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21 November 2015 at 22:06 #47448
I reckon the ‘they’ Ashildr refers to is actually the Master/Missy. It sounds plural but you can refer to a single person in a gender-neutral way by saying ‘they’, for instance if the gender is unknown. Or perhaps if the person has been both male and female.
Also, surely the Gomez Master is due another appearance before the series ends.
8 November 2015 at 13:20 #46590The scene in the Black Archives was absolutely marvellous. One of my favourite moments I think I’ve ever seen in Doctor Who. Excellent writing and performance. Some really good observations about the stupidity of war, terrorism and cruelty. Its always worth hearing these things said out loud, even though very few us need convincing of them. Capaldi came across so sincere and passionate – his Doctor really is not cynical at all despite how he might sometimes seem. He really has hope for the little bits of thought, open-mindedness and rationality that are stowed away even in the minds of the most evil people (apart from the Daleks perhaps) and feels such frustration when those bits get put to one side in favour of cruelty, violence, selfishness, closed-mindedness and indifference to the suffering of others. I think this scene represents quite an important part of the Doctor – he doesn’t simply hate villains because of the bad things they do, he is frustrated with them because he thinks they had it in them to make different choices than they have. I think if Capaldi’s Doctor is meant to be dark then that is where the darkness should lie – an exasperation and frustration with the evil people he meets on every adventure that is so intense that there’s no word in the English language for it (that I can think of anyway). I’m sure its something everyone must feel at some point.
Anyway, that scene was definitely the best this season, likely to be Capaldi’s best moment, and, although I’m still catching up with the Classic Series, almost certainly one of the best scenes of Doctor Who ever in my opinion.
31 October 2015 at 22:56 #46003Although much about this episode appeals to me greatly, I feel let down by some big issues which either don’t make sense, or aren’t explained very well…. or maybe I just missed the explanation.
If 20 million Zygons are now living on Earth, how is that a secret? That’s a significant rise in population. Or are they replacing actual humans? Although that makes sense as an evil scheme, this is actually a peace plan co-created by a (human) UNIT officer (and a supposedly very good peace plan according to the Doctor in the 50th) – what happens to those humans? Where do they go? Are they killed? Locked up? Put to sleep? That doesn’t sound like a peace plan, it sounds like surrender. (Perhaps the clue to this is somewhere in the idea of the impartial negotiation where everyone forgets who is who? Maybe…). It’s a tremendous dramatic misstep if that is the idea, as none of the actors behave the way they surely would when discussing the disposal of so many humans (even if it was the best possible peace plan available in the circumstances). So maybe I’m missing something there.
Has it been established that Zygons take on the personality of the person they look like? As opposed to just acquiring knowledge from their subject’s brain? Cos it would take very good acting, from so many new born Zygons, to convince people that you were the same person still.
Does anyone have answers to these questions? I’d appreciate it if you do because I feel like this is exactly the sort of episode I’d really like if it weren’t for my confusion!
Maybe the answers are there and I’m just not seeing them. If not, there are many deep thinkers on this forum who I imagine might be able to think of something I’m not able to get my head around. Thanks in advance.
17 October 2015 at 22:22 #44956<p style=”direction: ltr;”>I actually really liked this episode, despite the fact that it had some of the silliness of ‘Robot of Sherwood’, including a cartoony version of history, which I don’t like (although a lot of the funny dialogue that goes with this ‘subgenre’ I do really like, so its swings and roundabouts). What I liked was the fact that it had a certain kind of depth, something I also saw in The Magician’s Apprentice/Witches Familiar. In this case that meant dealing with the Doctor’s attitude to fighting and saving the day, and the consequences thereof. Also, the writing for the relevant scenes I thought was pretty good, particularly the scene between the Doctor and Clara after the girl died. And I like the idea that Doctor went too far, got ‘too emotional’, and now there are consequences to that (next episode?).</p>
<p style=”direction: ltr;”>Basically, I thought the episode had a pleasing character/thematic basis as an undercurrent to what might otherwise have been a frivolous adventure, so there was a nice contrast.</p>
<p style=”direction: ltr;”>But I wasn’t convinced by the way in which he made the girl immortal. Rather too convenient that there was a little cube thing that could apply itself on demand, and that it happened to work on humans with little modification.</p>
<p style=”direction: ltr;”>Also, I don’t like the suggestion that the Doctor’s face can be chosen by his subconscious. Doesn’t seem right to me, doesn’t match up with how I see regeneration works. What does anyone else think?</p>
<p style=”direction: ltr;”>Also, while I found the fact that they made a video of the monsters’ defeat by a ‘serpent’ very funny, I’m sure the villains would have at least annihilated the villagers in revenge or anger, even if their reputation was ruined. Or did I miss something?</p>
<p style=”direction: ltr;”>But obviously those are nitpicks.</p>
There was an interesting suggestion that the Doctor asks too much of himself – at the beginning he single-handedly saves Clara from being lost in space, having her brain eaten and stopping several battlefleets having a war (or something like that) all at once, and yet after he ‘only’ delays the war they were going to have he says ‘Its the best I could do’ in a way that suggests he isn’t very impressed with himself, almost disappointed. And then after the death of Maisie Williams’ character he basically says ‘yes I saved half a village but I am clever/knowledgeable/courageous enough to have done better and save her too.’ I think this sheds some light on his worries about being a good man from last season – but I thought he’d come to terms with that in Death in Heaven – maybe not…20 September 2015 at 20:24 #43076@citizenvexx, @pedant and @supernumerary. Re: The Doctor’s approaching inevitable death.
Add to that the end of the Tennant era. That’s four in total in the last 7 years! The Doctor knows he will die soon, without actually being in a state of dying, and, in three of the four examples, goes on one last sequence of adventures (mainly off-screen) as a last hurrah/delaying tactic, before realising he can’t delay any longer. Admittedly, for that to happen four times in a one-thousand-year period for a time-traveller I suppose isn’t unlikely, but I am tired of it as an idea in the show, at least for now. Either Moffat hasn’t realised the repetitiveness, somehow, or he’s got something up his sleeve to make it worthwhile.
20 September 2015 at 18:13 #43070It is now up to the Doctor to find a way of changing the past just sufficiently to avert their deaths, without disrupting the entire universe.
If the Master didn’t Vortex-Manipulate herself and Clara away, I reckon the Doctor will find the Manipulators before the Master takes them with her, modify them so that he can operate them remotely and then do so at the appropriate moments ie when they are ‘exterminated’. He wouldn’t be creating a paradox because all he saw on the screen was probably a flash, the screen resolution may well not have been enough for him to see the skeletons as Clara and the Master ‘die’, and therefore there’s no contradiction between his actions and his past. In other words, Clara and the Master are like Schroedinger’s Cat at the moment, neither dead or alive from the Doctor’s point of view.
19 September 2015 at 22:34 #42989Hello, it’s been a while. I’ve dipped into the forum from time to time since the last series (or Christmas?) but haven’t posted again until now. Nice to see familiar and new ‘faces’ alike.
I’m left with that slightly mixed feeling that I often get with Moffat’s ‘big’ episodes. Not quite sure why, but it happens sometimes. It’s not such a bad thing because I’m still excited underneath it all, but maybe its ‘idea-overload’ or something.
Very happy to see Davros back, I really liked Julian Bleach in the role before so that’s good. Am I right that this is the first time the Master, Davros and the Daleks have all appeared together?
I liked Davros’ observation about the thrill for the Daleks of an extermination. It does rather explain why throughout the show the Daleks have often taken a long moment between spotting their prey and actually zapping them (conveniently giving the Doctor the chance to escape!). Those moments seemed ‘too convenient’ before, but now will make perfect sense!
All in all, a good opener but I think my full opinion will be reliant on what occurs next episode.
Will we find out why the Doctor thinks he’s going to die? Or will that thread be stretched out until Capaldi eventually leaves the show?
3 January 2015 at 21:27 #36896@ichabod – this is a good point. When facing a Bad/Worse choice, a person must of course consider the probability that the ‘Worse’ would actually come to pass if they choose ‘Inaction’ (aka ‘Worse’). As you say, nothing is ever guaranteed. If it’s 99% likely, then the person’s choice might be a different one than if it’s only 50% likely. If they choose the ‘Bad’, they are in a sense betting on the possibility that the ‘Worse’ would actually have come to pass if they did not choose the ‘Bad’.
When I said the ‘not entirely relevant’ thing, it was in response to @Bluesqueakpip ‘s latest post which did not actually appear on this forum (I just replied to it here cos I couldn’t get the formatting right as a PM). It is on the blog post though.
The reason the Doctor’s horror at the thought of killing Danny wasn’t relevant was because I’d previously said that by the end of Series 8 the Doctor had essentially returned completely to my way of thinking on this debate. This happened when he had the revelation you mention (“…just passing through, helping out”). And thus evidence taken from before that revelation that is intended to make a comment on his point of view after that revelation isn’t relevant – it tells us nothing about his viewpoint on the matter at the end of Series 8 because his viewpoint on the matter will change again before the end. (Although in fact he would have been horrified while holding either viewpoint – its not like he’d want to kill Danny in any circumstance).
Hope this helps.
Jimbo.
31 December 2014 at 22:35 #36758@bluesqueakpip – In response to your post which will be appearing on the blog:
Undistributed middle: you’ve just turned the least morally wrong act into the morally right choice without confirming that the least morally wrong act IS always the morally right choice.
If we are in a situation where the only available acts are immoral ones then the least morally wrong act IS always the morally right choice. I should point out that that is the whole point of my argument. That’s it. It’s not that I haven’t confirmed that the least morally wrong act is always the morally right choice in the ‘no Third Way’ scenarios – I’ve actually spent the entire discussion saying that it is. You may not agree. So we’ll have to agree to disagree.
It should be considered reprehensible by the person who had to do it. Is that unfair?
Yes, it is unfair. It is either reprehensible or it isn’t. There is another way (a more cerebral, less emotional, way) to stop someone repeating the act.
