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11 October 2015 at 07:52 #44475
@craig Perhaps those who always threatened to never watch again have actually decided to never watch again.
Nope. Positives led, but by page 4 it declines back into interminable “look how clever I am!” whining. Yuck.
@bluesqueskpip Where did Clara come from? She is a bootstrap paradox.
Exactly. And given that she’s a bootstrap paradox, where the heck can she be going? Because she’s going somewhere; it is written (and in the can).
@phaseshift I would have liked a bit more with both Prentis and The Fisher King.
Me too; Prentis was fun and could have used more squirmily S&M stuff; as for the Fisher King, I am completely baffled. This is an alien warrior, big and ugly, and — WHY is he called “The Fisher King”? He’s not fishing; he’s not, so far as we know, guarding any kind of grail; he’s not, so far as we can see, wounded in the leg, though he is slow moving; and he makes no reference to any other element of the Fisher King legends and stories that I caught. So — Huh? “Hi, I’m Prentis. This is the Fisher King. He’s here to be buried.” What?
And this: Nice use of O’Donnell’s fate being used to give one couple a happy ending while emphasising that Clara is not in a happy place.
Yes, definitely! Some viewers really do need help getting past Clara’s ultra-competent, bold, and oh so cheerful act and seeing what a desperate mess she is (well, I think she is, enough so that even the Doctor, not the universe’s most sensitive guy, is troubled by it). Oh, and thanks for the info on the metal content of the phone — that was my first thought about how the “ghost” was able to pick it up. The axe, now, being dragged by Moran as he pursued Cass, I’m not so sure — is he enabled to hold the wooden handle because the metal head is so dense or something?
@juniperfish given his people’s history during the Time War (which the Fisher King pointedly points out) the Doc’s on the horns of a helluva moral quandry about whether it’s right for the state of things, to try and fetch them back from that bubble universe.
Yes — I have trouble with this whole “going home” thing, because — why? He didn’t like Gallifrey, was not well treated when he did go there, and has had no indication that they’ve learned some kind of lesson about not being idiots. I mean, here’s Missy, if he needs a reminder of nutty, narcissistic arrogance TL style.
@craig re Clara/CapDoc: . . . there does seem to be a distance despite the affection, and possibly even more of a distance than last series when they didn’t even know each other. Or perhaps the fact they know each other means they can now accept that they both need that distance.
They’ve resolved the more intimate drama of who each one is and how to keep balanced with each other, per S8. Now the stage has expanded, so there *is* more distance between her and the Doctor, and it’s full of other people from his past that she doesn’t even know (as she is now), like Ohila, Davros, even Prentis. She’s feeling lost in the vastness and in the shuffle — he’s worried about her, but she’s not central now the way she was in much of S8. At the end of Last Xmas, they zoomed off in the Tardis together, but at the beginning of TMA, he’s been traveling alone so much that she doesn’t have any idea where he might be. Diagnosis: he still has deep affection and a “duty of care” for her now, but he doesn’t need her the way he did in S8. She seems to have devolved from Very Difficult but absolutely-crucia-every-second Soulmate to — beloved puppy that has to be kept from dashing out into traffic. Not what she expected when she took CapDoc up on his invitation, having lost Danny, her chosen (but dead) one.
@winston The Doctor definately wants Clara alive but why and for how long. Who nose?
For how long can he *keep* her alive is perhaps the question, what with wild happenings distracting him. Do we catch the scent of a heavy, doom-laden storm a-coming?
11 October 2015 at 01:02 #44450@bluesqueakpip be funny if, at one point, we discover that the ‘Doctor Who Theme’ was, all along, some Gallifreyan punk rock riff that a very young Doctor used to play in his band.
Oh, yes, PLEASE!!!
Waiting for a couple of hours to read more here, as we get first look at 7 pm local time and it’s 6 now.
10 October 2015 at 19:35 #44420@whisht Villains have schemes and plans. Monsters are simply acting out their own nature.
Sounds like a good rule of thumb to me, though all sorts of other considerations would of course blur the distinctions into each other (like, a monster that has *become* a villain or once was a villain, and v.v., etc).
10 October 2015 at 04:28 #44400@winston Nice to hear from a new member! Gods know there’s lots to catch up on around here.
10 October 2015 at 04:07 #44397@blenkinsopthebrave Anyway, just needed to make that slight adjustment to my thin, thick, thin theory. After all, if you are going to have a theory that proves to be wrong in every detail, then it has to be based on the correct information…
It should have a nice symmetry, too.
10 October 2015 at 03:57 #44396@phamlore But the problem with the wings of Icarus is they will melt when they get too close to the Sun. And so I fear this will happen somehow to Clara. For she is not the Doctor and I think she is not a Time Lord.
Exactly. She *was* the “Impossible Girl”, but that’s faded away; then she was the damn-near impossible companion to a damn-near impossible Doctor, but they managed to lurch and shove and tumble their way to a kind of mutually accepting friendship and, inside the frame of discreet adventures on or near Earth, a good working relationship of Doctor Prime and pseudo-Doctor-sub-1. But on the huge stage of the universe *plus characters from the Doctor’s past who are often also superhuman and also new to Clara* — the Karn sisters, Davros, Zygons coming up, etc. — she is in reality “the puppy”.
A puppy with wax wings can only fly so high, trying to keep up with eagles. This is not going to be pretty, but it will be deliciously sad, IMO.
8 October 2015 at 07:14 #44315@purofilion “no socks or badgers until they were invented.” That’s what I thought he said, too!
and Or …the Doctor believes there’s a traitor on board and he wants people to think ‘ghosts’ -the Doctor lies to protect others, to protect a great secret….By saying ‘ghosts’ they (the crew) are all thinking exactly the same thing -like an earworm – thus they won’t think about what the ‘ghosts’ really are….
I like that. I’ve been wondering about his behavior being a bit exaggerated re the nature of the “ghosts”, too, and wonder if he’s performing believing in their ghost-ness for reasons of deception.
@whisht The ‘ghosts’ are actually hollow. At least that’s how I saw the SFX. The eyes are empty and show the back of the skull. Which means they could be simply image scans of the outside of the person, recreated as an avatar. But with massive eye ridges and no eyes, because…. erm…. it wouldn’t be as scary.
And skullified faces, sort of. But yeah, they don’t seem to have any autonomy but move like robots part of the time, wheeling around in synch and that kind of thing. More like a waldo, maybe, operated by — the spaceship’s master programming? One of the waldos’ originals, in stasis but directing things from there?
