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@craig This little forum is wonderful – thanks so much!

As for success and posting links on The Guardian. I think it makes sense to maintain a “sister blog” relationship with Dan’s blog. They could mod our link out of our posts if they wanted to, but they haven’t, probably because we are participating over there rather than just promoting this space.

I like Dan’s column and it’s a different sort of atmosphere over there but can still be fun (we all “met” there after all) so yes, I would encourage those loving this space to maintain friendly relations with that one.

@chickenelly well I cannot resist the phrase “utter codswallop” 🙂

So nice to see your pipe of contemplation in action. If you’re right I will be particularly delighted, because mult-doctor stories were always my favourites too. What if Barrowman and Ecclestone’s announcements that they are not involved are bluffs! I really, really hope so.

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Huh – double posted for some reason. So this one’s just a fishy wave at everyone!

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@htpbdet

I’m just teasing 🙂 Please continue…

In fact, speculation crossed with fan fiction is one of my favourite things (I like hybrid things).

Soooooooo – for the Master to return, the Time Lock has to be broken (which I’ve been convinced is going to happen for ages). The Time Lords will return to the universe! A new heaven and a new Gallifrey (for the old heaven and the old Gallifrey have passed away) to go with a rebooted Doctor.

I’d actually like a “throw us all off balance” story where the villain is dark doppleganger Doctor and the Master has to help other Doctor and River and Rose sort it all out. So, yes, if Susan meant something to both the Master and the Doctor, that would help…

The reboot theory is one @jimthefish and @bluesqueakpip support.

@Shazzbot I don’t think it will be a total reboot because (as I’ve said before) of the power of merchandise! The Beeb has 50 years worth of Who products to sell and so some continuity between the last 50 years and the next 50 needs to be maintained. I do remember however, that Tom Baker’s Doctor had his mind wiped after wielding the De-Mat gun on Gallifrey in The Invasion of Time because the knowledge was too terrible to retain, so our current Doctor may indeed end up with the memory of who he really is (some kind of origins of the Time Lord Osiris figure with dark and light sides) wiped again, after he “runs and remembers”.

Vegetation deities are sacrified and reborn to help fertilise the world.

As @bluesqueakpip says, the Doctor is looking for redemption after the genocide of his people, so a sacrifice on his part which did bring forth a new heaven and a new Gallifrey would be mightily appropriate.

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@htpbdet  Cripes!

Hang on – the Master is Susan’s Dad?

You have been at the Kool Aid today 🙂

Why would the Master be “after” Susan in a bad way, and during the Time War in particular? Wasn’t that one of the few times the Master and the Doctor were actually fighting on the same side?

I know the Master is a wrong ‘un but would he really be up for handing his daughter over to dodgy aliens unknown just to get at the Doctor?

I am up for Time Lord family dramas in space however 🙂

And just to mix it up, let’s not forget that Time Lords can regenerate in male or female bodies if they so choose (thanks Corsair for this addition to canon).

Oh teensy request, to you and other recent long posters – can you break it up into shorter paragraphs please? I use shorter paragraphs on the interwebs deliberately (as you can see) because it makes posts much easier for others to read. Thank you kindly.

Looking forward to the second installment!

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Welcome to @dislikesswimmingalone and @thommck to our Who haven, kindly set up by our webmaster @craig and presided over by our mods @phaseshift and @jimthefish

@thommck I doubt the Doctor is a parallel to the whole Egyptian God mythology (that would be unoriginal and cheating in my book)…

Really? <clutches glorious parallel possessively> Literary references and parallels are the stuff of fiction! I don’t think the Doctor is going to turn out to be actual Earth-Osiris, just that Moff is making use of this mythology in verrrrrrrrry interesting ways…

Yes, others have wondered whether Clara could be a TARDIS. But we know a human body can’t contain a TARDIS matrix for very long. Oh – maybe that’s why she keeps dying? Although, she survived this time… I like the idea, although Idris was so glorious it might be too soon for a repeat…

I’m still in love with the idea that in the future, one of the Doctor’s companions could turn out to be the Master’s TARDIS in human form, unbeknownst to the companion themselves initially – cue angsty divided loyalties. Who came up with this excellent idea? I think it was one of us but I can’t remember who – step up to claim the credit!

@dislikesswimmingalone Well if you love numerology you must play with our resident expert @bluesqueakpip !

