara into Doc…[Read more]

@avaris  I think Clara can only die when she goes back to the fixed point in Face the Raven. I am not sure if it is fixed anymore. Only Twelve witness Clara’s Death, yet Twelve forgets about Clara.

An excellent point — thank you!  If a tree falls in the forest and only the Doctor sees it happen — ?

@puroandson  Son of puro, Her death is waiti…[Read more]

@pedant post #48765 — yes yes to all of it!  Wonderful stuff.  And:

“. . . the Hybrid there was still no suitable explanation” — There was a perfectly clear (not sure what suitable means in this context) explanation: the gestalt entity that is Doctor+Clara.

A gestalt that has now been wrenched apart, so that each one can get on with their se…[Read more]

@puroandson  . . . there’s a transition ‘space’ of memory -and so his ‘time’ in the confessional might well exist in some inexplicable ‘measure’: something to be remembered should he wish to, or to file away in his ‘mind palace’ for another day. . . . We can agree that had he really lived through this almost eternal hell, then of course nothing of…[Read more]