@phamlore I am wondering if prior to going back in time to be found, the Doctor did a mass deletion and / or suppression of a huge raft of memories. Perhaps that is another reason for the Doctor to carry his new glasses as a link to the Tardis, a backup of information.
Oh, neat! Very bonkery. So what would he have deleted, and why? We know he’s deleted sign language and replaced it with semaphore (what? That’s a very weird substitution, IMO). But could he trust the Tardis to do her part if he needs info back up, seeing how recalcitrant and fidgety she’s made by the ghosts . . . ? More likely he’s lost a lot of memories in the regen process leading up to this massive new serving of regenerations and had no hand in choosing which went and what came in their place — a very handy device, if so, for the writers, but also another set of changes to have to keep track of.
6 October 2015 at 09:48 #44168@janetteb they have seen three episodes thus far and are proclaiming that series 9 is so much better than series 8. Fans can be so fickle I fear the positive comments will not last.
Oh, I think this will be fine; the fans who hated S8 hated Clara as a Player, which she isn’t now, at least not nearly on the same scale; and they were bored and restless by all the excellent character work that was the thematic spine of the show. Now that we’re back to jolly/scary/run-like-mad adventure as a style, they’ve been given what they were demanding — and they’re not sophisticated (? trying to find a non-offensive word?) enough to spot the underlying unease and dark foreshadowing around Clara/CapDoc, so all is well.
It’s all fine, IMO, since no *way* could the intense mood and sometimes erratic shifts and wrenches of S8 be successfully maintained for the following series. After all, S8 resolved: S9 *has* to find a different footing from S8, or the resolution of S8, the successful attainment of understanding, forgiveness, and acceptance of each other, would be undone and generally betrayed.
All in all, I’m pleased and not surprised at the largely positive response across, as it were, the board, to S9 so far: the fandom is diverse, and this way everybody wins — and S8 stands firm as the daring achievement that it was and is, at least in my view. My cup runneth over; I’m happy to drink a lighter wine from another cup for a while.
6 October 2015 at 07:57 #44166@purofilion This week has as much, if not more, speculation about various concepts and ideas -factual, mythological, philosophical, than last week. I didn’t think that was possible.
Yah, well . . . they are on one hell of a roll so far!
I can’t imagine anyone suggesting Moffat isn’t at his absolute best right now. I haven’t visited the Graun, though my friend with the five boys has donned protective clothing and claims there’s as much negativity as ever.I also drop in at reddit and Doctorwhotv.com, and am finding lots of positive response to S9 now. I like to imagine that when S9 is done, and people exhaust conversation about it during the hiatus to S10 (whatever that may turn out to be), some of them will go back to S8, realize what a gem it was, and what a perfect complement to it S9 is (looking like from here, anyway). Knowing that Jenna will be gone by the end of S9 makes S8 and S9 a potentially fabulous sequence, knitting together the peak of her characterization as a realistic (and flawed) human being (S8) and the aftermath of that, where she has to find her footing in a very different situation with the newly self-confident Doctor (S9).
I think commentators who are celebrating S9 for “returning the Doctor to center stage” are going to be a bit surprised at how much this series will turn out to be informed throughout by the completion of Clara’s story. Surprised, and (I hope) won over, because they’ll have still had their very Doctor-strong episodes around it . . . but it will still be, as Moffat insists, “about” the companion in compelling ways.
@phamlore (the) . . . attack that killed the commander was clearly shown as occurring right after the corporate guy was shown spending a lot of attention on that rear control panel with the circles on it. I surmise what is being defended is that control panel.
Yes! I noticed that jerk creeping around, but I thought he was up to something because he was in league with the ghosts in some way, and trying to facilitate their attack . . .
6 October 2015 at 07:41 #44162@craig There’s more here if you are interested, including some comments from Toby Whithouse (‘See Hear’ is a BBC deaf programme):
Oh, that’s lovely — thanks, Craig!
@bluesqueakpip Ghosts do that. At least, they f@@k up electronics, so Toby Whithouse is entirely justified in riffing off that and making his ghosts able to interfere productively with the base’s electronics.
Oh, yeah — forgot about that, though it’s usually sort of random scrambly stuff rather than so specific; but, hell, if you’ve got ghosts, you can pretty much have them do whatever you like anyway, and it was good here for them to be able to affect some physical things.
6 October 2015 at 07:23 #44161@mudlark That they are threatening and potentially homicidal, despite one of them being an alien from Tivoli – the ultimate pacifist culture – is enough on its own to suggest that they are not manifestations of the souls of the dead they resemble. I don’t think that the Doctor was thinking very clearly here.
Oh, good — I didn’t spot that, having utterly forgotten the Tivoli! And as a reply:
@juniperfish I’m sure the Doc has figured this out too, that the beings are not really ghosts – my guess is that someone on the crew is nefariously involved and he didn’t want to let them know he was on the right track…
Good point; I think you’re right. And about S8, still a marvel in my view:
Capaldi Doctor – he’s going through the process of accepting what he’d repressed for so long – that the War Doctor was himself – that he was a soldier (officer class – Danny really nails that one) and ‘sometimes the only choices you have are bad ones, but you still have to choose’…
@mersey unexpected help in the last moment, when you think you’re a goner. I think Doctor is the true embodiment of this concept, the ancient god in his machine.
Yes, except that in many cases he arrives by accident because the Tardis brought him there, rather than showing up because he intends to intervene in a brou-ha-ha there. The machine chooses where to go; the “god” decides what to do when he gets there. So — there is something new under the sun after all?
5 October 2015 at 18:53 #44121@jphamlore The underwater base the Drum is located in Caithness. This area at the northern tip was settled / invaded by the Norse. Hmmm.
Indeed — and we do seem to have a “Viking village” episode up ahead . . . and dang it, that holy grail thing — how weird! I’m reading Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant right now (his latest book, very Arthurian), which has a grail-image on the cover to help us poor mortals get some kind of a handle on the dreamy, murky story to be found therein. I didn’t connect the Lenin poster in the trailer with the Viking-shields-and-“dragon” ep, though — and thought that whole medieval setting was from a completely different two-parter, the one with Maisie Williams in a sort of medieval vest garment, and then as a highway-person with a flintlock?
Am now very (and officially) confused . . . lovely!
5 October 2015 at 18:42 #44120@janetteb Right, thanks; I thought there was an Arthurian connection. There certainly might be one with a “cauldron” that brings dead people back to “life” but without the power of speech: these undersea ghosts keep trying to speak, but don’t actually manage it, do they? (I’m a bit handicapped here at the moment, since iTunes has messed up my ability to re-watch and my memory is nothing to depend on.)