I think the idea that Smithy is playing a different incarnation of himself in each episode is excellent. We’ve seen prop nods to previous Doctors already, as folk have pointed out (fez, bow-tie, scarf, anti-grav motorcycle reminiscent of Bessie) but if he’s actually playing each of his previous incarnations that would fit with the Osiris parallel (you see I’m not letting it go), re the Doctor himself being somehow broken up into parts and scattered.

This would be SO brilliant, and explain the acting inconsistencies some have complained about, as you say. If the Doc offers anyone a jellybaby in upcoming episodes I will be sold!

@Shazzbot  – re honkers theorising – you have been assimilated 🙂

 

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@ardaraith Yes, the red settings belong to the version of the sonic the Doctor eventually gives to River in order to “save” her.

Has the TARDIS ever run away from the Doctor? Only when under the control of the Time Lords to my knowledge… (someone with encyclopedic lnowledge of Who – looking at you @htpbdet ) can correct me if I’m wrong!

Maybe the TARDIS would run away from dark doppleganger Doctor, however <polishes pet theory> 🙂

 

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@haveyoufedthefish 🙂

I’m even more excited because I found out that one of Osiris’ names was “Lord of Silence” and  @Magpiejay over on The Guardian pointed out that in the Isis mythology, she gains power over Ra the sun god by learning his sccret name! Cue River Song is Isis in the narrative parallel and I really do think this is going somewhere!

So the Doctor tells River his name so that she can help foil the plans of dark doppleganger Doctor…

On the subject of whether or not the Doctor created The Great Intelligence @htpbdet – I don’t know, I’d have to go back and re-watch. I like the idea, and it does seem The Face of Evil scenario is being referenced a lot. That could be in order to alert us to dark doppleganger Doctor, who might turn out to be ganger Doctor from the Almost People (who was created by the Doctor) but I hope not because he seemed so sweet.

Oh and @phaseshift – your identification of the leaf as a sycamore leaf fits right into the Osiris/ Isis myth. Isis was sometimes depicted as a sycamore tree – and “the only water in the forest is the river”!

I’m still very excited about the whole Osiris deal, can you tell? 🙂

 

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Hey @craig I’m in – haven’t been able to log on – I sent you an e-mail. Anway sorry to bring website hassles to your door when I’m sure you have enough on your plate…

Yay – I’m back! 🙂 And thanks as ever for your kind and awesome webmastery.

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@htpbdet – oh and I love the theory that Susan healed Doctor One with some regeneration energy on their trip to Akhaten and that was imitated and became the mythology of the seven rings… rather a Face of Evil scenario indeed.

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@htpbdet

The trouble is that the Doctor has never really regarded himself as a God – he may act like one occassionally but has always eschewed the title and not thought much of those who appointed themselves as gods…

Indeed, but his dark doppleganger might not be so averse… perhaps that is what was in Room 101 in “The God Complex” when the cloister bell of the TARDIS chimed – a version of the Doctor who does think he’s a god. 

If Sutehk is coming back I will be delighted – The Pyramids of Mars scared the beejeezus  out of me as a nipper…

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@bluesqueakpip Yes that’s true – cracked it! <smiles happily and rolls fishy eye>

The Doctor has been overusing his sonic lately thread “On the Sofa” looks like extra fun now 🙂 

<hastily joins the many people who have had to get their coats recently>

 

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Finally – Osiris was cut up into separate parts (are you listening to this @phaseshift – I hope your back is doing better btw) and scattered across Egypt (read time and space).

His loving wife Isis had to track down the parts and put them back together again.

So perhaps the Doctor himself is scattered in time and space and Clara is either a manifestiation of this/ him or a River Song avatar or his granddaughter working with River, in other words, the Isis figure, to help him remember and put him back together again.

Incidentally, in the Osiris myth, the only part Isis couldn’t find was his penis, so she had to magically make him a new one.

I am now possibly leaving the earth’s atmosphere, but could the sonic end up being an Osirian phallic symbol in this mythological parallel 🙂

 

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Oh and whilst I am on my Egyptian mythology freak out.

I have this to say – River and the Doctor got married on the top of  a pyramid.

Moreover, some folks involved in the “endless war” with future-Doctor, involving the omega-insignia wearing clerics and Kovarian, thought of the Doctor as a god, so much so that Colonel Runaway had to give his troops an inspirational speech telling them the Doctor “…is not a god”.