The person who committed the Bad act to avoid the Worse (or someone else, eg a therapist/counsellor) should remind themselves of why they did it, and remind themselves that almost always that act is a bad one to commit. They should tell themselves that just because they happened to find themselves in the unlikely scenario where committing that act happened to be the best thing to do, that it will never be the best thing to do in any future scenarios (or at least very rarely). That they are not any more entitled to commit that act now than they were before the incident. There are probably other ‘debriefing’ ‘statements’ like these ones they could use, but my point is that this sort of thing serves the same purpose as the guilt/moral condemnation you advocate (preventing that person getting carried away with themselves, effectively) while not deliberately making that person feel bad in the process.
So yes, it is a slippery slope, but you can avoid that slope through means other than saying that the person is immoral for what they did. You are right that someone coming out of a scenario of the sort we’re discussing could suffer from psychological ‘issues’ as a result (eg a shift in their judgment of when killing is ‘okay’, if ever), but surely someone’s psychological ‘issues’ should never be solved by them trying to make themselves feel bad.
I don’t doubt that the person may feel guilty within themselves about what they did, understandably, but that doesn’t mean that it is fair that they do (it just shows that they are still human!). Guilt is a feeling that is built into our brains to control us in a way that is generally beneficial to society (to stop us repeating immoral acts), but the human brain is not perfect when it comes to this sort of thing. For example, lust is built into our brains to encourage us to procreate, but that doesn’t mean lust is always a good thing, or that it always has good results.
Me: I made the universe a better place than it would have been had I made the other choice. And, if I did it in full view of the facts of the situation, I consider that morally good.
You: I don’t know how much history you know. But the history of the Twentieth Century is, in many ways, a history of people (many people, in many countries) who thought it was morally good to kill other people to make the world a better place.
And in those issues, I might very well disagree with those people about whether or not they were actually making the world a better place. In other words, in those instances I would likely disagree with them about which option counts as the ‘Bad’ and which is the ‘Worse’, or about whether it was a ‘No Third Way’ choice that they were actually facing to begin with (I suspect I would often think they weren’t). But that doesn’t mean that we would disagree about whether, in a ‘No Third Way’ choice, choosing the Bad to prevent the Worse should be considered morally right or morally wrong. Those would be two different debates.
One debate is the one you and I are having. The other debate, which you also bring up with your heretic-burning and murder-reprisals examples, is: ‘here are some examples, which of each of these pairs of choices are the Bad and the Worse choices?’ But that isn’t our debate. Our debate is: ‘If there was only two choices, a Bad and a Worse (in other words, we are assuming that we agree which one is ‘Bad’, which one is ‘Worse’), then what are the moral implications of choosing the Bad?’ These are two different debates, and of course we don’t want to stray into the wrong debate.
So, in my sentences that you quoted:
I made the universe a better place than it would have been had I made the other choice. And, if I did it in full view of the facts of the situation, I consider that morally good.
the thing we are debating is the second sentence: ‘I consider that morally good’ (whereas you don’t consider it so) and not the first sentence: ‘I made the universe a better place…’ (which would be the subject of another debate if we were talking about a specific example eg declarations of war against Germany). Remember that we both agree that we would/should choose the Bad-but-better choice, and that all we disagree on is whether the act which that entails can be considered morally right or morally wrong.
Re: your examples of contexts for killings:
The point of taking the context into account is not to then say ‘great, that’s that context taken into account, now I can declare that this person was justified no matter what’. It is so that we can make a judgment about whether they were justified, or not. Essentially we are asking ‘Do I agree with the killer about which choice was the Bad and which was the Worse? Do I even agree that it was a ‘No Third Way’ choice at all?’ Most importantly we should ask ‘Did the killer do enough to search for a Third Way?’ You seem to believe that the context is essentially irrelevant and that the person who has to choose the Bad choice in a No Third Way scenario has done wrong no matter what. So I think we’ll have to agree to disagree.
Me: he has returned to my way of thinking
You: Are you sure? He rejects the army. And he’s horrified at the thought of killing Danny.
Yes I am sure.
He rejects the army because he’s very good at stopping bad things without causing bad things to happen in the process. He doesn’t need an army to get the same results. This isn’t a ‘no Third Way’ choice – because the third choice is to reject the army and still save lives without killing.
Of course he’s horrified at the thought of killing Danny. Regardless of whether he holds your view or my view on the morality of killing Danny in that situation, he would still be horrified at the thought. Also, this was before his revelation about himself at the end of the episode, so isn’t actually entirely relevant.
Anyway, this will have to be my last post about this discussion, I’m afraid. I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree, otherwise this could go on forever! It’s been enlightening and enjoyable.
29 December 2014 at 21:50 #36630Bit late to the Christmas party, but here are my thoughts for the hell of it.
Main reaction is gladness that Clara didn’t leave in this episode! She’s become probably my favourite companion, so that’s nice. Although I wonder if we’ll get another companion next series as well. No reason, I just think it would be cool – we haven’t really had a full time second companion that isn’t directly connected to the other companion (like Rory or Mickey).
Other than that, found it a bit of a mediocre episode. Which isn’t to say it was bad, just that it was in the lowest tier of goodness that’s still within my expectations.
I feel maybe Santa was underused. Although there is the hint that he’s real, I feel like it sort of a shame he was dream-Santa all the way through. Normally I wouldn’t want him to be real, as that pushes credibility a bit, but since its Christmas I say ‘why not?’ (although I appreciate the hint that he may be ‘real’ in the Whoniverse at the end).
I think Shona (if that’s the blonde one?) was a bit more lively as a character than the normal one-off characters we get in the show – maybe there’s more for her in the future (a new companion?), or maybe she was just a good actress.
The plot itself: I never seem to follow the Christmas ones as closely as the normal ones for some reason, so it feels like some bits don’t make sense (eg the ‘food has teeth’ justification for the monsters crumbling away after waking. Also, why don’t they have wounds in their foreheads when they wake up for real at the end? (Or maybe they’re still dreaming (!), as some have already suggested here.)) .
Still trying to get my head round the new Doctor’s complex attitudes eg when he leaves halfway through and says (paraphrase): ‘the remaining people with things on their faces are in danger? Never mind. There’s polar bears here too, the planet’s full of dangerous things’ – how does that match up with his ‘I help where I can’ attitude (universal to all Doctors) – surely helping people in immediate danger is the difference between the polar bears and the things on the remaining people’s faces. Surely he’d try something to save them. Confusing.
I liked this though: ‘Are you the same people as before? Sorry, I deleted you.’
Anyway. Clara’s back! Yay!
15 November 2014 at 18:13 #35618@bluesqueakpip – sorry for the slow reply!
3. Therefore the best (least wrong) choice of any set of options will be the morally right choice.
This isn’t quite what I’m saying. I’m not saying the best/least wrong/right choice of any set of options is always a morally right choice. For example, if someone asks you to guess what their job is, out of a set of options, guessing it right is not morally right any more than guessing it wrong is morally wrong.
What I’m saying is that, if all the available choices have some kind of moral value, and not an equal moral value, the best choice = the least wrong = the right choice.
So I’d like to rewrite your two sets of 1-2-3 like this (with additions/changes in bold) (also, remember one of the two possible ‘acts’ will of course be to not take action):
1. I have a choice between two wrong acts, of differing moral value.
2. I must make a choice between those acts.
3. The best choice will be that act which is least morally wrong.
Then:
1+2. The least morally wrong act is therefore the morally right choice.
3. Therefore the best choice (the least morally wrong act) out of any set of morally wrong actions (of differing moral value) will be the morally right choice.
So in the sort of ‘impossible choice’, ‘act or do not act’ scenario we are dealing with, I believe that a person should choose whatever act entails the smallest amount of ‘badness’ happening overall – not just the act which entails the smallest amount of ‘badness’ occurring by their hand personally. This is something I believe you agree with. So if someone does what little they can to make the outcome of a situation as positive an outcome as is possible (even if it’s still a negative outcome) I don’t think that this should be considered reprehensible. I think that’s unfair on the person who has found themselves in that situation, having to make that choice.
I will say this though: In the sort of case we’re talking about, where even the Bad choice involves committing an act which is terrible in and of itself, choosing the Worse choice (or at least ‘failing’ to choose the Bad-But-Better choice) is of course not a horrendous thing to do. Killing a person takes a lot of guts, for want of a better phrase, (in fact I think I’m right in saying there are in-built inhibitions in the human brain against this), and pretty much anyone who happened to find themselves in this sort of situation would probably find it hard to come to terms with the fact that they are limited to choosing one of only those two choices. The thought of making either choice would be an emotional one. So, not choosing the Bad choice, even though it means choosing the Worse choice (and wrong choice, in my opinion), would be understandable and forgivable. However, I still believe the Bad choice in these ‘impossible choice’ scenarios is immensely more morally right. And as you say, I believe that out of two morally wrong acts the more morally right (aka least wrong) can be called, by definition, a ‘morally right’ choice.
But that’s the crux of the disagreement between us. You believe that, in a choice between two morally wrong options, having to select the least wrong option will transform it into a ‘morally right choice’. I don’t agree. I go with ‘It’s always wrong,’ even if you sometimes have to do it.
So basically I agree with your summary of the situation. But I’ll just deal with your later points too.
If you kill me, it doesn’t matter that by doing so you saved the world. You didn’t save my world.
I find this a surprising statement. I can only respond by saying: But I did save everyone else’s world, which I could not have done otherwise. That’s pretty good going as far as I’m concerned. I made the universe a better place than it would have been had I made the other choice. And, if I did it in full view of the facts of the situation, I consider that morally good.
What you don’t do is what Clara tried to do in Flatline; argue that because ‘we saved the world’ we can ignore the fact that ‘no good choices’ ended up with people dead. That is not deeper, or well-rounded. It’s simplistic, in fact.
It’s not ignoring that people died. It does take that fact into account, but it is also acknowledging another very important fact: that a greater number of people were saved that would not have been otherwise. Therefore, if someone chooses the Bad, to avoid the Worse, they shouldn’t be treated like a bad guy. They did what little they could to make the world a better place than it would have been otherwise (you and me both agree) and they shouldn’t feel bad for that or be punished for it.