The whole “ghost” issue — ?! Even if a ghost is assumed to be more than a tape-loop, having emotions and will connected to “unfinished” life business, it has only very limited and conditional power to affect anything physical. That, and maybe being locked to a specific past (“this is how I died”) or future (“I’m warning you against X, up ahead”) event, is the major difference between a ghost and a living person. A living person has agency to inter-act physically with the physical world whereas a ghost doesn’t (although they can reportedly lower local temperature when they appear); which is why in stories ghosts seek to connect with living people who can be persuaded to act *for* them.
But these “ghosts” pick up weapons and go after people; they changed electronic/mechanical settings to drown Pritchard and to alter the day/night lighting, right? That aligns them with the malevolent ghosts of horror stories, which are basically monsters, rather than with the idea of spirits held back from leaving the physical behind. I’m thinking that these aren’t ghosts at all, but some other form of organized energy resembling once-living people. The Doctor’s exhilaration at the idea that there might be personal, conscious survival after death is doomed to be disappointed.
Which, IMO, is probably a good thing: the Whoniverse is already dense with various sapient species and their cultures, vastly multiplied by adding access to time dimensions going back to the beginning and forward to the end. Do we really want to also pack it with the ghosts of all of time’s past and future dead? And could the Doctor really have been traveling time and space for upwards of a thousand years and never before encountered any of them before? These “ghosts” aren’t holograms — not if they can take an axe or harpoon gun down from the wall and chase you with it — but I don’t think they can be “ghosts” (in our usual meaning of the word) either.
@mudlark The recklessness she displays at the beginning of this episode may some kind of over-reaction to that shock – a way of reasserting and re-validating herself, but I doubt if, in reality, she really thinks now that she has it in her to *be* the Doctor.
I doubt it too. Ending up stuck in Dalek armor provoked not an outburst of rage from her but a melt-down, and that’s a bad sign that she can hardly ignore. “Flatline” was here on Earth — her own stomping ground, familiar and “controllable” even if threatened by alien invasion. In that respect, “Flatline” was miniature golf by comparison to the situation on Skaro where without Missy Clara would have been helpless — and where, *because* of Missy, she ended up helpless and panicked anyway, needing to be rescued by the Doctor (“Think, Open!”). I think she realizes that she really is “the puppy” on this much broader stage. That suggests to me progress toward a willful grand gesture in departure, a last-ditch effort to transcend puppy status and shine, however briefly, as a player again.
5 October 2015 at 08:48 #44099@cathannabel The Returned! French spookiness of a very high quality indeed and featuring a drowned valley…
Yes! How could I forget . . . really looking forward to that one. Now, I’ve got to get some sleep, but just to have a little nightmare material to take with me, can somebody fill me in a bit on the Fisher King himself, in legend and story? He sure looks like a nasty piece of work in the trailers, but was he always a bad guy?
5 October 2015 at 08:45 #44098@jphamlore Think of an older Lyell who may have been driven to despair and desperation, due to the death of his longtime companion, to finally explore past the safe limits investigating the artifact.
Hmm. Then maybe the Doctor might be back here later, after Clara has — exited, however that comes about? Just a possible similarity . . .
@missy I must admit to not enjoying this series (so far) as I did series 8 – well this episode, if I were to narrow it down. It seems to me that the stories are being levelled more at adults than children lately. Too technical at times
I don’t know about that — haven’t earlier eps been heavy on the (made up) tech, but nobody minds because kids tend to just skate over what doesn’t make sense to them? It’s a really long time since I’ve been a kid, myself, so . . . As for S8 vs S9 so far, I see S9 as much more externally focused and so actually a lot more youth-oriented than S8, which is why I loved S8, am enjoying S9 but not enthralled. S8 was *more* adult, IMO, being about a relationship triangle of considerable complexity in structure and expression. I’m missing that; but that was precisely what many fans disliked about S8, and I had a pretty good idea that S9 was going to step away from adventures in the levels of love and head back into worlds of physical (and in this case, ghost!) adventure.
In the white box: Arthur, the Fisher King or the Doctor himself!
Probably not the Fisher King; he’s played by an actor who’s somewhere above 7 feet tall, I read someplace. I don’t think he’ll fit in that box, what with all the horn-thornb like protrusions around and above his head in the trailer pics.
5 October 2015 at 08:31 #44096@cathannabel And one of my top books ever (and one which relates to my actual research thus justifying me looking up stuff about it on a research day), W G Sebald’s Austerlitz, refers to the drowned village of Llanwddyn, submerged under the Vyrnwy reservoir.
I am a sucker for stories about that, too — do you know Reginald Hill’s “On Beulah Height”? A very impressive turn with a drowned village story. It’s a sort of teensy sub(merged)-genre all its own, often(ish) used in murder mysteries and the like (although I can’t think of another title right now — must be bed-time).
5 October 2015 at 08:27 #44095@spider And oh MY doesn’t Capaldi look very, VERY spooky as a ‘ghost’. I’ve got chills just thinking about that look.
Gawd, yes! Creepy and a half.
The line that didn’t fit at all for me (and didn’t in the trailer either) was ‘I want to kiss it to death’.
It made sense at the time, but now I’m thinking — kiss *what* to death, exactly? What’s the “it” he’s talking about?
5 October 2015 at 08:13 #44093@bluesqueakpip he badly wants to believe that the people he’s lost aren’t gone, forever – but as a Time Lord, he’s been taught all his life that death is the end. Maybe Moffat’s doing the same thing he did with religion in Who – moving us away from that dogmatic scientism: towards a more agnostic/neutral ‘honestly, folks? We really don’t know.’
That would be interesting — so would the reaction of the “Oh, look how wonky the science is, horrors!” crowd (as if DW science was ever seriously scientific — was it?), if they catch a whiff of open-mindedness about the issue in DW.
@purofilion Brilliant music score this week: powerful and infused with legend.
I’ll have to go back and listen — I was too caught up in the story to pay proper attention, first time through.
Last season in Deep Breath after the phone call following Eleven’ regeneration (or can we say death/passing/moving on?) he admonished Clara to “really see” him.
Tis the other way ’round now.Yes — he’d better pay attention, because she’s demanding that he do so by being unusually bold and reckless: “Look at me now, I’m a better companion than ever because I’m doubling your talents by being around!” Demanding to be visible on this bigger stage. I notice that all those intense stares at each other from S8, and the many light physical touches — hand on arm, a touch on the shoulder — those are gone, here. That’s settled: we’re traveling companions, comrades in arms, tight and mutually trusting. Only she’s kept on moving from there, pushing herself as brave and capable maybe beyond good sense, so he can’t take her for granted — he has to keep an eye on her, for her own sake (and, of course, his own). That’s part of why the fit is a little uncomfortable, I think.