The Bennu bird (phoenix) was said to have been born by bursting out of the heart of Osiris.

Clara wears a phoenix necklace, as pointed out by @lula . Osiris was a vegetation (leaf deity) and lord of the underworld, as I’ve mentioned. You can see how the Doctor fits Osiris, as he is the lord of the genocide of his own people (pretty underworld) and yet he has recreated the universe, in “Big Bang 2”.  

In essence, apparently, the Benu was considered “a manifestation of the resurrected Osiris”.

source http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/benu.htm 

Ha! So Clara as a manifestation of the Doctor theory gains ground…

I have to say I am both delighted by all the “dying and reborn god” mythology and yet, my anarchist heart is also ambivalent, because that’s what the Doctor was, as far as we knew in Old Who – an ordinary anarchic Time Lord; a rebel, creative, empathic and curious Time Lord with a bad attitude to authority. Not a God.

It does seem likely he”ll forget his “god origins” and go back to that anarchic hobo at the end of Moffat’s cycle, as @jimthefish and @bluesqueakpip and @haveyoufedthefish and others have speculated. 

Keep checking for Egyptology @feralcat and others 🙂

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@lula <sobs with you about the red settings> but I’m actually delighted that we’ll get more River angst or indeed just more River on-screen.

For all kinds of reasons I adore Kingston and I think a River/ Rose meeting has lots of potential. Rose was such a b**ch to Sarah Jane and I loved the way the actresses worked that and worked it out. Rose might be initially wary but you know River would just win her round and they’d have a hoot.

Yes – please let there be a “Library fix-it” in there somewhere too, so River gets a new set of regenerations and can go gallivanting off into the universe again…

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NB – I meant to say that the Osiris/ vegetation deity reference ties us back into all the Egyptology, of course…

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Waves at @stevethewhistle Yes, could be. The TARDIS always takes the Doctor where he needs to be, so we know she does interfere!

(<a href="mailto:I@craig“>@craig do you know why @stevethewhistle ‘s moniker is not going blue?)

Meanwhile, I continue to freak out about Moffat and Christian symbology. The Doctor, as we know died and was resurrected at Easter on the shores of Lake Silencio and we’ve had the whole Easter theme kept alive with the eggs references in 7 Part 1. All this, combined with the very heavy parallel made between the Doctor and a slumbering “Old God”.

Also, the leaf references vegetation deities, who were being worshipped as the God dying and reborn, long before Christianity – in particular Osiris, vegetation deity and Lord of the Underworld.

Dr Who the show has of course, also died and been reborn.

This ties back in with @bluesqueakpip ‘s recall of the skeleton holding the sonic… (another “in my time of dying”)

<screams Moffat! ILU> <then hides behind the sofa whistling fishily>

<what? that fan geek-out was nothing to do with me>

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I love the Matrix theory… @haveyoufedthefish

I think you should post that one back on The Guardian, don’t you, it’s so great? After all, it’s our main recruitment ground at the moment (not that we want to get so big over here that we give @craig and you a headache!). Still, I’m also kind of attached to Dan’s goofy blog, despite the inevitable guff.

Anyway – the Matrix!!!

I’d forgotten that the consciousness of Time Lords was uploaded to the Matrix after they died, as standard, on Gallifrey. You do realise <massive sob> this means the Doctor gave River the closest thing to a Time Lord funeral he was able to give her in a post-Gallifreyan world <sails the mother of all ships – take note @pedant > 

Now who loves time paradoxes and time loops more than Moffat?

So what if the Doctor and River are, in a massive time loop, the Adam and Eve of the Time Lords? The leaf in Clara’s book (she’s got to be his granddaughter) refers to the Fall and the Garden of Eden.

River, created in part in the Time Vortex, is the first Time Lord – a proto-Time Lord. 

We’ve had Garden of Eden symbology before, right at the start of Moff’s reign. Remember that little Amelia gives the Doctor an apple and the first adversary is a big snake (Prisoner Zero)?

If even half of the threads running through Moffat’s tenure turn out to be as beautiful as we have theorised them to be…

@juniperfish loses cool completely and runs excitedly down the street looking for a blue box in the sky (but is sadly not as lucky as @chickenelly was earlier!)