It’s not simplistic to think that making an overall positive difference to the world is a morally good thing. It’s simplistic to judge the morality of an action without taking into account it’s context; why this action was taken, what it’s intended consequences were.
the Doctor frequently has to make these ‘no Third Way’ choices on a small scale. However, he doesn’t consider the Bad choice as a morally good choice.
I think, in this latest season, this is often true for the Doctor. But by the end of the series, he has returned to my way of thinking (and the one I proposed he held in the Day of the Doctor (all three of him), pre-regeneration into the more introspective Twelve). After his revelation about himself at the end of Death in Heaven, the Twelfth Doctor says: ‘I’m an idiot. With a box. And a screwdriver. Just passing through. Helping out.’ In other words, he just takes the opportunity to do what he can to make a positive difference to the universe around him, as Clara was doing in Flatline. And, happily, I think that’s something he’s proud of by the end of this season.
9 November 2014 at 00:08 #35079@scaryb –
So the dead can now rest in peace, and we can relax that we won’t actually feel what our bodies are going through after death
Did somebody say that? I think I missed it. What makes you say this? I hope you’re right.
(Although, actually, in the Doctor Who ‘universe’ I suppose it doesn’t matter much, as most characters get disintegrated and therefore have no bodies to feel anything).
8 November 2014 at 22:45 #35062I can’t think of what to say as I liked pretty much all of it. Think of a thing to comment on, and I probably liked it. Particularly noteworthy, although by no means the best thing, was the return of the end of series Christmas cliffhanger, and a good one too. (not a spoiler, just the next event in the Doctor’s busy life!). Also, the Doctor’s reaction to no-Gallifrey was very sad. You might think this is silly, but that’s probably the most moving scene of any TV show/film I’ve ever seen. Forget the Titanic or whatever. Poor Doctor.
Michelle Gomez was excellent as the Master, a worthy choice. I was worried Moffat was gonna make her all flirty with the Doctor, just cos she’s a woman now, but thankfully no. Her and the Doctor’s dynamic was refreshing. I wonder if we’ll get her as a semi-regular arc plot character, like River was. If not, I’m sort of disappointed that it was River and not her that had that place. Anyway, this incarnation is unpredictable and hateable, which works well with the Master.
I’m glad Clara’s not the Doctor.
Cyber-Brigadier is an odd idea the more I think of it, but a good one I think.
And the parting of the Doctor and Clara. Surely not their last meeting?
There was me saying I didn’t have much to say.
8 November 2014 at 21:50 #35049It was excellent.
5 November 2014 at 21:40 #34814So the Master arranges a new set of lives for the Doctor before making an escape to torment the Doctor again.
I like this idea very much. It gives a whole new dynamic to the relationship. Although, for some reason I’m not certain that the Master would admit it openly to the Doctor, other than maybe in a fit of rage.
In addition, I like the idea that Romana teamed up with the Master to convince the High Council/whoever to grant the new lives, or to do a sort of ‘heist’ type thing to ‘steal’ them from wherever they’re ‘kept’. Moffat has been saying that they should make more proper minisodes like the Night of the Doctor. That story would make a great one.
5 November 2014 at 21:25 #34812I did make a reply (post #34417) a few days ago, but I don’t think the tag worked so I thought I’d try again. Apologies for the delay.
2 November 2014 at 21:45 #34570@Arbutus – Oh I’m the same re writing complicated thoughts versus speaking. Really what I was referring to was what prompted the conversation. It seemed like the point of the scene was what Clara had to say, but then, no, instead it was scene about Danny’s death. It could have been both, but it seems too coincidental to me. And yes, maybe I should be JaneBoMcMissy, now.
1 November 2014 at 23:56 #34476@thommck – Yeah, I just assumed he’d have another way in, or the Tardis would just let him in. She’s sentient after all. But surely Clara should have known about the clicky fingers thing, you’re right. In grief, I suppose.
@Spider – that could well be the case. There’s got to be some explanation for Orson’s existence, and that makes most sense based on the info we’ve had. No hints that Danny’s had another serious girlfriend/wife that I remember, thus Orson’s probably not only his descendant by Clara’s too.
1 November 2014 at 23:24 #34470Tee hee hee.
This reminded me of the old RTD finales. Reveal of an old monster/villain. London landmark. Cliffhanger. High-concept issue to do with humanity/lots of humans (eg ghosts of the (human) dead, or the human race of the future killing that of the present, or the human race being turned into Daleks). On reflection, mainly of Army of Ghosts/Doomsday actually.
This is great.
The Master is my favourite villain out of anything, so very happy to see more of him/her (how do we refer to her/him now?).
Some Questions (some potentially-answered by others previously):
What was going on with Clara/phonecall/post-its at the beginning? (@Miapatrick maybe answered this, but we’ll have to wait for next week to know for sure.)
What are the chances the Doctor would stumble on this ‘heaven’ when it just so happens some of the people around him have died and gone there recently in his personal timeline? Ie in Victorian times, near modern day Coal Hill School, during a (future?) Dalek war – not always proximal to modern St-Paul’s. Or is the ‘mind-scoop’ very broad ranging, and this isn’t a coincidence, we’ve only been seeing it now cos its relevant?
So who is Orson Pink descended from? Is Clara already pregnant?
How did the Master escape the Pocket Universe? Or did s/he?
This has all been happening on Earth. Did the Master choose Earth specifically to ‘annoy’ the Doctor? Probably.
These aren’t weaknesses in the episode, but I feel the need to note them down because my enjoyment of the overall story will depend a little bit on some of them.
What a spiffing episode. I say again: Tee hee.
1 November 2014 at 15:23 #34417Everything I’ve said so far is based on the idea that there’s a difference between performing an act and making a choice. Hopefully I can show you why:
Killing 2.7 billion children is wrong. Letting 270 trillion children die is wrong. As acts they are both wrong.
But, in the sense that I’m speaking, if you have to choose between one or the other, between two wrong acts, and there is no other choice, then the least wrong choice is by definition the best choice (because it’s better than the only other alternative) and is therefore the right choice. The two choices aren’t equally good choices; one is better than the other. There is no other choice to pick from. But you have to make a choice: action or inaction. You obviously aren’t going to choose the worst choice. So you obviously are going to choose the best choice. This is logical. The act that choice entails is morally wrong in and of itself. But, regardless, it’s still the right choice to make, because the other ‘act’, inaction, is morally even more wrong. Therefore in this case, a morally wrong act = morally right choice.
(I apologise if this seems obvious, but I really want to make this clear because it appears to be at the centre of our differing views. Actually, now I’m not sure if we have differing views or whether it’s simply our wording which is different.)
This is the sense in which I am speaking when I say that the Doctor thinks that destroying the Time Lords and the Daleks is the ‘right choice’. He’s obviously put a lot of thought into it. And he is choosing to press the button. Therefore he thinks it is the right choice. He clearly knows this means committing a morally wrong act. But he still thinks it’s the right choice.
You may be intending different meanings by these terms, but I just wanted to confirm what I mean when I use them.
I appreciate that, when the Doctor faces a choice between Bad and Worse, you think that he should, and normally would, always try to find the third, Good, way. I almost completely agree. My favourite aspect of the Doctor is that he always strives to solve problems with non-violent means, fighting bad with good, instead of more bad.
But there is a reason I initially expressed approval of the idea that the Doctor may find himself in situations where he has to do the Bad to prevent the Worse, and it’s the same reason I think he would consider doing the Bad as, very occasionally, the ‘right’ choice. The reason is that I think that sometimes a Third Way would not be available to the Doctor and I think the (very) occasional acknowledgment of this makes the show a deeper, more well-rounded thing. Because the unavailability of a third way is not just to do with the goodwill of the Doctor – it also is affected by the constraints he faces, particularly of time in which to find that Third Way and act it out.
So when I talk about the Doctor only being able to choose between Bad and Worse at the end of the Time War, it’s not that I think a good person wouldn’t search and search for that third Good way to stop the war, that they wouldn’t seek as much advice, and do as much research, and calculate as many probabilities, and perform as many experiments, as they possibly can to find a Third Way. What I think is that there could come a time when it is too late to do any of those things any more, and, knowing that, the Doctor cannot delay ending the War forever. If he does, there could well come a time when more people have died than he can ever save. By then, it would be too late. He would have failed. He can’t look for a third way forever because, by neither using a Good Way or the Bad Way soon enough, he will have allowed the Worst ‘Way’ to have occurred.
He clearly knows the situation, he clearly knows what can happen, he clearly knows what’s at stake. In that situation he considers himself to have a responsibility to try to save as many lives as he can, even if it’s not a certain choice. That to me is what makes the Doctor a great man. He doesn’t stand to one side when lives are in danger and then, when they are lost, simply hold up his hands and say ‘Well, it wasn’t me.’ I’m sure, to some extent, you would agree with that.
So essentially what I’m saying is that I think we can refer to the Bad choice as the ‘right’ one if literally the only other alternative is the Worse choice. If there is a Third Way available: great. Then that is the right choice. Of course it’s the right choice if it’s available. But at the end of the Time War time is running out and it appears that a Third Way isn’t going to be available for the Doctor (until the Moment’s intervention). So which out of the available choices should the Doctor choose? As I’ve said, the correct answer to that question, by my definition, can be called the ‘right choice’. And I think that’s where, at least to some extent, a lot of this discussion has arisen from: we are simply using different definitions. It’s almost become a matter of semantics, not morality.
he stops and realises that it’s there
Actually, Clara stops him… I did suggest in a blog post on this that the Moment’s entire intervention is based around Clara being available.
My original sentence was:
She causes the Doctor to second-guess himself… so that… he stops and realises that [the solution]’s there.
So actually I think we agree on this. Part of the Moment’s plan involves getting Clara to the Doctor at the moment he’s about to press the button, just as part of it involves showing him Kate Stewart vs the Zygons. Both things (and possibly more) are in aid of causing the Doctor to stop and realise the other solution is there. And I agree that Clara is pivotal in this.
