SPOILER, SPOILER, SPOILER...

@puroandson: Thanks for sharing your story, it was very moving and relevant to Heaven Sent.  And thanks for correcting me about using “early societies” versus “primitive.” 🙂

As for the Doctor’s initiation at age 8, as I have noted, his description of it in The Sound of Drums makes it clear that he was motivated by being scared not boredom to…[Read more]

SPOILER, SPOILER, SPOILER...

Perhaps the nature of what is programmed in the confession dial as the Doctor’s worst fears tells us why he left Gallifrey and what he is really afraid of.

The Doctor may as well be speaking of the Veil when he has his monologue at the beginning describing how something shadows one through life, ending one’s life when one stays in one spot too…[Read more]

@puroandson:  Thanks for sharing such a moving and relevant personal story.

Perhaps we have this all wrong about the confession dial meant to be a torture chamber.  As Moffat himself wrote in Listen:

CLARA: I know you’re afraid, but being afraid is all right. Because didn’t anybody ever tell you? Fear is a superpower. Fear can make you faster a…

[Read more]

Ironically in the context of the new series, didn’t the Doctor already imply the reason he left Gallifrey was because he was scared? Here is one scenario he hinted at, from The Sound of Drums:

DOCTOR: Children of Gallifrey, taken from their families age of eight to enter the Academy. And some say that’s when it all began. When he was a child.…

[Read more]

So if it is acceptable for theorizing for the Doctor to use “me” to refer to “Me” and thus Ashildr as a possible candidate for the hybrid, would it be equally acceptable to say when the hybrid is supposed to “conquer Gallifrey and stand in its ruins,” perhaps we misheard the Doctor and it should be “its runes.” As in Viking runes, Ashildr being a…[Read more]

As I have remarked on another forum, there is already a major science fiction franchise whose premise is that leadership should be determined by a genetic lottery, Star Wars.  I like the current situation where the Doctor and Missy are the only Time Lords left in this universe.  I am really hoping the hybrid is not by DNA but by spirit, mind, s…[Read more]

To me it is all about the music. That also explains to me why some would dislike *Heaven Sent* at a very visceral level.

I also can’t get enough of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris because of its use of Bach’s “Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ”, BWV 639. On the other hand I know someone who can’t stand either Heaven Sent or Solaris, especially those…[Read more]

But over time the ability to transport into the confession dial was more a forgotten feature. Any ordinary Time Lord could record his confession and keep its secrets safe from Gallifrey. It is only using the backdoor to enter the confession dial, forcing one to give the secrets to avoid being killed, that allows Gallifrey to monitor the answers.

I have an alternate theory for the confession dial.  A lot of Time Lord technology is very old and they have often almost forgotten how it works.

To me the confession dial used to function as some sort of security blanket / device of last resort for Time Lords venturing out into the universe.  They would wear a bracelet that if they got in t…[Read more]

@carrieanne: Not only that but for just this one episode, that the Doctor’s pockets are bigger on the inside than the outside seems to have been completely forgotten.  In The Witch’s Familiar for heavens sake the Doctor apparently even is able to carry with him the ability to serve himself a cup of tea.

It is somewhat amusing to me to think about maybe the opposite of bonkerizing, to be able to predict certain elements of this epic mythical story without knowing a thing about the story.  How is it possible?  It can be done by reading Joseph Campbell’s The Hero of a Thousand Faces from 1949, Joseph Campbell a friend and mentor to George L…[Read more]

SPOILER, SPOILER, SPOILER...

Irreverent thought of the day:  If the Doctor only had his classic sonic screwdriver with him, he might have been able to tune a frequency to more easily break through the crystal wall.  Or he could have at least used the screwdriver as the tip of the beak on a bird and chipped away using that.

SPOILER, SPOILER, SPOILER...

@puroandson: In my opinion, the confession dial follows a strategy of Steven Moffat to deliberately rewrite parts of the classic series, a precedent so that his successors can also make each run as showrunner their own.

Thus the confession dial is a rewrite of the classic series message box shown in the Second Doctor final serial The War Games. …[Read more]

@hillforest: In my opinion, one reason the Doctor never broke and even started dissembling as soon as he was free of the confession dial is the confession dial is a mini-Tardis with a  link between Earth and Gallifrey is the only physical link Gallifrey has left to this universe.  If the Doctor gave up all his answers, the Time Lords would be a…[Read more]

BBC APPROVED SPOILERS...

BBC APPROVED SPOILERS...