@mudlark she has realised, prompted by Missy in The Witch’s Familiar, that the Doctor has survived so many perils because, whatever his predicament, he always starts with the assumption that there is a way out, she has perhaps become too reliant on his ability to keep her safe.
Or maybe on her own Doctor-y ability to keep herself safe, now that she’s more like him than ever.
@janetteb I am guessing once again that the Doctor goes back in time, cracks the secret of how to generate the ghosts and sends his own “ghost” forward in order to save Clara and the crew.
I’m guessing that’s a damn good guess.
3 October 2015 at 07:48 #43960@lisa I did wonder about that big snake . . . They were voting, though, it said. Do collectives have individual votes? Majority rule?
3 October 2015 at 05:36 #43958@purofilion My own existential fear is actually the concept ‘eternity’. . . the knowledge that one could not stop living. Even in death. Honestly, even writing this gives me the willies. I truly fear this concept. I find that by simply trying not to think about it helps. . . And yours?
I don’t know if this is an existential fear — probably: but dead stuff that continues moving (whether truly sentient or not — zombies as ridiculously fast-moving cannibals) or starts moving (the refrigerator sings Verdi, a tree sits down on the curb). The Uncanny, I guess (which means, what? The unknown, unknowable, unknowing?). Blood freezes; that can’t be!
Also — big, raw, physical violence, the sight of, but even more, the sounds (only heard, so far, in movies). I went out to the lobby when that guy in Bonnie and Clyde got part of his head shot away and died slowly and audibly. Same near the end of an Italian film when the left-wing prisoner had his head repeatedly bashed against the stone wall by his Fascist murderers. I shut my eyes, but the sounds were worse than the visuals. My sister and I both inherited very acute hearing from our father; just another part of how cranky he could be, I think now.
None of this is useful for DW villains; the best TV monster, I think, were the Buffy weird guys with their mummy man in “Hush” — horrible in a thrilling way, because I was also admiring how wonderfully effective they’d been made.
3 October 2015 at 04:58 #43957@mudlark Gawd, you’re right — Colony Istlum or Colony Rat would be searching for Missy to give her awards and banquets. I suppose Davros might have “made” CS, or found it already made and hired it on. I like the idea of naturally evolved colonies like this (what evolutionary forces would produce them?), and would hope that democracy would be common among them — although it’s not all that common among other social animals that live in packs of one kind or another, and I have my doubts.
Many groups go for hierarchy, a successful strategy that reduces fighting (over food, mates, etc.) within the group if everybody knows who eats first, and next. Ideally, group members are protected (from each other) by the hierarchy itself, as long as they stay in the niche assigned to them. Minimal internal strife would promote the health of all. And then fewer group members will be disabled or injured when it comes to a fight with outsiders over territory, resources, etc. It’s depressing but not surprising that among humans, no matter how egalitarian the intentions are, hierarchies tend to appear given a bit of time (ask anybody who lived in a hippie commune in the sixties).
2 October 2015 at 05:22 #43922SEB, yes — fussy, loquacious, full of delicate euphemisms for being, ah, dead . . . he’s a virus in the computer network the kids work with in their classrooms, sometimes makes his own announcements over the P.A. system . . . Is anxious to stay hidden from Missy — all right, all right, that’s enough of that, me.
2 October 2015 at 01:35 #439172 October 2015 at 01:31 #43916@mudlark @denvaldron @lisa Colony Sarf is just Colony Sarf, not “Colony Sarf #1” or “Colony Sarf pal of Davros”, which suggests that maybe CS is in fact unique in its sarf-ness. Perhaps there are similar “colonies” of other animal forms out there somewhere — ? Then “Colony Rat” (what’s Welsh for “bat”?) might decide to avenge the rubbing out of its cousin-colony by Missy.
Just messin’ around . . . inspired by “Sarfs on a Plane”, above.
2 October 2015 at 01:05 #43915@purofilion (Missy) will exploit Clara and then carry out a further plan which may well cost Clara her life: and in the process the Doctor will blame himself or perhaps Clara may indulge a whim to do something quite mad….and the Doctor will be truly angry with her (and not blame himself and Missy will smile gleefully but quietly): Do as YOU ARE TOLD” And she does not. This leads to her death perhaps? Or something worse?
That would be an odd inversion of Missy’s summation of the pairing of them (which she arranged) as “The control freak and the man who should never be controlled” (which I think refers to SmithDoc, “DON’T TELL ME THE RULES!”): it would be CapDoc as the “control freak” (aka parent/dog-ownere), and Clara as the puppy that *can’t* ever be controlled. Though she seems, in S9 so far, pretty well tamed by her new, toned-down perspective on how much of a Player in this big universe she actually is.
2 October 2015 at 00:56 #43911@jphamlore . . . Clara is . . . a plot by Missy to break the Doctor once and for all of his desire to travel with a human companion as opposed to Missy. Missy wants Clara to be the absolute limit in the good sense of what an ordinary human companion can be. Peak Clara and Doctor. And then of its own weight, perhaps not even with Missy’s direct intervention, it will all come crashing down.
Mmm, I like it; and certainly “crashing down” is most likely, one way or another, so Missy might get her way even if that’s not exactly what she’s been plotting toward. As to the crazy/not crazy, I dunno — I think somebody with a piano sized brain might be crazy (erratic behavior, egomaniacal, a total sociopath, but not a psychopath — she doesn’t give any evidence of being subject to hallucinations and delusions, so a threat to others but a dandy survivor in her own right) and also be a champion plotter.
1 October 2015 at 05:02 #43874@lisa There’s a Mrs. Sarff that has democratically voted to hunt Missy down to avenge her late SO.
Thank you, Lisa! So satisfying . . . cue Mrs. Sarf, please! Or, maybe a little bit later on . . .
1 October 2015 at 01:55 #43869Drat. Italics got away from me.
1 October 2015 at 01:52 #43868@bluesqueakpip . . . she had a bang-up exit. Her potential exit in Death in Heaven was heartbreaking, and her other potential exit in Last Christmas was bitter-sweet. So from her point of view, I’d think it’s more than a bang-up exit; it’s some kind of show-off plot-line or series of stories.
Well, that’ll do too, of course; though I meant “bang-up” literally — not a quiet exit like what was apparently planned for Last Xmas, but some suitable fireworks. In any case, I look forward to finding out.
Meantime, I am already missing Colony Sarf, and wishing Missy hadn’t shot the beschmeezis out of it. I’d like to see it return, presenting as female this time (must be some lady snakes in there too, right?), with Medusa hair . . . and lipstick . . . ? Borrowed from Missy?