28 October 2014 at 23:48 #34255shall we agree that sometimes he decides it’s not worth it and sometimes he decides that it is?
Yes. I think it was just a slightly badly worded paragraph from me (sorry), but I was just trying to put right a misunderstanding between us that arose from my previous post. Yes I agree he does it from time to time.
I don’t quite understand why you have a problem with this, since you were the person who wanted the Doctor to have a ‘no right choices’ dilemma. This is it. This is your story about the Doctor facing the impossible dilemma.
My initial statement (which sparked the discussion with ScaryB that you eventually came in on) was that I was glad that Season 8 was dealing with themes along the ‘no right choices’ lines, and that I felt it was something the show had lacked, to my knowledge, up to that point. Although the Day of the Doctor is one of my very favourite stories, perhaps I didn’t feel my itch for an impossible dilemma had been scratched by it for the same reason it’s such a fantastic episode: that a third, Good, way becomes available to the Doctor. While the moment where the Doctors celebrate the fact that they are finally about to save Gallifrey is one of my favourite moments of Doctor Who, it most assuredly moves the end-of-the-Time-War dilemma outside of impossible dilemma territory.
However, I wouldn’t be surprised, given one of the themes of this season, if perhaps the Doctor is going to have to face another impossible dilemma in the finale. Although, I wonder what the Doctor would choose this time, given that he’s only recently escaped from the terrible weight of having killed the Few to save the Many? I won’t deny that, once it gets too late to continue searching for the third way, it’s possible that he may not be able to bring himself to become that man again. That would be understandable on an emotional level.
Me: What makes most sense, I think, is to interpret the quote ‘Because what I did that day was wrong. Just wrong,’ as part of a persuasive technique on the Doctor’s part to convince Kate Stewart not to enact her plan.
You: Yeah… that’s a bit of an alternative reading. Well, actually, it’s a lot of an alternative reading – because it ignores the point that the very reason the Moment has sent the War Doctor to this precise problem is so that he can see someone else getting it wrong.
But how do you explain the scene where the three Doctors put their hands on the Button, ready to push ‘because there is no other way’? This happens very soon after the Tenth Doctor says doing so was ‘just wrong’. To me, the barn scene says a lot more about what the Doctors (Ten and Eleven) think about their past decision than what Ten says to Kate Stewart.
I don’t think my interpretation of the Doctor’s words is at odds with the Moment’s plans. My understanding of the Moment’s role in the Day of the Doctor is:
1) She enables the Doctor to save Gallifrey.
2) She causes the Doctor to second-guess himself (or a-millionth-guess himself, as he clearly wouldn’t consider using the Moment without a heck of a lot of thinking) so that, by the time she makes the Gallifrey-saving solution available to him at the end of the episode, he stops and realises that it’s there (though you could wonder why she doesn’t just outright tell him).
And, I agree, part of this plan involves showing him the situation Kate Stewart puts herself in with the Zygons, and how Ten and Eleven deal with it. But I don’t think that that is at odds with my interpretation of the Tenth Doctor’s persuasive words as something he doesn’t fully believe. The Moment is showing the War Doctor that even in the future he always strives and strives against the odds for the Third Way, in this case (and most cases) successfully. Ten saying what he says is part of that striving, but that doesn’t mean that he’s definitely being honest. Whether he’s being honest or not, this general moment in time serves the Moment’s purpose. She is trying to give the War Doctor the extra hope that, if he just stops and thinks again, a third way might exist – because she is about to arrange one for him, in breaching the Time Lock.
Besides, if the Moment is suggesting Ten is being truthful when he says ‘What I did was wrong,’ it completely backfires when he effectively joins the War Doctor in destroying Gallifrey ten minutes later, because ‘there is no other way.’
I don’t see the Moment as the Absolute Morality of the Doctor Who Universe, the lens to the Truth that There is Always a Third Way. She is essentially providing the Doctor with a solution to the problem and manipulating him, in more ways than one, so that he stops and sees this solution. She doesn’t want to be responsible for the deaths of the Time Lords any more than he does.
26 October 2014 at 19:28 #34160On General Time Travel Stuff
When I say the Doctor doesn’t have the option to change his past, I don’t mean he literally can’t do it, but that if he did do it he’d end up creating more problems than he’d solve (paradoxes and suchlike – what I think you refer to as Churchill on a Mammoth) – thus making it not an option ever worth choosing.
It’s like somebody might say ‘you can’t divorce her, you’d lose all your money. That’s not an option.’ That doesn’t mean that the person couldn’t apply for divorce, just that the consequences effectively forbid it. Similarly, it’s not that Rose literally can’t save her dad in Father’s Day – but it’s clearly not a viable option. So perhaps I should have been a bit clearer about what I meant there, but I think essentially we agree on that.
In the quote of mine:
‘The fact that the Doctor very rarely goes back to change his past should tell us that he doesn’t have the option to do that’
‘very rarely’ refers to the fact that outside agencies can effectively make the Doctor change his past (regardless of whether he wants to or not) by making him meet himself. But those very rare occasions are not evidence of him having an option to change his past, as they do not involve him choosing the option ‘Change My Past’ – he is given the ‘opportunity’ to do it (without creating Churchill-on-a-Mammoth scenarios) against his will.
Your interpretation of my sentence rests on the assumption that the Doctor changing his past entails the Doctor choosing to change his past – when actually there are occasions where he doesn’t choose it (eg the very act of meeting himself in, say, the Three Doctors).
What I’m trying to point out in that quote is that if the Doctor had the option to change his past (ie without causing Churchill-on-a-Mammoth) when he wanted, he would change his past a lot more often than just those rare occasions when somebody (eg the Time Lords) makes him do it. For instance, he often tries to save lives, but then fails, much to his disappointment. A memorable example is when Kylie Minogue’s character dies. If he could save her without turning the universe inside-out, then he would.
On The Day of the Doctor and the Doctor’s Morals
Me: that does not mean that he thought it was a mistake to do it.
Oh, he didn’t think it was a mistake. He just thought it was wrong.
What do you mean by ‘mistake’ here? When I said ‘a mistake’, I meant ‘the wrong choice’, as opposed to, for example, ‘an accident’. So a rewording of my sentence would be: ‘He felt terrible as a result of being the one to do this thing, but that does not mean that he thought he made the wrong choice’.
Tennant Doctor: Because what I did that day was wrong. Just wrong.
So he fairly obviously does think he did the wrong thing.
He says that. But here’s why I’m not convinced by the conclusion you draw from it:
- Not long after he speaks those words he joins the War Doctor at the button that will destroy the Time Lords, puts his hand on it, as does the Eleventh Doctor, and together they prepare to push. If you saw your past self about to make a choice that you think is the wrong one to make, surely you wouldn’t show your solidarity with your past self by helping them do it, even if you thought you couldn’t do anything to stop them doing it?
- At this point, the Tenth Doctor says: ‘What we do today is not out of fear or hatred. It is done because there is no other way’. This suggests he doesn’t think it is the wrong choice to make, even if he thinks the act is in and of itself immoral. If you watch that scene, it is clear they are sad about it, but they are still very consciously (and ‘not out of fear and hatred’) choosing to do it – they all think it is the right choice to make.
- In The End of Time, when the Doctor is telling the Master about the final days of the Time War, and the fact the High Council of the Time Lords were planning to destroy Time and become beings of consciousness, the Doctor says ‘I had to stop them!’ This suggests that the Tenth Doctor doesn’t think it’s the wrong choice to press the Button (to the extent that he didn’t even consider himself to have a choice in the matter).
- Also in the End of Time, the Doctor actually sends Gallifrey (and all its children!) back into the Time Lock, effectively to await their destruction by the War Doctor. The escape of Gallifrey from the Time Lock would have been a great chance for the Doctor to rewrite his past ‘wrong’ of destroying the Time Lords, as you claim he sees it. He could have enacted a different solution to the problem posed by the High Council, and perhaps another solution to end the universal destruction being caused by the Time War.
- But no, he once again makes the judgement that it is better for the Time Lords (including the Time Tots), and the Daleks, to die than for the rest of the entire universe to suffer from their war. This act is essentially the Doctor confirming that he thinks he made the right choice by pressing the Button.
So there appears to be an inconsistency in the evidence we have, which is particularly stark in the latter half of the Day of the Doctor. What makes most sense, I think, is to interpret the quote ‘Because what I did that day was wrong. Just wrong,’ as part of a persuasive technique on the Doctor’s part to convince Kate Stewart not to enact her plan. He wasn’t satisfied that there wasn’t a better way to solve the problem (it’s extremely rare that he is).
As it is, I believe that, in the first timeline (where the War Doctor destroys Gallifrey) the Doctor thought that it was the right choice to press the Button. Or rather, he didn’t think he had a choice. As the Tenth Doctor says: ‘there is no other way’. Of course, once Ten and Eleven have joined the War Doctor, the Moment does a wonderfully subtle job of making him second guess himself, causing him to realise the new possibilities that now exist with there being three of him.
This is getting long (apologies), so I won’t deal with the other points you bring up. Although I think you’re probably right in what you say about Flatline.
22 October 2014 at 22:58 #34001As long as you’re happy to, I’m interested in what you have to say. There’s no rush, I’m enjoying this discussion of ours, but I don’t always have the time to ‘check in’ regularly. Sorry if I’m rambling a bit. I try to be economical with my language, but sometimes it seems I need a lot of words to explain my ideas clearly. I too take about that amount of time on my longer posts sometimes, as I find it tricky getting my words to match my nebulous thought processes.
22 October 2014 at 22:28 #33997I agree that for the Doctor choosing Bad over Worse isn’t good enough, and I think that’s something that’s true for all of us. None of us would ever want to choose Bad – that’s sort of what makes it ‘Bad’ – and I think a lot of us would put off making that decision for so long that, sometimes, the Worse would sadly come to pass. And I think that’s one of the things that bothers the War Doctor so much – he doesn’t want to not-act for too long, in case it gets too late. But I agree he desperately desires a third option – and so he should: if there is a Better option, then it’s undoubtedly one to strive for.