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@ardaraith A warm welcome from the “other place”! I like the idea of a sort of “sleeping beauty” actual Doctor and a ganger Doctor running about as a misdirection.

If Matt has been playing two versions of himself all along (I keep squeezing my eyes shut really tight and hoping this is true) that would be beyond awesome. 

Yes @nekko ‘s os Wald is interesting. I remember that someone, a way back, also said that Oswin Oswald meant “God’s friend”? As we’ve had the Doctor compared to a vampire sun-god in this latest episode, that’s interesting too…

Clara seems to have both River, Rose and Susan connections hinted at. Moffat likes to bluff and feint too, of course, so we shall see.

@scaryb – if the Doctor turned out to be Clara’s Mum that would be gr9 (as they say on younger parts of the interwebs). It would give us a gender swap regeneration finally, at least in some shape or form.

Like @bluesqueakpip the symmetry of Clara being the Doctor’s granddaughter is very appealing.

It’s probably safe to say that love is going to save the day, one way or another – and I’m not even sorry 🙂

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Nice post @htpbdet although how you cannot love Smithy … I know, I know, you don’t like them dark and I agree he is… which brings us to that cosmic vampire doppleganger does it not?

I like your vision of the “fans” as the ravening vampire God – a parallel that some have clearly failed to grasp 🙂

I hope you’re right about the “dandy and a clown” line because that would be a wonderful call-back. But how much better if Ecclestone had been able to utter it whilst looking at Tenant and Smithy!

As for the meaning of Clara’s ring. If the seven rings represent the seven classic Doctors as you say, Clara’s eighth plays into @bluesqueakpip ‘s theory that she could be a future version of the Doctor himself, or at the least an upload of his memories created by himself etc…

Credit must go to @phaseshift for positing that Clara could be an entity scattered in time aeons back…

On Clara’s Mum as a Time Lord (credit to @emmoftheess for starting me down that road with her brilliant leaf-energy musings) yes, as @bobbingbird says, we haven’t seen the body…

It ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings and we have only heard the Queen of Years sing so far.

Oh and on the question of Room 101 – deliberate call-back to “The God Complex”. We still don’t know what was in the Doctor’s room 101 there but we strongly suspect it was himself given the cloister bell recall (we heard it sounding in that episode) in “The Bell’s of St. John” and @haveyoufedthefish ‘s excellent literary deduction that this was a reference to John Donne and his line “Do not ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee”.

The Doctor is his own nemesis. So, Clara is strongly connected to the Doctor in some way. She is his Room 101?

 

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@whohar – High fins it is! And so early in the morning (for me at least) 🙂 Right – better do some work…

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@bobbingbird – Oh – nice solve on the 27! Someone needs to make a master-post of all the numerology references (please?) as I am lost already. Still impressed, lost. I can’t keep it straight in my head 🙂 Time travel, y’know…

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@whohar good to see you over here again – and you can rib @htpbdet about the “S” in person as, happily, he’s made it over here too 🙂

As for Smithy, he deserves all the awards. It will be pretty fascinating to see him and David Tenant at work together. I wonder if they are feeling a teensy bit rivalrous? Good for their character interactions if so!

@bobbingbird Hurrah you have teleported safely. Good evening bird-friend (you might be asleep now).

@scaryb A thousand apologies dear comrade – clearly my memory, like the good Doc’s, is not improving with the years. Doffs cap to your December theorising.

@miapatrick Interesting about the number 27. Maybe our resident numerologist can help. Bluesqueakpip – any ideas?

@emmoftheess Ah ha! I think you may have cracked something! If Clara’s Mum was a Time Lady then all her “days that never were” would be far more prolific than those of an ordinary human who had died too young, wouldn’t they? That would account for the leaf being such a filling meal for “Grandfather”.

Sooooo – more evidence that Clara’s Mum may be of Gallifreyan origin?

I’m going to post back on The Grauniad as I do feel it is our dark doppleganger sister blog and you can’t have the light without the dark as the Jungians would say 🙂

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Oh crikey – apols for missing you off the acknowledgments <feeds @haveyoufedthefish > 🙂 Smart theory.

@bluesqueakpip Hmmn I hadn’t noticed Clara’s thrice-speaking, but we do have three versions of her (at least). Ha ha – fits in with the ghost mentions too – God the grandfather, God the granddaughter and God the holy ghost? Or something 🙂

@lula brain-sharing sounds suitably sci-fi – can you teleport me over some of whatever you’re drinking 🙂

@Shazzbot Yes, I’m pretty sure it could be that simple – it’s usually much simpler than the elaborate plot structures we all get up to!