30 September 2015 at 22:55 #43860@bluesqueakpip The two traditional arguments are a) more money and b) an interesting plotline. Since this is the BBC, not US TV, we’re probably talking b). 🙂 My question would be ‘why did Steven Moffat want so badly to convince her to sign on for S9?’
Then I’d guess she was promised a bang-up exit! As for why, why not? Capaldi clearly has enjoyed working with her and v.v., for starters, and you want to keep your lead player happy since you’re planning on keeping him around for a while. With S9 the take-off for #12 as a fully regenerated, charged-up-and-ready-to-go Doctor, I think it was a good decision — a reward for viewers who hung in for S8 even though they weren’t keen on all the character exploration and somewhat chaotic psychological ruckus. It’s enough to bust out with a Tardis team galloping off to adventure for S9, on the way to ending Clara’s run.
Then S10 has a new starting gate: either the Doctor alone for a while, or taking on and getting used to a new companion. I think it made good sense to keep her on for S9; now we’ll see how well they’ve made it work.
30 September 2015 at 21:45 #43855For anyone who hasn’t come across this — good stuff, though occasionally there, it looks a bit like Capaldi being interviewed by Davros:
30 September 2015 at 17:39 #43852@pedant Clara saw the full power of the Time Lords not as a 3D artwork in the Under Gallery, but up close and personal – and felt tiny.
Yes — she doesn’t go all outraged — “How dare you!” etc. — about being identified as “the puppy”. Quite telling. This isn’t a two-hander on a dizzying whirl of locations with her amazing star-man; this is the Very Great Big Leagues.
30 September 2015 at 06:36 #43832@pedant this episode really delivered in spades the full and epic scale of the arrogance of the time lords in a way that would have been unacceptable coming from The Doctor. And again, that is about the character of a people who have mastery of time itself and to whom stopping a few thousand planes is flight is a mere parlour trick.
Yeah — but she *is* regarded by all as crazy, and there was all that “non-intervention” Prime Directive stuff back in the day, so I reckon the TLs are very aware of this temptation, on the whole. Missy? She *lives* for temptation! But she’s not typical, is she?
I agree, of course, about Clara; but her position now is very odd, and difficult to describe. She was a goddess in the machine for SmithDoc, the machine being mainly his timeline. Then she became CapDoc’s fractious partner in some strange personal version of La Valse, the two of them spinning around each other in fretful friction as they headed, separately but together, toward major resolutions in their lives — him to his wild card identity, hers to her escape from Earth as her major theater of operations and a dedication to having as many flings among the stars as she can.
Only now — that close, jaggedy relationship with CapDoc was resolved. She’s got to be something else to him now, and he to her. Sometime traveling companion is pretty weak, compared to schoolmaster/dominatrix/emotional storm-that-must-be-endured. And he’s not studying her any more, testing her, trying out facets of his own nature with and against hers. IMO, the tightness of the S8 bond is gone, particularly with the addition (however on-and-off) of MissMaster as an old partner/antagonist of his.
She *is* the puppy, with no way back to her pack any more (Danny was that way, and he’s gone). What can she make of this new, much lower status? What can she make of it that will interest and satisfy her — and us? Hell of a challenge. I wonder what arguments Moffat and Capaldi used to convince her to sign on for S9?
30 September 2015 at 06:17 #43826@purofilion Did anyone think Capaldi looked really quite sick? I’m assuming in addition to weight loss – although his hair has grown weight 🙂 that perhaps the colourisation of the episode as well as the extreme close -ups have an effect. . . . Maybe one needs real regen. energy to survive this show. And how come Moffat always looks well rested and bouncy?
I wouldn’t say he looked sick — but he did look tired. The pace seems to be taking a toll on him, which isn’t surprising. Someone posted part of a panel at the Radio Times Big Do last week (?) at which more eps per season were suggested, and Capaldi’s reaction was visibly “Not on your life, sonny”, though I don’t recall what he actually said in reply. It was very interesting, in fact, terrible video and not much better sound, but he seemed very workmanlike (as well as funny, of course), no airy-fairy inspirational talk. He said something about every actor having their personal “bag of tricks” that they turn to, though with the Doctor he of course tries to get beyond that automatic first response.
I remember an actor in my (one and only) play stopping during a rehearsal and frowning about his own response to a speech by another: “My go-to response — you know, when I don’t really know what the hell to do — is to laugh; but that’s not working here, is it?” I’ve learned a lot from actors; that’s why I pay them very close attention, as master (or less than that) crafts-people.
As for Moffat — isn’t it obvious? He’s a vampire!
30 September 2015 at 06:01 #43825@kharis So many other “discussion” sites I’ve had a look at turned out to be less like joining a discussion and more like falling into Colony Sarf.
30 September 2015 at 00:00 #43806@whisht …the secret of Clara.
I’ve now read through these posts and I may be wrong but so far we’ve theorised that:
Clara is CAL (bloody hell I’ll have nightmares about those anagrams again);
a previous regeneration of the Master (I like this – Clara regenerates into Missy, exits stage left as Missy and Missy enters stage right); she is Susan (hm); Susan’s mum (hmm); she is Susan’s dad (maybe); Susan’s daughter (oh ffs);
The Doctor’s mother (err); The woman who held her face in her hands in that episode who’s name I forget; That she is just Clara, and that’s enough… but no, Clara is actually….. The Doctor’s…….
Aunt.That’s all very well, but what happened to The Handbag? (“A handbag, a handbag, is not a proper mother, not a proper mother, not a proper mother — ” Anybody else see the short-lived musical version of The Importance of Being Earnest?).
29 September 2015 at 23:55 #43805@denvaldron If I was a Dalek, that’s probably where I’d stash my porn.
@arbutus I would have thought it was obvious. Davros keeps his beer down there.
Too tough to get to — he keeps his medical records there. Must be a lot of them, and they’re no damn use anyway. Or really old telephone directories, for ballast and also for heft when you want to ram somebody.
When Missy tells Clara, scornfully, to try for a moment to consider friendship, that was clearly a moment of absolute sincerity. However twisted we may know that relationship to be, she honestly considers it to be friendship.
And, specifically, she’s drawing a parallel between “My best friend whom I keep trying to kill” and “The one I love and want to snuggle with”, and declaring the first superior by eons to the second, not least, it seems, because it’s *not* about flesh and reproduction. Heaven help her daughter . . .
29 September 2015 at 21:15 #43799My candidate for the witch’s familiar:
https://www.facebook.com/awvwv/videos/1020348338016079/
Ah, the majesty of Eee-villll!