I also agree that the ‘impossible choice’ situation has been dealt with to some extent with the Time War, particularly in the Day of the Doctor. As I said in my initial statement way back when, I feel appeased by this season’s acknowledgement that ‘sometimes the only choices you have are bad ones’.
Hi @Barnable Thanks. Yes I think @Bluesqueakpip and I have different interpretations of some of the more complex aspects of our favourite show! Nevertheless, I am enjoying the discussion.
I think that the Doctor doesn’t ever have the option to change his past, but that sometimes very occasionally he’s put in a situation, by an outside agency, where he can make a change – eg the Day of the Doctor. I think there may be other times where he could change his past by accident, not realising he’s doing it, which can happen because time is in flux. But as you say if he was doing it deliberately it would create a paradox. In other words, he almost always can’t change his past – but I think he definitely always can’t change it deliberately.
22 October 2014 at 20:33 #33993Very sorry about that. Yes @jimthefish, @phaseshift, @fatmaninabox go ahead and get rid of the final paragraph my post #33916, before the ‘PS’ (but please leave the rest of the post, it took ages to think/write out!). My apologies again @thommck, I hope I didn’t ruin things too much for you. I reminded myself not to refer to the ‘future’ when I wrote my previous post, and forgot this time, so I’m doubly kicking myself twice over.
20 October 2014 at 23:40 #33916On rewatching Into the Dalek, I agree that the Doctor doesn’t exactly cause Ross’ death. But, as you say, you understand my overall point about fixed points not being the only ‘impossible choices’, and the example of Ross was only really to explain that, so I suppose my mistake there has little bearing either way now.
(I will say this: With the Mummy, I agree it’s nice for the Captain to regain his self-respect, but really it’s the information the Captain’s vision of the Mummy can reveal to the other scientists (eg that the Mummy can teleport) that makes his last 66 seconds an example of the Bad rather than the Worse, as it’s that information that will save lives (the quicker they get more information, the sooner they can stop the Mummy, the less deaths that occur – surely this is more important than him regaining his self-respect). A killing that does not contribute to the scientists’ knowledge is Worse than one that does).
The fact that the Doctor very rarely goes back to change his past should tell us that he doesn’t have the option to do that, and that his occasional being-able-to-change-his-past is exceptional. He would be changing the past all the time otherwise, and he would spend a reasonable amount of his time engineering the universe so the bad things he witnesses never happen. He never makes a regular thing of doing this in the show, so we can assume that, almost always, he can’t do that. You say to never tell the Doctor he has to follow the rules, but clearly he does, almost always, have to follow them.
But regarding your exception to the rule: My understanding of the Day of the Doctor is that he is only able to change his past because, as a result of the Moment’s interference, it is also his present (ie it’s happening ‘right now’ for Ten and Eleven). I’m under the impression (correct me if I’m wrong) that the Doctor can’t choose to meet his past selves, but that it can be arranged by an outside agency (eg the Moment in the Day of the Doctor, the Time Lords in the Three Doctors (I think I’m right in saying), and a temporal engineering-related accident in Time Crash). In those circumstances, he might be able to ‘rewrite’ his past, but he can’t choose to find himself in those circumstances, therefore he can’t simply choose to rewrite his past when he likes. Therefore, he really can find himself facing a genuine ‘impossible choice’ that he can’t use time-travel to get himself out of.
Did the Doctor act according to consequentialist ethics/greatest good of greatest number when he destroyed Gallifrey? Yes.
Did he think it was the right/good/ethical thing to do? No. It nearly destroyed him.
I agree with the answer to your first question. I think your second answer is up for debate.
The Doctor (pre Day of the Doctor, let’s say the Ninth Doctor) is clearly deeply bothered by what he did at the end of the Time War. Being the one responsible for the deaths of your entire species would be massively depressing, especially as it probably included his family (even Susan?). But being depressed about an act you committed is not the same as thinking you did the wrong thing. Depression can often be caused by feeling that the world is against you, even making you do things you don’t want to. The Doctor obviously does not want to destroy the Time Lords, but I get the impression that he felt he didn’t have a choice.
So, consider: did we the audience hate the Doctor from 2005-2013? Did we believe he had committed a terrible, cruel, unforgivable act? I never got the impression any of us did. I definitely did not get the impression Russell T Davies intended for us to do so, despite being the one who effectively made the character do it. So did he/we-the-audience think the Doctor was in the wrong?
More importantly, does the Doctor believe that what he did was wrong? You say he did, but I get the impression he just feels terrible for being the one that did it. Anyone would feel terrible doing what the Doctor did, but that’s not to say that he believes it was not the best option available. At the very least, look at it this way: after the War, there would probably be a tiny part of him that says: ‘Am I absolutely sure that was the best thing to do? Can I ever be 100% certain that the Time Lords and Daleks wouldn’t have just reached a stalemate, and that the High Councils plans (The End of Time) would have failed, and that my inaction would only have led to a few thousand more deaths before both sides agree to conserve resources and stop fighting, saving the children of Gallifrey? What if that was going to happen instead? What if the action I took (destroying them) did not yield the best potential results?’ These thoughts would be pestering him constantly, causing the misery we see in Nine, and sometimes Ten, these thoughts would, as you say, nearly destroy him. But that does not mean that what he did didn’t leave the universe in a better state than it would have been in otherwise – it would, in fact, be a massive risk hoping that this other better chain of events came to pass, considering the way (we gather) the Time War was going – the Doctor seems to believe it would be irresponsible for him to ‘hope for the best’ and not do anything. The Time War, so we gather, was at risk of damaging the universe far more terribly than the Moment did.
So the way I saw it was that the Doctor did what he thought was in and of itself a Bad Thing To Do , but something which he saw was the Best choice to make after he weighed up all the probabilities. He felt terrible as a result of being the one to do this thing, but that does not mean that he thought it was a mistake to do it.
The thing that makes the Day of the Doctor so glorious is not that the Doctor realises that there was always another option he could have taken (because of course he would have considered going back on his own timeline, and using multiple Doctors/Tardises, if it had been an option – you could never convince me otherwise) but that, out of the blue, another option which he never even conceived would or could be available suddenly is available – at last he can save the children of Gallifrey, not because he realises (at last) that it’s the right thing to do, but because, like lighting out of a clear sky, he is now in a position to be able to do it.
(You’re probably thinking ‘what about Clara’s part in all this?’ From my memory of the Day of the Doctor, Clara’s role in that is to shake the Doctor out of the fatalism he starts to suffer as the War Doctor, and which continues throughout his life until the Eleventh Doctor experiences the Day of the Doctor, that there is/was no other way to end the War. The reassessment of the situation Clara prompts then enables the Eleventh Doctor to think again, and realise that, this time, a better option has presented itself (the fact that, with multiple Doctors/Tardises, they are able to save Gallifrey).)
Go watch Flatline
I think Flatline is an example of the universe not letting him (or Clara) ‘off lightly’. He has to choose between saving the innocent people (the humans), or helping the Boneless, who so clearly want to get through but aren’t behaving very nicely about it. He has to choose a Bad option, turning the Boneless back to 2D, in order to save people who maybe don’t even deserve it, because the Boneless have made the option of helping them to become 3D a Worse option by killing people to do it. I think that’s the way I saw it; hopefully that answers your questions about that, but I’m not sure cos I’m very tired.
P.S. Apologies for asking you to read so many acres of text, but I find explaining my ideas with clarity requires many words to do it in!
19 October 2014 at 21:19 #33862If something isn’t a fixed point, then the Doctor can never have an ‘impossible decision’ because he can change stuff.
I’m not certain that fixed points are actually the only time an ‘impossible choice’ can occur in Doctor Who; there surely are other times when he can’t change Time. My two main ‘impossible choice’ examples, which we’ve had this season, concern Ross’ death in ‘Into the Dalek’ and the Doctor’s use of the Mummy’s victims’ last 66 seconds in ‘Mummy on the Orient Express’. These are not fixed points in Time (they’re definitely not presented as if they are). But these are still instances of ‘impossible choices’, where there are only bad choices and worse choices to be made, and Time can’t (deliberately) be rewritten.
Ross’ death:
- Bad: cause Ross’ death.
- Worse: cause, by inaction, the deaths of the other people around you.
The Mummy’s victims:
- Bad: assuring the victims that they are about to die, that that fact is not important and that they can use this time to save others from death.
- Worse: Through inaction, allowing the victims to die without using their brief, unique position to observe the Mummy and help save the lives of other future victims.
In these examples, there really are only bad and worse choices; just like with fixed points, the Doctor cannot deliberately go back in time and change things that have already happened. Here is why I think this:
My general understanding of this sort of thing in Doctor Who is that time-travellers can’t ‘contradict’ things they already know, in other words they can’t cause something to happen/not happen that they know in fact doesn’t happen/happens, like killing Hitler in 1937 despite having learnt in school that he died in 1945. I think of this as ‘The Time-Traveller’s Rule of Thumb’.
For example, after the Doctor finds out what to say to the Mummy to ‘disable’ it (‘we surrender!’), he cannot then go back in time to before the mummy kills the old lady in the first scene of the episode, and say ‘we surrender!’ to it, thereby saving the lives of the five people who he had previously heard had died (including at least two he’d seen die). This episode, as far as was mentioned, had nothing to do with fixed points, and neither do most episodes, but it seems to be the consensus among writers and fans that the Doctor isn’t allowed to simply play with Time in this way at all: he can’t just figure out how to stop the monsters and then go back in time to a moment before the monsters killed anyone and stop their plans using his newfound method for defeating them. Once he’s found out that somebody died, he can’t save them (presumably because of some law of Time).
(In the example of Caecilius et al, the Doctor had presumably not heard that Caecilius et al had died in the eruption (they’re not historical figures), and therefore is not technically contradicting his knowledge in saving them – saving the whole of Pompeii would be different, of course). If my ‘Time Traveller’s Rule of Thumb’ isn’t valid, then the Doctor would be able to go back and save everyone all the time – this would make for bad television, so I think we as viewers have to accept that he just can’t do it.
