@jphamlore A very good point about the Tardis possibly rejecting the Master as a long-term companion. After all, it is the Tardis that most of the time is calling the shots as to where the Doctor goes.

When I first saw “Bad Wolf” in series 1 with Christopher Eccleston, I began to wonder. The Doctor having sent Rose home, giving the Tardis…[Read more]

@jphamlore

I feel that the Tardis has more control than that.

Only just caught up on the reading, my computer kind of went crazy for a few days. Apologies to @purofilion and @janetteb for the delay. I’m amazed you think of me as a good source for Tarot though. I only started looking into it when it was first mentioned in relation to this series and all research I’ve done on it has come from the internet.…[Read more]

@jphamlore  I think it was Clara — I recall her saying to somebody, as an explanation, I think, “He speaks dinosaur” so why wouldn’t he speak baby?  Can’t stop to check it out — dinner with friends tonight.

@jphamlore

Thing is, in the unlikely event of Missy and the doctor getting together, would the Tardis allow it?
I still remember “The Moment” asking the Doctor:

Moment: “Didn’t you want her to see it?”
Doctor: “Who?”
Moment: “The Tardis.”

She is a living thing. Isn’t speculation great?

Missy

@purofilion – What’s your opinion @jphamlore of the Orson paradox?

I’m not @jphamlore but shall answer nonetheless.

I am 90% convinced at this point (although I would welcome being surprised) that Moffat has no intention of answering the remaining questions he asked in “Listen”.  I think this is not sloppy writing, but rather fits in com…[Read more]

@countscarlioni   if he gives her the chip, Clara too has the potential to become another destructive tidal wave. The Doctor, as he shouts at the end of The Girl Who Died, can do anything, but here he grasps, after Ashildr has hugely sharpened his understanding of this, he shouldn’t save Clara. No wonder the Doctor has to go off by hi…[Read more]

@jimthefish  On which note, I for one am very glad that she didn’t turn out to be Susan, or Jenny, or Romana or whoever.

Me too.  Too much backstory, better to move on to something new, IMO.  @denvaldron  Thanks for the Viking overview — densely packed and concise; only what, exactly, does kaput mean in this context?  A swift and somewhat catast…[Read more]

@jphamlore

I think Gallifrey is already one of the entrants in the ‘a spaceman did it and ran away’ theory of human evolution, though I can’t quite recall which story.

But it wouldn’t surprise me terribly if the story of the Gallifreyans and the Time Lords turned out to be an Ouroboros Loop. That, for example, they created Clara – and she…[Read more]

Waters of Mars seemed in play too

@countscarlioni glad you saw that too 🙂

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.

@jphamlore what about the nanogenes in The Doctor Dances/The…[Read more]

Great points and thoughts here as always. Some replies.

@Juniperfish    Yes, it did seem as though the Doctor might have known or guessed what would happen to Ashildr, and I was waiting for Clara to call him out on it. As far as Clara wondering why he wouldn’t give her the chip (especially in light of their earlier conversation), he clearly does…[Read more]

@Jphamlore

some way needs to be found to expunge this from the Dr. Who universe.

Really? We’ve already seen an early version. By one Jamie Mathieson – the Mummy uses a version of this kind of tech. We’ve also seen Liz 10, who appears to be effectively immortal (and, like the Mummy, is not exactly happy about it). The nanowotsits that we’ve seen…[Read more]

@jphamlore  In last season’s Time Heist we have seen there is a thriving market in all sorts of tech. So how exactly would the knowledge of this immortality chip be kept secret?

That was definitely done too hastily, but my impression is that this was tech held by the Mire exclusively, and that as they’re such fearsome warriors, nobody had yet da…[Read more]

@jphamlore Re the everlasting chip on the black market – you have to get them off the Mire first. Presumably there doesn’t need to be many of them if they can endlessly rejuvenate themselves.  So it would be very, very rare indeed.

More random thoughts…

It’s all Donna’s fault! (Though it was great to see her again in the flashback).  Now the Doctor has to live with the consequences of “saving just one”.

So who is Ashildr going to reward/curse with the other “chip”?  Wild thought – what if she gives it to Clara? I could be (ie probably am) wrong but I thought Clara was g…[Read more]

@jphamlore

I’m more trying to understand the stories of the Fourth Doctor and how time works. Back then both the Doctor and the Time Lords in Genesis of the Daleks seemed to think he could change the Daleks past, perhaps even wipe them out, and the Doctor and the Jagaroth in City of Death seemed to think it was possible the Jagaroth could save h…

[Read more]

@jphamlore, re Clara +  I wonder if there has been a decision to not go down the direction of an incredibly convoluted history or to not give what are in effect superpowers to the next companion.

I sure hope so.  Clara has just about exhausted that path for now, I think, as a kind of capstone to the super-companion build-up that I associate m…[Read more]

@drben  Wow!  What a handsome line-up of tarot and S9!  That’s a teensy work of art all by itself.  Now let’s see what happens — S9 is delightful so far, IMO.

@jphamlore  Kate Stewart could be the victim of office politics at some point. That would give her time to have an adventure or two as the Doctor’s temporary companion.

I would so like t…[Read more]

@purofilion @arbutus @jphamlore

Puro, you will certainly enjoy the Dirk Gently series, and you will enjoy them more when you learn that the basic story for the first book is taken in large part from Adams’ unfinished Doctor Who script Shada.  I fully agree with Arbutus that, as much as I love Hitchhiker’s Guide, the Dirk Gently series is a…[Read more]

@DrBen      I absolutely love that book, almost more than Hitchhiker’s Guide in many ways. It’s hugely quirky and clever. The thing about Bach there, as I recall, was that it came from the alien ship, and was saved, taken to the 18th century, and given in some way to Bach, and only after that did it exist in the future. It hadn’t actually exis…[Read more]