29 September 2015 at 20:56 #43797@denvaldron Davros lives in a chair designed for him and him alone, and he’s got no legs or lower torso? So what exactly is the Doctor squeezing into?
Well, one shudders to think, doesn’t one? Do the squiddy Daleks have legs? People do keep getting into the Dalek suits, so I guess by this time we’re not supposed to be asking that question . . . There’s a TWF “Extra” on the DW page that shows Capaldi perched on top of Davros’s chair (he says the thing is a nightmare to work in, and proves it by nearly taking the set down with it), so I doubt it’s particularly comfortable.
Do Daleks dream of electric legs, and keep a bit of space in the old salt-shaker in their memory?
29 September 2015 at 19:34 #43790@arbutus @nerys On the Daleks as one dimensional baddies — there were times when my husband and I would just look at each other (we were fans together) and say, “Oh no — Daleks!” and go off to do something else, because the Daleks were so flat that they were comical, which tended to disrupt the stories. Now that there’s a suspicion that there’s a tormented inner life *forced* on them by Davros’s way of “making them safe”, it’s a whole other ball of wax, and a much more interesting one, IMO.
29 September 2015 at 19:14 #43788@denvaldron You feel that there’s something honest in Davros opening up. I don’t feel that there’s anything honest in it at all.
Yup. We disagree, as we’ve both been saying for several rounds now. Thanks for the detailed explanation — I still disagree, and so do you. I grew up with siblings; I’ve had plenty of experience with disagreement, and it doesn’t trouble me. I’ve had my say, so I’m moving on from it.
Looking forward to the undersea stories — the very vey tall guy in the very very ugly suit, now, he’s got me worried!
29 September 2015 at 06:36 #43757@purofilion He’s never going to be fluffy.
Good grief, did I write something that made it sound as if I think the Doctor is “fluffy”? Or even could be? Not my intention, I assure you! It’s his sharp edges that I most admire, and find true to his nature as presented. I thought Clara was rather fluffy in S7, which was one reason I didn’t take to her then. She got her own sharp edges in S9, and I liked her fine.
Perhaps the impression I took away from this 2 parter was that these Time Lords are almost beyond our understanding. Smith and Tennant made them seem human, but Capaldi has shown an extraordinary grasp of something much deeper, and more profound: that he’s capable of intrigue, lies and deception in order to save his race, to save Clara and even Missy (and himself) whilst engaging in hostile action. And that it is perfectly acceptable.
Absolutely agree; and this is why Clara identified as “the puppy” is just recognition that she’s not in the same league as these much more powerful people. I’ve said it myself and seen others do the same — to a TL, a human is as a pet cat or dog is to us, short-lived (who could forget that remark to Courtney in S8!), of limited brain capacity, but companionable, interesting, and sometimes extremely useful. When Capaldi said he meant to revive the sense of the Doctor as *alien* he wasn’t just blowing smoke. He’s *doing* it. And I agree too that the connection that little conversation allowed to happen only lasted briefly — it didn’t actually change the plans or intentions of either of them.
Oh, and thanks about the Machiavellian thing; long-winding, intricate master plans do sometimes work, at least in the larger intentions (like misleading the Nazis about where D-Day was going to happen). But up close, things are forever going wrong (I heard Terry Pratchett talked about this once, in connection with experience with nuclear power plants). What’s the opposite of Serendipity? Murphy’s Law? IMO, there’s a lot more Murphy’s Law hanging around waiting to happen, and to gum up the works, than Serendipity waiting to put helpful goodies in one’s way.
@janetteb I watched “Fatal Death” a couple of weeks ago for the first time — really enjoyed it! TWF certainly did raise its ghost(s), for me.
29 September 2015 at 05:23 #43752Damn, I am not kidding — timey-wimey drives me crazy-wazy sometimes. *When* are we, with TMA/TWF? Clara rebukes the Doctor for keeping Missy’s survival a secret: “We both saw her die, but that was ages ago. You’ve been keeping secrets”, more or less. Clara’s not a TL, so “ages” doesn’t mean to her what it would mean to the Doctor or Missy; so what would that be — a few years, Earth time? She’s clearly resentful that the Doctor has been keeping Missy’s survival a secret for some time now (and he’s caught out: “I’m sorry,” no explanation offered).
Clearly, it’s some significant time, and the Doctor has had some significant encounters, like Boy Davros and the hand mines, which re-enforces the divergence of the Doctor’s path from hers since she seems to know nothing about any of it. “Come on, come on, great stuff awaits us!” is replaced by, “Oh, erm, yep, some big stuff has happened including Missy, sorry I sort of forgot to tell you about any of it and I’m not going to explain it now either.”
At the end of Last Xmas, they zipped into the Tardis together to go looking for adventure; but now they’re not traveling together, she doesn’t know where he’s got to and is busy teaching, so the resolution of Last X has turned into — what? S9 = S8 without Danny, so the Doctor has kind of lost interest in Clara (now that she’s moved on to a more traditional, somewhat distant companion relationship with him, no competition for her attention to deal with?) and gone off on his own for an extended period? Though the resolution of Last X might still be part of a dream crab illusion — ??
Just trying to get my bearings, here.
29 September 2015 at 04:48 #43751@denvaldron . . . the charge I level at Moffat. He’s taken a character with the potential for life-like depth and flexibility, for fallibility and humanity, and he’s reduced her to a plot pawn to perform a prescribed story function.
I disagree; but where she can go after the special circumstances of S8 has been a question since S8 ended. I don’t think that she’s dropped back into the (acknowledged by Moffat) pawn status of Clara in S7; but she is still unsettled by being somewhat sidelined to the Missy/Davros/Doctor configuration. Episodes up ahead could persuade me otherwise, but these particular arguments about this episode don’t.
We are very different in our outlooks, but neither one of us were invited to write this episode. So it doesn’t really involve our processes as writers. We come to it as watchers, as an audience, and Moffat’s choices are open to analysis and critical assessment.
Yes; and to that analysis, I bring my own experience as a writer, whether I want to or not — that’s been a huge chunk of my identity for about sixty years. You bring whatever you like, but it doesn’t cancel out what I bring, or my right to bring it. The perception of art isn’t objective or passive: what the individual brings to it matters.
Davros was lying about all that? He was just making it up as he went along? Davros was having a ‘Fool’s Progress’? And just accidentally had the whole regeneration energy transfer mechanism all set up in advance?