Hopefully, all this demonstrates that fixed points need not be the only example of ‘impossible choices’ in Doctor Who. Once the Doctor finds himself in a situation where he has to choose between a Bad and Worse choice, he can’t then use time travel to stop this problem arising before it starts: he’d be contradicting his own knowledge of the timeline, and thus be breaking some law of time. If this behaviour didn’t break a natural law, he’d be doing it all the time.
So I dispute your claim that the only ‘impossible choices’ are fixed points – there is scope within the premise of the show to have stories featuring these non-fixed-point impossible-choices, eg ‘Into the Dalek’ and ‘Mummy on the Orient Express’. Also, I think fixed points are a different sort of choice, because they involve thinking about temporal physics/that sort of thing, not only morality.
I think it would make good drama because seeing a character taking an action that is consistent with one important aspect of their character, but that also goes against many other aspects of their character, can make for powerful drama.
It can also make for very easy, unearned drama. Unless you are very, very careful, the drama is imposed on the character – and this is especially a danger in continuing dramas like Doctor Who.
I agree it can be a bit risky, but as you say if the writer is careful it can work. What I am saying is that I think that we can have the Doctor perform this sort of action without it appearing ‘imposed’ on him by the writer, as you put it – for example, ‘Into the Dalek’, as I’ve said before, handles this reasonably well with the death of Ross (although admittedly doesn’t use it to generate much ‘drama’ of the angsty did-I-do-the-right-thing variety, probably because it’s Twelve, not Ten or Eleven, doing it). It can still generate interesting scenes though, like the one on the beach at the end of ‘Mummy on the Orient Express’.
I’m not sure if I’d describe myself as a consequentialist based on that Wikipedia entry, as I personally believe that the basis for judging the rightness or wrongness of an action is more about the intended consequences of the action, rather than the actual consequences. But perhaps this comes under consequentialism too?
I’m very much not a consequentialist … so we’re definitely not going to agree on that one.
Fair enough. So the really interesting question is: Do you think the Doctor is a consequentialist, when it comes to the sorts of choices we are discussing? Because that would have a strong bearing on the sort of situation I was initially describing.
I can only quote Clara and the Doctor on this:
Clara: We’ve got enough warriors. Any old idiot can be a hero.
The Doctor: Then what do I do?
Clara: What you’ve always done. Be a doctor.The Doctor is often in the privileged position of being more knowledgable, more clever, more resourceful, more experienced than everyone else in his situation, because he’s from a very advanced race and has much more advanced technology (the Tardis, the sonic screwdriver, the psychic paper). This means that when he finds himself in a problematic situation, he very often has the option to solve that problem in different ways to what others would be in a position to do (compare him to UNIT or Torchwood). Hence he can be a doctor when others have to be heroes. But surely sometimes (and this is sort of my whole point) the universe wouldn’t let him off so lightly.
18 October 2014 at 22:31 #33749This one was good fun. A fair few original ideas. I like it when the show can use the sci-fi/fantasy ideas that are available to it to make really bonkers things happen, in this case the tiny Tardis in particular, the fun-ness of which was multiplied by Clara carrying it around and the Doctor’s hand popping out of it now and then (the best bit being when he crawled off the train tracks – it’s a kind of humour Doctor Who doesn’t do often (what does?), but it feels just right).
@flirtingdinosaur – I’m not sure the physics is wrong with ‘the turning the whole thing with the hand from the inside’. Because technically his hand was on the outside, it was sticking out of the Tardis, so he was manipulating the un-heavy blue box, as opposed to the massive time machine inside it. Although, I’m no physicist, so I could be wrong.
Clara being ‘the Doctor’ was fun, mainly cos we got to have the Doctor talking about what normally goes through his head when he’s adventuring, eg ‘soon a leader will emerge, make sure you are that leader’. A few (and it is only a few) have complained about not liking Clara/there being too much Clara, but I think someone should stand up for her after this episode. I think she’s great, probably my favourite companion (although for some reason it bothers me that she’s lying to Danny – maybe cos I got it wrong last week when I said I didn’t actually think she was lying – oops). I suppose if you don’t like her you can’t help it, but I don’t feel the Doctor is generally being edged aside because of her – there’s plenty of both characters.
Anyway, this was a cool episode, probably one of the better this series.
PS What did the Doctor say at the end, to the monsters? He said ‘I name you [something]!’
17 October 2014 at 23:29 #33698@scaryb – Yes, I concede he has at least chosen the lesser of two evils off camera during the Time War. And I really enjoy that it is explored further in The Day of the Doctor, and similar ideas this season.
Maybe I’m cynical but I think these sorts of impossible choice would face the Doctor more often, given the life he leads. The real ones, that is, where there really is no better, third way. But, equally, I think I’m idealistic in some ways, and think that he’s got the guts to go through with the less terrible choice, rather than stand aside completely and let the worst happen. Which is in itself a kind of heroism – perhaps that’s why I like the idea.
14 October 2014 at 21:24 #33566Why?
Who benefits?
Who benefits from teaching kids a moral viewpoint that… [etc]
Why? Firstly, because I think it would make good drama. I think a television show should try to explore as many facets of its premise as possible. I’m not saying I want this thing to happen all the time – just one episode would do (and i feel we’ve sort of had that now, at least to some extent). I think it would make good drama because seeing a character taking an action that is consistent with one important aspect of their character, but that also goes against many other aspects of their character, can make for powerful drama. Think of the end of ‘Of Mice and Men’.
Who benefits? I think the audience in general would appreciate the drama of it, but as you mention kids in particular: I think the lesson kids would learn, if this was handled well, would be that you can’t judge a person or what they do simply on the direct results of their actions – the indirect results should be considered too: maybe they were intentional. It also conveys that sometimes we have to be brave and do things, or condone things, we really don’t want to (I think Mummy on the Orient Express covers this well). Obviously, it has to be handled carefully for the show’s family audience. It doesn’t even necessarily have to be about choosing a certain number of lives over another number, or about death at all – it could be something much more mundane than that.
Regarding ‘the greater good’ – I agree this idea is often misused, and perhaps has negative connotations, but in a scenario where there are no good choices (which is the sort of scenario I am referring to), you have to take the option that you think will achieve the least terrible result. Admittedly, that is something which different people would have different ideas about, but in the sort of situation I’m proposing it would be the Doctor deciding – (and even though he’s not perfect) who better to let choose?
13 October 2014 at 15:25 #33499@thommck – Thanks. I’m not saying I have anything against Clara/Danny myself either – Danny seems to be a decent bloke – but I just wanted to emphasise that the ‘format’ of a character-driven arc-plot seems very effective.
@mtgradwell – Yeah I have to say I’m erring in your direction about whether Clara lied to Danny or not. I don’t believe she did. He definitely is not encouraging Clara to stop if he describes her leaving as a ‘scorched earth’ response to the events of ‘Kill the Moon’ and emphasises that she and the Doctor still get on. In other words, I don’t think Clara had any reason to lie to him. I might be wrong but I think next time we see Danny he will probably have been told by Clara that she changed her mind about leaving the Doctor.
13 October 2014 at 14:06 #33495@scaryb – I appreciate you’re not disagreeing with me re the new darker shade of Doctor. Also, your point about The Beast Below is a good example of what I was looking for actually, and one I’d forgotten, so thanks for that. I respect the Doctor (and more importantly the show itself) because in that one he was willing to commit a terrible act, killing the Space Whale, for the greater good (although he was being a bit short-sighted in that case, as Amy proves).
Still, I feel that these examples are of times when in the end he didn’t actually commit (and didn’t have to commit) those terrible acts- as you say, Donna and Amy showed him another way. In other words, the show itself gives him a way out. (The only exception is his destroying of the Time Lords.)
To be clear about what it is that I felt the show had been lacking (and has now finally gained): I wanted the show itself (ie the writers/producers) to accept that sometimes in the Doctor’s adventures he would have to commit these terrible acts for the greater good. Just occasionally, these instances would surely arise, and the Doctor would (as he says in this week’s episode) only be able to choose from bad choices, eg kill one person, or let five die, for example. In other words I wanted the writers/producers (let’s say Russell T Davies) to put him in a position where he would have no choice but to kill that one person for the sake of five others. The Doctor is an intelligent, brave and moral man, and would appreciate that he had to take that action, and not let the five die, regardless of what face he was wearing at the time.
I’m glad we’ve had that happen now (in Into the Dalek, and acknowledged this week), it adds a realistic facet to the kind of life the Doctor leads, whereas I feel that perhaps previously the show had been that bit more idealistic (and kinder to the Doctor’s reputation), and that it would have been really interesting to see Tennant or Smith, for example, react to having to commit these ‘little’ evils. I appreciate that the Doctor’s destruction of the Time Lords is actually a very good example of this, although much more personal, but I feel that in reality the Doctor would find himself cornered into these kinds of positions more often that the show, up til now, has allowed for.
Anyway, I’m just saying that I’m glad we’ve had (what I consider to be) this extra facet of ‘realism’ this year (not that I hold it against the previous seasons or Doctors – it was only minor quibble of mine.) The amount I’ve written on this isn’t really proportionate to how much I care about this one feature, I just wanted to explain my thoughts. I thought they would be straightforward to explain but it has taken several paragraphs in the end! Oh well, Doctor Who deserves my time.
12 October 2014 at 23:16 #33468@scaryb – Yeah it’s true that the Doctor was more morally complex in Hartnell’s day, but I think most of the examples you give (though I’ve not seen the St Bartholomew’s Eve Massacre one) are about allowing Time to follow its proper/pre-ordained course, particularly in the Tenth Doctor examples. So you’re right in that these are morally difficult decisions, but I feel that these are different somehow, like the Doctor is absolved of the guilt in the audiences’ mind as if it is history’s fault these bad things happened and not his. Notice the only time he goes against ‘history’ is the one that’s not real-world history – the Waters of Mars.
