Just randomly searching for famous women, here’s a perfect person for Ashildr to have been in history, Aphra Behn.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphra_Behn

1. Mysterious past
2. Writer
3. Adventurer
4. Died in her late 40s.

I wonder if the next episode will deal with some of the constraints on what Ashildr can do as a woman in that time period.   It seems to me that The Girl Who Died placed Ashildr in a Norse society that relative to its time may have accorded women considerable authority, especially since the warriors would often have been absent.  Ashildr he…[Read more]

In Pyramids of Mars there is an interesting exchange between Sutekh the Destroyer and the Fourth Doctor where Sutekh simply assumes that the Doctor’s planet is in the Milky Way galaxy and the Doctor does provide its coordinates relative to “galactic zero center.”

That’s a rather interesting coincidence isn’t it that Gallifrey and the Earth are…[Read more]

@mirime: I think Ashildr is important because even before she met the Doctor and Clara she was a born dreamer and creator of stories. She is a future shaman.

Whoever controls the story controls what can happen, particularly concerning what Time Lords can do and not have paradox. An immortal storyteller could potentially put an unlimited number…[Read more]

Yet another impossible character, Odin, yet another “appearance”.  Of course this Odin was fake.  But who implanted the original idea of Odin in human consciousness?

Robin Hood, Santa Claus, Odin, etc.  What are they?  I argue they are placeholders put by someone as hooks so that they can manipulate the story.  Need some miracle done in huma…[Read more]

<span class=”useratname”>@plainolddave: Three in a row, remember the discarded Daleks in the sewers who got their revenge after being regenerated by the Doctor.
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Rewatching Genesis of the Daleks, I conclude the two-parter to open this season is one of the greatest feats of continuity spanning decades, at least in the depiction of the Daleks.

Davros programmed the original Dalek containers to restrict certain thoughts, and the Fourth Doctor confirms this as well.  Davros also issued the orders to remove…[Read more]

@ScaryB: The episode goes out of its way to show the Mire’s technology is nothing special relative to other space-faring races.  It also says their reputation for being the deadliest warriors is simply part of their story.

As for the Doctor’s limits working with time, isn’t the real limitation what the Reapers as shown in Father’s Day will do?   Don’t they feed on time paradoxes?

There is an out that would explain why Ashildr did not wake up screaming in agony:  Adrenaline numbs the pain temporarily.  That would explain why she might become something of an adventurer, perhaps she is almost literally an adrenaline junkie.

And now for the immediate candidate for quibble of the week’s episode:  The existence of technology that can grant near immortality with such a simple procedure as implanting a chip makes ZERO sense whatsoever, and some way needs to be found to expunge this from the Dr. Who universe.  It wasn’t even tuned to native Earthlings before the Doctor h…[Read more]

Long life might be sad or not to whoever has it, the danger is when they think they are right.  Because we have seen what happens when another long-lived being thinks he is right and has the time to try and enforce that view on the universe: Davros.

Now what would an immortal Earth person who dreams do with her time during the centuries when…[Read more]

Considering all of the foreground stories and portents before the full character of Clara even emerged in the show, that is why I have been asking who in recent episodes seems to be a candidate for the next female companion.  I wonder if there has been a decision to not go down the direction of an incredibly convoluted history or to not give what…[Read more]

I am convinced Strength is Kate Stewart, who has already appeared in the first episode of this season.  Look at the lion.

http://www.tarotlore.com/tarot-cards/strength/

“A woman crowned with crown and cap of maintenance, who calmly, and Without effort, closes the jaws of a furious lion. She represents Strength.”

If Moffat wanted to go…[Read more]

<span class=”useratname”>@purofilion</span>: I bow to your greater knowledge of music and many other things.   Thanks for a history lesson.  🙂

In the original series of Star Trek, Requiem for Methusaleh, the character of Flint apparently had been various famous men in history including Leonardo da Vinci and Brahms.  In an act of sheer gen…[Read more]

I think the enduring popularity of Bach can be argued to be almost an anachronism, because his music was so little valued at the time of his death that years later some of his original music was being used as wrapping paper at a local store.

The music earworm might be Pachelbel’s Canon which was written maybe very late 1600s and was almost…[Read more]

On the issue of souls and the Dr Who universe, that is why I mentioned recently that as far as I know, we the viewer know something the Doctor may not:  Unless Missy planned an elaborate ruse that didn’t work, we the viewer know for certain that souls and the afterlife exist in the Dr Who universe.  Because unless Missy went back in time, r…[Read more]

@lisa: I have a theory that Missy trapped Osgood’s soul in the Nethersphere and that it is possible for her to come back if Clara offers to go to the Nethersphere.

@purofilion: My quibble for this season is why didn’t the Daleks, who were specifically shown casually flying over their city, simply fly away and escape in spaceships from new Skaro instead of staying to be eaten by their discarded Daleks from the sewers? 🙂

Or from the episode, why weren’t the Tivolan Prentis ghost and the O’Donnell ghost…[Read more]

The suspended animation capsule looked perfectly sized for the Doctor, too small for the Fisher King to me.  That’s why I thought from the end of the first part the Doctor would wind up in that capsule.