No straw men, please. I said, and I meant, that the exchange in which Davros appears to soften and engage in a (sort of?) normal conversation with his adversary, up until he springs his trap, was not all a con, and neither was the Doctor’s side of it, in my view. I maintain that there was truth in it, and that that was more interesting than all the sting-y stuff, traps inside traps — to me. In fact, I’d say that for a few moments there, Davros *did* join the Doctor’s Fool’s Progress — because he knew he was about to win via his trap, so it was safe to risk some closeness. Beyond that, I don’t know — I haven’t seen enough of Davros to go much deeper than his surface.
Actually, the Fool’s Progress is exactly what the Doctor claims for himself — “I am — an idiot, in a box, dropping by, helping out — ” I doubt that he *does* learn a lot, really (apart from learning, as he has in S8, that he’s a Fool), at least in terms of the basics of his own life. He’s very old and has a piano brain stuffed with memories and lessons. He has already learned what he’s receptive to learning, and always trying his knowledge against challenges. That *is* his Progress. This fool doesn’t necessarily learn to be wise; and this one seems to be as wise as he going to get. But he’s also learned to be an effective Fool, and to live with that and enjoy it. That’s a Progress, too.
It’s very explicitly stated, this is a duel of Machiavellian chess masters.
Hmm. Who explicitly says so? I’m not a strategist or game player by nature (vv organic gardener); must have missed that. So let’s say yes, there’s a Machiavellion chess game going on here; I’m saying that I don’t find that game nearly as compelling or interesting as the personal exchanges among Missy, Clara, the Doctor, and Davros. The game, to me, is a useful schematic, entertaining and sometimes surprising. But the *story*, for me, is what passes between the characters that’s authentic, not so much what’s fakery (anybody can tell lies; hell, my *cat* tells lies — “No, I really don’t want to come inside, so go ahead and shut the door — a-HAH, gotcha, nipped inside as soon as you started to shut it!”).
But then, if the Fool actually develops, is this a Hero’s Journey?
Depends on what the Fool develops into. What makes a hero? (ahem, lion voice:) Curr-idge! If the Fool is a scaredy-cat to start with but finds his courage on his travels, then he can be on a Hero’s Journey — but he could still be a Fool. Consider Achilles: he’s full of physical courage, a recognized hero. But, wise? More like a sullen adolescent on steroids. So what is the Fool’s Progress? Could be a journey to the wisdom of experience, but that could be a journey to becoming not a Hero or a wise person but a cowardly but clever Trickster. I don’t remember the details of Campbell’s paradigm, but I do remember finding it too simplistic for me.
Regardless, this is definitely not a Fool’s Journey for the Doctor.
Well, not to you apparently, no. You’re not really saying, “You’re wrong and I’m right because I say so!”, are you?
28 September 2015 at 22:15 #43733@denvaldron Perhaps the Master’s title refers to something else. Perhaps it simply means ‘Better.’ Or ‘Best.’ The smartest, the fastest, the winner, etc. Perhaps the Master has truly gone blazing through the universe, not in a quest to rule it, but to test himself/herself against it. To beat it, to demonstrate that he’s better, that he’s the first place finisher.
Yes, I like that — it stands as a welcome change from all the huffing and puffing in BG by the Master along the lines of “And I shall rule the universe!” So — the Doctor is driven by curiosity, he wants to *see* the universe. MixMaster wants the universe to see *him*/*her* as the brightest star in it? But — the Doctor has to say so. Over and over and over (he did, after all, say it at the end of DiH). Needy = it’s never enough, it’s never over . . .
There’s a story, how do you get the characters to follow through the story.
A perfect example of the difference I was talking about: for me, there is no story. It usually starts with a voice; someone speaking, others answering. Characters assemble; the story arises from them and their interactions. It’s my job to keep up with them, not to bend them to fit a pre-made form. That’s the first stage — the creative flow and power comes through them, as sub-personalities that my authorial self has encouraged to form. Once that raw material is out there — then the shaping process starts, and that’s when this author steps in to bring the story together and do the development and the polishing that brings it all together into (I hope) a functioning whole. If I have to *make* them do something, they die on the page.
@arbutus I love your description of the Davros/Doctor conversation. You’re right. Even while I watched, knowing that there was an underlying plot, it was just heartbreaking when the plot was finally revealed. Because you sensed one of those moments where something might have been changed for the better, if Davros had only been up for it.
Mmm, thank you; as I see it: “if only Davros had been *brave* enough”. What distinguishes the Doctor as a hero (whether acknowledged or not) is that he’s brave enough. Yes, it’s a trap — and he walks into it. Yes, all his companions leave him — and he keeps taking them on, learning to receive and give hugs, and then losing those people. Yes, everybody dies — but in the meantime, he’ll save them if he can. Yes, some die anyway, and it’s failure, and it hurts and it’s scary — but he’ll still do his damnedest again next time.
Davros isn’t brave; he’s living inside a fortress, from within which he attacks others. Missy isn’t brave; she’s reckless and aggressive, because she believes herself invincible. The Doctor knows he can fail, knows he can produce terrible consequences for others, but he still takes Boy Davros’s hand and walks with him off the battlefield. He’ll deal with the consequences as best he can when they come home to roost. IMO, it’s kind of like being a grown-up (well, that’s me talking — the me that had two younger sisters and a working mom and dad gone, so I was left in charge; and the sisters are still okay, so I confess to a bias here).
@brewski you know, it COULD be that the Doctor told Davros about Gallifrey still being out there knowing full well he’d try to find it. Maybe he’s manipulating Davros into helping him find it.
Oyg! You are so smart! Sure, why not? He knows, as we all do, that even if Skaro melts down completely into sewer sludge, Davros won’t die, so — makes him an involuntary bird-dog?
28 September 2015 at 21:26 #43732@missy Very sadly, my OH decided to watch part two with me last night. when it was finished he said, and I quote:
“What a lot of crap (sorry), I don’t know what you see in it.” *sigh*My sister checked out TWF and told me she changed channels after two minutes — “Everybody was so busy *Acting* like crazy!” She hates live theater, too — “They’re always Acting *at* you, not just doing their stuff and you happen to be watching.” She won’t watch the Brit tv mysteries that I enjoy, same thing — it feels artificial to her. It occurred to me that maybe when talking about it to the uninitiated, it might be useful to refer to DW as Space Opera, because that’s pretty much what it is — big arias, big music, big momentum, big canvas, big ideas, all of it outsized, mixed with beautiful small scenes of “human” scale interaction, and comedy.
What I mean is, I think people who don’t like theater (or opera) are probably not going to like DW. This ain’t kitchen sink drama, which is what the US, at any rate, is offered (either that, or “Action Pictures”, which is kind of an oxymoron, come to think of it) as opposed to broad-scale, often-epic fantasy drama.