What I’ve been looking for is for the show to challenge us the audience to watch the Doctor commit an essentially terrible act (even a relatively ‘minor’ one like causing the death of one person) but to agree with him that it was the right decision. This we got in Into the Dalek! But I felt we had never had it so overtly before. Previously, I feel the circumstances would have been set up (by the writers/directors) in such a way as to present the Doctor in a more positive light. But now the show is embracing its idea of a more pragmatic Doctor by deliberately showing him in a more unflattering light in these scenarios, which I find exhilarating (and is what I’ve been hoping for!). To me, this makes the character a more realistic and fascinating one.
But I also wonder what it would be like if we were to see Doctors 10 or 11, for example, in the same scenarios without the writers conspiring to present them in such a flattering way. There is, of course, a difference between the broad spectrum of what the Doctor is capable of, and the relatively limited aspect of that spectrum that the writers want/allow us to see. (I think in some ways this is what you aptly refer to as the Eleventh Doctor’s PR agent!)
But yes, I agree that the Twelfth Doctor is as equally a good man as his previous incarnations. What I respect about him is that, on top of that caring aspect, there’s another part of him (that exists either because he’s an alien or because of his raw experience) that simply accepts that the best way to do things is sometimes still gonna be messy and regrettable. But its better than the alternative.
12 October 2014 at 22:06 #33461@juniperfish Yes I very much prefer Clara this season too. In the first four episodes this season she became my favourite companion, I think for the same reasons that some people have complained about the show actually being too much about her now.
I felt she had more scenes of her own that I was actually interested in because of what she was doing in them (in Deep Breath when facing interrogation by the Half-Faced Man, or talking to the Sheriff of Nottingham), rather than just cool scenes involving the companion (eg I really like the scene when Amy encounters the Silence in the White House, but not because of Amy). I didn’t feel, like some, that these scenes made her the centre of the show, because I was much more interested in Capaldi this season and still felt like I had plenty of his performances too.
And as you say, Capaldi’s Doctor is well-layered. Notice his little smile when Clara tells Danny she loves him – he’s strongly opposed to Danny, but he’s still happy for Clara.
12 October 2014 at 21:45 #33458What’s all this about Clara lying at the end of this episode? Various posters here have said she lied to either the Doctor or Danny or both (can’t remember who said this though, sorry). Watching it back, I don’t see it that way.
I think Danny had already said that he didn’t mind her traveling in the Tardis. If you look at Clara and Danny’s earlier conversation this episode, he describes her leaving the Doctor as ‘scorched earth’, saying ‘you still basically get on’. But she was still set on leaving. At the end, Danny asks ‘is it done?’ she says yes, but then, after she hangs up, changes her mind on the spot. At least, that’s the way I see it.
There were two reasons she was going to stop: Danny was worried about her, and she was annoyed at the Doctor. At different points both reasons became nullified, and the thing that remained was only her intention to leave the Doctor. After her phone call with Danny at the end of this episode, she realises that the intention is all that remains, and thus that, in fact, she may as well change her mind and continue traveling with the Doctor. (Yay!)
That’s my interpretation, perhaps others see it differently?
12 October 2014 at 21:34 #33456I find the conversation at the end about addiction strange, because they both seem to have forgotten about the fact that the Doctor did give up traveling for ages and ages – in The Time of the Doctor (as @bluesqueakpip pointed out). But if you watch that scene, it’s as if the two of them have completely forgotten that. Unless the addiction being given up is specifically to the ‘making impossible choices’ thing that Clara refers to, then I suppose the Time of the Doctor decision to stay on Trenzalore was a bit of an ‘impossible choice’, and thus he was not giving it up. But I’m not convinced by that. It seems strange that they talk as if Trenzalore never happened.
Just like to say that I’m happy that this episode (and this series) has dealt with the whole sometimes-you-have-to-do-bad-things-for-the-greater-good issue, which I think is ignored in earlier eras of the show. The kind of life the Doctor leads would require him to sometimes make these sorts of choices a lot more often than, say, the Russell T Davies era ever made him do (I don’t think there are any examples at all in Nine or Ten’s adventures, although admittedly the destroying-all-the-Time-Lords-thing is a good example of that sort of decision-making, albeit off-screen).
I don’t think it should have required there to be a more pragmatic Doctor for him to have to sometimes make these pragmatic decisions (eg even if the Tenth Doctor found himself in the situation with Ross and the anti-bodies in ‘Into the Dalek’, surely the right thing to do would still be the same as with the Twelfth?), but this is better than nothing! I enjoy the three-dimensionalness of this attitude.
12 October 2014 at 18:30 #33452I quite enjoyed this episode.
Thought I’d have a say on some the issues that have come up in these discussions. Can’t remember who’s said what previously so apologies for that.
Some have been complaining generally that the show is too ‘soap-opera-y’ now. While I’m not necessarily sure Doctor Who needs yet another love story subplot, I am glad that Clara has a ‘real’ life going on beside these adventures. It really grounds the adventures – people sometimes say that Doctor Who works best when set in the here and now, because it feels that bit much more believable, and because of Clara’s ‘set-up’ it often feels like even adventures in the past and future are simply an extension of that. It’s one of the reasons I am really enjoying season 8.
Specifically regarding the Clara/Danny/Doctor ‘soap-opera’ triangle, I like the fact that the ‘arc plot’ is character-driven. This is the first time there’s really been a proper character-driven arc plot in Doctor Who, I think. The season 6 stuff with River and the Silence is a plot-driven arc plot, which means it felt odd between the ‘arc episodes’ when they just went back to having normal adventures. The point of Doctor Who is that it’s one adventure after another, so breaking one adventure up amongst others didn’t work brilliantly (particularly after Let’s Kill Hitler). But one thing that is consistent through the adventures is obviously the characters, and thus a character-driven arc plot makes a lot of sense. And it’s working. Most episodes develop the relationship between the Doctor and Clara, and sometimes Danny, without distracting from what are essentially all stand-alone adventures. I reckon you could watch these episodes out of sequence and still appreciate what’s going on, albeit maybe occasionally missing some of the references.
Basically, I’m saying that the arc-plot (as opposed to the ‘arc-enigmas’ of Missy etc.) of this series is working really well – and for the first time in Doctor Who, as, previously, what has been referred to as ‘arc-plot’ has really just been a succession events which all feed into the season finale (ie Season 3 with the fobwatch, lazarus technology, Saxon’s goons and Martha’s mum) or hints/clues (Torchwood, Bad Wolf, Mr SAxon, Madame Kovarian-letterboxes, even Missy this year). This year there’s actually cause and effect narrative continuing throughout the season, ie the Clara/Doctor/Danny relations. I think this is really good, I think Moffat has cracked how to properly do series arc-plots for Doctor Who (character-driven, not plot-driven), and I hope, if arc plots are to continue through Doctor Who, that there are more of this ilk.
I just thought I’d forward an interesting argument in favour of an aspect of what some mistakenly liken to ‘soap opera’ stuff. Not a massive fan of the Clara/Danny relationship specifically (though not against it) but I am enjoying this more subtle form of arc plot (as opposed to Series 6).
Might be back later with more thoughts – time for some dinner now.
7 October 2014 at 00:30 #33186Not yet read through all these posts (I’ve only just had chance to watch the episode), so apologies if I repeat things others have already said, but I feel the need to get my thoughts on this episode off my chest.
I didn’t particularly like it overall, I’m sad to say. Dramatically it was good, ie the performances were mainly good, and there were some good lines and scenes (eg ‘I’m gonna slap you so hard you’ll regenerate’). But the actual idea of the episode, the moral dilemma, confuses me and leaves me cold. Or rather, I fail to understand the logic behind it and therefore I don’t see it as a moral dilemma at all.
After my first watch, I looked back and thought: ‘hang on, whether you blow up the moon or leave it to hatch, the bits of the moon will be attracted towards the Earth’s gravity, so thousands of people on the Earth will die either way. So there is no moral dilemma – it’s two bad things, one of which will happen’.
Then I re-watched the relevant scene. In fact the Doctor says that if you blow up the moon, the moon-debris will be attracted back to the baby’s corpse because of gravity, so effectively blowing up the baby saves the Earth. But then I thought: ‘well, what’s the difference between that and the moon hatching? Wouldn’t the bits be attracted towards the baby by gravity even if it hatched normally, crushing the baby after birth? (This idea simply weakens the credibility of the idea of space-eggs anyway. How could evolution have developed this feature among space-dwelling creatures in the first place (if such creatures could exist?)) And so the people of Earth aren’t in danger because, either way, the moon would essentially reform, not crash to Earth. So in this instance there’d be no moral dilemma either.’
So I’m a bit confused. The whole point of the episode is that it’s a moral dilemma, but my thinking as I described above doesn’t allow for there to be a moral dilemma. I guess in my reasoning I could allow for the nuclear bombs to cause a different kind of ‘damage’ to the moon than the hatching would, thus perhaps bringing about the different result that the Doctor describes. But I find this difficult to get my head around and I can’t tell if it really would work that way. However, I’m open to anyone trying to convince me that my reasoning is flawed – in fact, please do! (I tend to be biased towards believing Doctor Who makes sense, most of the time).
But here’s another point: if there really is no real moral dilemma in this scenario (as according to the reasoning above), then this is just another typical ‘Oh no, the Earth’s in danger, I’d better do something’ scenario for the Doctor, cos bits of the moon are gonna crash into Earth. (I appreciate that the whole aim of the episode is to show us an occasion when that scenario doesn’t happen, but clearly I don’t see it worked). Hence the Doctor wouldn’t run off, and in fact would, as he usually does, try to save the day.
The basic way to do this is to get the sort of technology that the Daleks used to steal the Earth and the other planets for the Reality Bomb in Stolen Earth/Journeys End. Some other civilisation(s) must have developed this at some point in the history of the universe, probably. So the Doctor could solve the problem by popping in the Tardis, getting control of this technology, and teleporting the Moon elsewhere. So the creature can hatch and the Earth isn’t damaged by moon-debris. Everybody’s happy.
So this needn’t have been a moral dilemma at all, regardless of what the Doctor knew about the future or whether the egg would turn to ‘dust’ – the Doctor could have solved the problem anyway, I think. So is this a sort of plot hole, or is there a deeper purpose to the Doctor leaving them alone to decide, as is suggested by Clara?
