Is it possible that Moffat has throughout the season been portraying the Doctor as a victim of PTSD since he was a student held captive in the Cloister by the Sliders for up to 4 days?

Look at this checklist of symptoms for PTSD:

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/post-traumatic-stress-disorder/basics/symptoms/con-20022540

As for…[Read more]

@ichabod: Another thing that I just remembered, what I had been arguing earlier this season, is that, because of the Doctor’s hatred of war, if you put on a soldier’s uniform, with the possible exception of someone who is a Gallifreyan foot soldier, the Doctor is almost going to go out of his way to make sure you die for your country for your…[Read more]

@ichabod: It is an interesting take that the Doctor’s shooting the General to allow Clara to leave the room is a sign of how unhinged the Doctor is, but unfortunately for me perhaps, I am completely comfortable with the idea of an enraged Doctor doing this as a result of having seen the Fourth Doctor serial The Invasion of Time.  There the Doctor…[Read more]

@morpho: In retrospect didn’t the confession dial look a bit hacked open in The Sorceror’s Apprentice when Missy handed it tauntingly to Clara?

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/tardis/images/b/bd/Confession_Dial_The_Magician%27s_Apprentice.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20150929175948

@soundworld: But then we found out in Heaven Sent that one second clock time to the Doctor can be the equivalent of minutes thinking inside his head.  🙂

@ichabod: I just thought of this wrinkle:  Why exactly is Ashildr quizzing the Doctor at the very end of time about the nature of the hybrid?

My speculation is that eventually Gallifrey appears to be destroyed, or at least its population mysteriously disappears.  I believe this will occur in some “white event” where the Matrix achieves g…[Read more]

@bluesqueakpip: Actually I think Clara and Ashildr will be somewhat equals, in part because their scope for interference will be far less than what the Doctor enabled,  but that Ashildr will bring Clara back into line whenever Clara is interfering too much with what happened in history.  But both will recognize there are severe limits to what t…[Read more]

@bluesqueakpip: The point I am trying to make is the unique nature of the Doctor, his knowledge, his abilities, his cunning, made him somewhat of a demigod to Clara, and she began to assume he could conjure up a plan to solve anything at the last minute.  This in turn egged her on to ask anything and eventually to just assume the Doctor would…[Read more]

@mudlark: I think as far as ideas this season is very tightly written.  In Under the Lake and Before the Flood we have already seen an ability to program sentient beings using something equivalent to a BIOS underneath conscious thought.  I imagine the neuro block effect is a program that actively counters explicit recognition of Clara in the D…[Read more]

@bluesqueakpip: Except the episode has taught Clara there are some things that simply cannot be done, that would endanger time and space itself.

The sequence of events that led to Clara’s death started with her asking the Doctor why couldn’t he do more to save Ashildr’s village.  Ripples that turned into tidal waves.

I think there is no more misunderstood showrunner from fandom of a classic series than Steven Moffat at the moment.  Because I think Moffat is going to gift the next showrunner the freedom to take Doctor Who in any direction by Moffat’s writing the last classic series storyline, given closure just as he gave the story of Clara Oswald closure in Hel…[Read more]

It seems to me there is going to be a vital difference in how Clara and Ashildr travel time as opposed to Clara and the Doctor’s traveling time.  Because with her greater knowledge, I believe Ashildr still holds the balance of power as to what can be done if they arrive in a situation where there is some trouble.  The Doctor is looking to see w…[Read more]

@arbutus: The Doctor couldn’t help being irresponsible when it comes to Clara because she was specifically designed by Miss / The Master to be his earworm obsession.

Ashildr: Missy. The Master. The lover of chaos. Who wants you to love it, too. She’s quite the matchmaker.

@geoffers: This would have been the end of the hybrid story except I speculate, by the laws of this type of storytelling, that Rassilon is going to try his best to create the horror he was supposedly trying to prevent.  So Rassilon is going to conduct unspeakable experiments trying to combine species for his army.

@bluesqueakpip: I don’t agree that Clara’s death was due to “bad luck.”  I think what is being portrayed is that the Doctor and Clara are in a “can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em” relationship, which is why it had to be broken by one of them forgetting about the other.

At some fundamental level, Clara and the Doctor simply can’t…[Read more]

I’m going to guess Ashildr and Clara’s Tardis is going to start exhibiting signs of taking them where they need to go versus where they want to go.

Because I think both their Tardis and the Doctor’s Tardis were programmed by the Matrix while they were in for repair.  I think the Doctor is more directly an agent of the Matrix after his encounter…[Read more]

@arbutus: Au contraire, we may have found out something astounding about why the Doctor no longer uses his original name on Gallifrey.

What if he was the student who escaped the Cloisters and was so traumatized by whatever happened to him that he afterwards refused to use his given name, but instead used other ones to describe himself?

The…

[Read more]

@puroandson: Like I said, I thought Moffat way exceeded my expectations which is why he is the one running the show. 🙂

I really think the horror of what Rassilon is about to unleash has only begun.  He is very old so he will regenerate to a new face, probably much more younger, energetic, maybe more obviously cruel.  Missy and the Doctor m…[Read more]

Oh and I really do think the Doctor has unleashed his greatest and most deadly enemy in Rassilon, especially when Rassilon regenerates into a much younger and more energetic form.  If the Doctor thinks he has no limits, what about the tricks known by one of the co-founders of the Time Lords himself.

I think we are headed way back in time to…[Read more]

I read tons of spoilers and still Moffat exceeded all my expectations.  Well done!

There was no choice but for the memory of Clara to be erased from the Doctor, because as Missy plainly said, and I have speculated,  in Death in Heaven, Clara was created to be an earworm for the Doctor, to obsess him.

And just like I speculated the hybrid was t…[Read more]