28 September 2015 at 09:26 #43694@mudlark There, you just said it so much more concisely! Yes, the Doctor plans — but when it comes to the crunch, he ends up improvising brilliantly, because a) that’s what happens to even “the best laid plans”, and b) brilliant improvisation is one of his strongest suits.
@purofilion you’re quite right in asserting its not completely B&W here -so many little clues: “the enemy inside a friend, the friend inside an enemy”; the quality of mercy and its discussion, and how to differentiate good from bad was a huge part of this block of stories.
We got an early set up in the Prologue: “An enemy’s just a friend you don’t know yet”, more or less, a line delivered quickly, almost a throwaway, but wow. So a friend is a person who seems to like you but actually comes loaded with hatred and betrayal? Yes, that’s him being “cynical” all right; it also refers back to the post-volcano dialog in Dark Water — “yes, you betrayed me” + “do you think that betraying me would make a difference?” Which sounds (now) like, “Sure friends betray each other, nobody’s perfect; but true friendship, from depth to depth, accepts betrayal, survives it, and transcends it through hope for better loyalty from now on.”
@denvaldron It’s simply that in a pivotal moment, she dumbs down, in order for the scene to work in a certain way. This is simply writing the character to the demands of the script, no more, no less. The script requires Clara to be stupid at this point, so she is stupid. I would call that a moment of lazy writing on the part of Moffat.
Completely disagree. She’s shut up in horrible, stinky Dalek armor that transforms her into a monster, to the outward eye (and ear). The Doctor is in a fury because he thinks Clara is dead — so he’s not thinking clearly. Missy is lying to the Doctor, and Clara knows that the Doctor has old bonds with her, and seems to be believing Missy’s lies — and Clara panics. Her being unable to think of thinking “open” reads very clearly as *panic*, not stupidity. I’m a reasonably capable and intelligent person, and I’ve had my brain choke on me in much less horrifying situations. So I do buy it.
And I don’t see all of the episode as lying and pretending; far from it. It’s characters under stress making plans as they go along, while losing control of everything they thought they controlled. To me, this is The Fool’s Progress, not a chess game. But that’s because I much prefer the story of `a Fool to any number of masterminds conning and out-conning each other. It’s in the many slips between cup and lip that true connection can occur, and those moments of intimacy are what I value most in art at any level. What you see as a “failure in writing” I see as the potential for life-like depth and flexibility in a character; but then I see characters as fallible creatures, not plot-pawns that malfunction if they don’t fit exactly into a prescribed story-function. As a writer, I’m a gardener, not a designer of highways or bridges. My one experiment in outlining a book froze the whole project for ten years, before I could find my way back to the creative impulse I’d begun with.
Well, you and I are (from what I see) very different in our outlooks, so it’s not surprising that we diverge so much in the ways that we read this episode.
28 September 2015 at 08:33 #43692@juniperfish I like your conclusion — a bit of good eked out of a massively destructive confrontational node for all our main players . . . even Davros got something, a dash of warm contact with the Doctor, out of it. And yes, yes, yes, “The Chariot” = the Tardis — the vehicle that takes you where you need to go!
@kharis Of course, The Hanged Woman — damn, I was wondering what the blazes that was all about. I’ve seen it interpreted as *willing* sacrifice, which certainly fits the Clara we know.
@blenkinsopthebrave I can understand how all the Doctor knows is that he is walking into a trap. I am less clear as to how he knows it is to gain his regeneration energy.
I’m with you on that; I think he had no idea of what the trap was, but being The Fool, just walked on in, prepared for a battle of wits. He certainly had no intention of giving up any of his own energy to all the Daleks on Skaro, for any reason, IMO. Saying he’d known all along what Davros was up to struck me as the childish bravado he sometimes displays. It was Missy who knew about the sewer/graveyard; I didn’t spot any indication that the Doctor did. She really did save the day — the friend in the enemy.
But that could just be me, shying from the successful carrying out of truly baroque plans into the future. I have too much respect for chance and error, even with fantasy. And maybe I just like a bit more of the Fool in the Doctor, a bit less of the Magician . . .
28 September 2015 at 07:59 #43691@braddy I feel the doctor let slip to Davros that Galifrey had survived. Maybe both will have a race through time and space to locate it. Now that Davros has tasted the doctors powers, the hunger for more could trigger a Time War part 2. Destroy Galifrey for the last time and drain all time lords creating the hybrid army. This could be an amazing story arc.
Yes! I like the sound of that!
@mudlark Davros awareness of the Doctor’s compassion enables him to use it as a weapon against him, but it is interesting that after all this time he also remembers and understands enough about sympathy and even empathy to be able to feign them with remarkable conviction. Interesting also, that he retains at least a vestige of a sense of humour and can make a joke.
Good deal of discussion about whether Davros was faking empathy or not; I’m in the camp of seeing that intimate little conversation + shared laughter as absolutely authentic — these are the tiny points of light still extant in Davros the survival of which make his treachery not just awful but sort of tragic, really — you see that gleam (as the Doctor sees it, too) of common humanity, and it lightens your heart, two old enemies sharing a moment of mutual recognition not loaded with rage, for once; and then you see Davros’s fear steam-roller that glimmer, because the Doctor got it exactly right before — “Imagine how frightened you must be to seal every one of your people up in a tank!” Davros’s evil (like most human evil, if you trace it down deep enough) is rooted in fear; mania trumps intimacy and empathy. So what’s he really afraid of? I’d say compassion and intimacy — which carry huge, though mostly illusory or transitory risks: rejection. Betrayal. Loss of control.
The Doctor, at the end, is facing the same choice, and he makes what’s always the Doctor’s choice (although sometimes mistaken, or with haywire consequences): he chooses compassion, now, in this moment and situation, and hopes for the outcome he wants in the future. That’s what makes him a hero, IMO: the Doctor’s choice.
@kharis I have checked every Who forum and article and no one has mentioned the tarot correlation? It can’t be just me.
Can’t find your post on this, Kharis, but an image just jumped into my head: the Doctor as The Fool (in one meaning at least, the one who acts from his or her truest, deepest impulses and intuitions, no matter how crazy or marvelous), who is often pictured carrying his bindle on a stick (his “house” or — Tardis?) about to step off a cliff — with his little white dog skipping at his feet, looking up at him.
As for tough love, well, yes — but there’s usually a lot of hate mixed in, where Missy is concerned!
27 September 2015 at 03:26 #43507Great starter — fantastic whiplash effect of the final quarter — headspin! I kept thinking we were going to somehow segue right into “Souffle Girl”.
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