(Finally, if you read all of this post, I will be your friend forever.)
21 September 2014 at 23:10 #32338@timeloop @IAmNotAFishIAmAFreeMan I believe the post-hug arm-rub is simply because this Doctor apparently doesn’t ‘do’ hugs.
Anyone else notice the Doctor give Psi a ‘call-me’ gesture just as Psi leaves the Tardis at the end? Despite the fact that Psi already offered his services robbing any more banks? What else could they have to talk about that isn’t worth mentioning out loud in front of the others? That, coupled with the Doctor saying ‘Robbing a bank – beat that for a date’ made me think, wildly – is the Twelfth Doctor homosexual? The date being one with Psi, robbing a bank. Either the one they just did, or is he planning another? (Although, going on a date with someone doing their day job maybe is not the best idea.) But there’s a bonkers theory for you.
@spider Yes I had a flashback to Children of Earth then too. But I assumed I’d be the only one!
21 September 2014 at 21:59 #32327@purofilion I’m not Australian – I’m British. I am also still 4 in, with one to go – I hope to rectify this tomorrow! I dare not leave the Great White Wizard Qui Quae Quod waiting – he might smash my lampshade!
@acciotardis Welcome!
20 September 2014 at 21:53 #32206Very much enjoyed that, especially the opening scenes with the memory worms, and them not knowing why they’re there etc. Just a really great original idea for an episode and a great way to throw them straight into the action. Getting a tiny bit fed up with all these timey-wimey circles though. But enjoyable, possibly equal to Listen for me (heresy!), but a few things I was uncertain of:
How did the Doctor get the cases into the bank? (The ones with the teleports etc in). Why did Karabraxos leave, and lose all her wealth? Surely solar storms couldn’t have been destroying the bank? And:
@scaryb Yeah I’m confused why she phoned him, presumably she felt guilty about the Teller’s mate in the cell, wanted him/her freed.
@Bluesqueakpip @scaryb I too think Capaldi really started to feel ‘at home’ as the Doctor for me. He always felt like the Doctor , but today I forgot he was still quite new. Also, this is probably the closest we’ve got to an ‘average’ Twelfth Doctor, as previously he’s preoccupied by fear/paranoia (Listen) or hatred for Daleks (Into the Dalek) or incredulity (Robot of Sherwood) or post-regenerative effects.
Very much like this Doctor.
20 September 2014 at 16:38 #32163@purofilion I too have been watching The Daemons recently. I’m four episodes in. It’s fun stuff, although the horror movie atmosphere seems to disappear after a couple of episodes, which is a shame, and I was also sad that the (BBC3!) TV crew and the archaeologist aren’t as prominent as the first episode led me to believe.
Also, maybe this has been mentioned before (couldn’t see anything on the Day of the Doctor thread, or the ‘TARDIS DataCore’ site), but I noticed there’s an Osgood working for UNIT in The Daemons. I like to think he’s the father of Osgood from the Day of the Doctor – both work for UNIT, both are technical expects and they wear similar glasses. Don’t see why not.
14 September 2014 at 20:16 #31682@timeloop – Thanks, Clara’s decision makes a little more sense now. I wonder if she didn’t realise the significance of her having been on Gallifrey though – or maybe her assumption is that it can’t be Gallifrey (cos it is in the pocket universe), therefore it definitely isn’t – much like how Serahni has pointed out it needn’t actually be Gallifrey, as maybe some of the Doctor’s childhood was spent elsewhere.
Also, I wasn’t seriously suggesting that the Doctor is Danny’s father. Just a terrible joke on my part – apologies for the confusion.
13 September 2014 at 23:30 #31572Why did Clara not want the Doctor to know where they had been at the end? I might just be being stupid, but I couldn’t work it out. Wouldn’t telling him what happened there ease his anxiety over the under-the-bed things? Help him understand why he is so bothered by the idea of them?
Also, doesn’t this mean that Clara just went to Gallifrey? The real one? Did the TARDIS therefore go into the bubble universe where Gallifrey is now hidden? Surely Clara appreciates that the Doctor would want to at least know the coordinates of it then ie how to return there?
I’m confused as to why Clara doesn’t want to tell the Doctor what happened and where she was. Can somebody help a confused simpleton?
13 September 2014 at 22:30 #31567@banjofiddler I think maybe that because we still don’t know what exactly the Thing is, the Doctor may go on investigating – maybe the story is not yet over, and in the course of investigating somehow he encounters something/someone that causes his dream to be spread to us all telepathically or something. Just a thought…
Although, in answer to my own question above, are we meant to assume that the Doctor did get an answer to his questions in the end-of-the-universe-timeship-thing, ie he met the monster when the door opened, but while the scanner was not properly working? Seems obvious now I think about it like that. Makes it even spookier. Although, why didn’t Clara just walk out to have a look?
13 September 2014 at 22:17 #31563@ Juniperfish Yes, I believe the Doctor said ‘dad skills’. I like the idea that Time Lords have evolved the ability to just put their children to sleep when need be. Makes life a bit easier (although doesn’t stop them waking up again!) This of course confirms definitely without doubt that the Doctor is Danny Pink’s dad.
@whisht @timeloop re: the like-ability of Clara. I very much like Clara, particularly this series, as she seems to just have more to do than before, possibly even than other companions (eg her face-off with the Half-Faced Man was actually possibly the best scene in Deep Breath).
Still realising the significance of seeing the Doctor’s childhood. So was he an orphan? I’ve not read any of the novels that deal with the Doctor’s childhood. Sad, but perhaps appropriate, that he didn’t want to be with the other Time Lord boys.
13 September 2014 at 21:55 #31560Generally agree with everyone else – didn’t quite know what to think about that at first – other then it was bloody good. But here are some thoughts that have now developed in my brain.
The episode took a strange u-turn at the end, where instead of giving us any more answers to the questions being asked by the Doctor, it simply told us why the question was being asked. I suppose that’s obvious, but I just thought it was very unusual for Doctor Who. Seems more like an arty-film-thing-to-do. But that’s no bad thing.
@TimeCahoot I actually think there is no direct connection between the hands grabbing the kids and old lady’s feet, and Clara grabbing the Doctor’s – other than: it is a common fear we all have (something under the bed), but to the Doctor it actually happened, hence why he’s so much more interested in it as a concept than most (especially now, when he’s perhaps (controversially) at his most vulnerable he’s ever been, personality-wise (apart from maybe the Fifth Doctor, although the Twelfth has had more time to worry about things on his own in the Tardis)). But then it’s a bit timey-wimey because he only felt a hand on his foot because of the chain of events that came from his asking the question ‘What’s under the bed?’ in the first place, which was because of the hand on his foot. Oh, Moffat. I think the other hands-under-the-bed were more about what we fear the Thing-that-we-sense-is-always-there might do. And this hand-under-the-bed idea went into Clara’s head during the episode, and made her subconsciously grab babby-Doctor’s foot. (Can’t quite explain that, but the human subconscious does weird things sometimes, so maybe.)
But, regarding the fact that the story took a bit of a u-turn: wouldn’t the Doctor still want to find out the answer to the questions ‘Are we ever alone?’ ‘What’s that under the bed?’ etc.? He was clearly bothered by them – why stop asking now? Or am I mistaken?
Anyway, back with some more thoughts soon.
7 September 2014 at 12:23 #31247@Bluesqueakpip – While this a cool idea, and I like it in some ways, overall I actually hope that his new bodies don’t come from his memories, but from a more biological source.
I like the idea that regeneration is just a reconfiguring of the genes a Time Lord already has, in sort of the way that humans inherit genes from their parents (some of which aren’t ‘used’ and are dormant) but with Time Lords those dormant genes can be used in subsequent regenerations. In other words, I prefer to think that the genes are all already within the Doctor from birth. I guess Time Lord parents would need to bequeath 13 times as many dormant genes to their offspring in this case.
Still, yours is a nice thought, I don’t mean to undermine an equally viable theory.
6 September 2014 at 23:12 #31210This isn’t my kind of Doctor Who episode to be honest (sword-spoonfights and negligible-amounts-of-gold-making-all-the-difference are a bit too silly for me – or rather a different kind of silly to what I like), but I did actually really enjoy it, mainly for the humour and Capaldi’s Doctor.
I think this is the sort of story that would have left me unsatisfied in the Smith era, but I actually think the slower pacing of this new era helped to make the silliness feel a bit more open and up-front, rather than the sort of thing they hope we wouldn’t realise if they talk fast enough.
@whisht Agree that perhaps this was a little too soon in Capaldi’s run for a full-on comedy episode, but I don’t think any damage was done.
Normally I can’t pick best lines, but I had two standouts: the one about Scots and veg, and ‘Can you explain your plan without using the words ‘sonic screwdriver’?’
Also, although I think the comparison of the Doctor to Robin Hood was handled pretty well, I would have maybe liked a bit more of the Doctor disapproving of Robin Hood’s use of violence – Hood’s weakness as a role model compared to the Doctor, I think. But then I suppose they would have needed a counter-criticism from Rob to Doc, to make it fair. You don’t want to be too harsh to your guest-star, I guess.
All in all, if not my favourite kind of episode, an enjoyable one.
4 September 2014 at 22:00 #31096Hello.
I’m new here (and to forums in general), and I gather this is the place to introduce myself, so here I am.
Been a fan since 2005 (I was born during the Wilderness years). However, I’ve gradually explored the Classic Era, and now consider both Old and New equally brilliant. Branched out into audio and novels a little too.
Have glanced at Doctor Who forums before, but this is the first time I’ve actually joined one, for some reason. Start of a new series seemed like a good time!
Some general thoughts to get me started:
I think Capaldi’s very good so far.
Also, I’m glad Clara’s getting a bit more development this series too.
Enjoyed Deep Breath very much. Into the Dalek was actually rather average to me, enjoyment-wise, although I’m glad this Doctor appears to be a more-pragmatic, less-compassionate version.
Looking forward to taking part in all the bonkers theorising!
Jimbo McMaster.
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