 

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@craig we never forget that this is a labour of love and you make it all possible xx

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On the Doctor’s speech to “Grandfather” in the Rings of Akhaten…

I find it interesting that the Doctor first has a conversation with himself .

“Any ideas?”

“No, didn’t think so…”

Way to go for doppleganger/ doubling theories.

Then we see the “Sun-God” reflected in close-up in the Doctor’s eye and he says, “Lordy”.

Again, a parallel between “Grandfather” and the Doctor is reinforced (already made earlier, as the Doctor’s mention of his granddaughter has encouraged us to think of him, of course, as “grandfather”).

Then to the main speech.

“Oh you like to think you’re a God. You’re not a God, you’re just a parasite, eaten out with jealousy and envy and longing for the lives of others. You feed on them, on the memory of love and loss and  birth and death and joy and sorrow.”

This, as I’ve said elsewhere, puts me in mind of the way the Dreamlord scathingly calls out the Doctor on the way he “feeds” on the wonder of his young companions. The Doctor despises this false God with some measure of the contempt he has for himself. Again – a parallel is drawn thereby.

“So, so, come on then, take mine. Take my memories. I hope you’ve got a big appetite. Because I have lived a long life and I have ssen a few things. I walked away from the last great Time War. I marked the passing of the Time Lords. I saw the birth of the universe and I watched as time ran out, moment by moment until nothing remained, no time, no space, just me. I walked in universes where the laws of physics were devised by the mind of a mad man. And I watched universes freeze and creation burn. I have seen things you wouldn’t believe. I have lost things you will never undertand. And I know things, secrets that must never the told, knowlege that must never be spoken, knowlege that will make parasite Gods blaze. So come on then, take it, take it all baby. Have it, you have it all.”

Well I laughed and cried at a re-watch of this. It manages to quote the great Rutger Hauer Blade Runner speech and some Yo la Tengo lyrics (“…take it all baby, you have it all”) in one go. Or are these Velvet Underground lyrics ? Not sure…

Praise him! I think we are getting to the point where we perhaps take Matt’s phenomenal acting as the Doctor for granted. He delivered this speech beautifully, single tear and weight of the universe and tug of the bow-tie and heart-strings.

The point?

Grandfather Time confronting himself – he who devours and he who bestows, two halves of something mighty, the Sun God and the Lonely God.

The Time Lords are returning I swear it.

Has the Doctor actually surrendered his memories? If so @jimthefish and @bluesqueakpip‘s “clean slate” “retcon” theory could be shaping up…

Although, “Run you clver boy and remember…” suggests that the solution may lie in a re-upload eventually.

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@htpbdet ! A very warm welcome – you made it over here 🙂

Hmmn – it is interesting that we have The Great Intelligence consuming souls via Wi-Fi upload followed by “Grandfather” also consuming souls and psychometric memories.

A soul-sucker is on the loose!

The Dreamlord berated the Doctor for feeding on the wonder of his young companions in “Amy’s Choice”…

 

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@sheena444 Hi there 🙂

This isn’t (I hope) a “group think” space where some unspoken consensus only permits positive comments!

I think what comrades @jimthefish and @wolfweed have been satirising are negative comments without critique which just trot out platitudes, such as “Who was better in ye olden times”.

So, be very welcome to write up what you didn’t like after your re-watch!

I grouched quite a bit about the first half of the season. I was not a “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship” fan, for instance – hammy, hammy dialogue being a feature which obscured the potential for more nuanced characterisation with respect to Nefertiti and Riddell, in my view, for instance.

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@nekko Hello and welcome!

I like the ghost references and, in fact, Oswin actually was the “ghost in the machine”, a human soul in the mechanoid body of a dalek, when we first met her. Hmmn…

Rather nicely ties in with @phaseshift‘s excellent sycamore thought and @lula ‘s phoenix.

I want Clara to be River’s “ghost”/ avatar and for a narrative circle to take us, via that leaf, from the first to the last page of her TARDIS-blue diary.

Oops @pedant I am “shipping” again 🙂

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@feralcat – On the Egyptology –  I mentioned upstream that Akhaten is so similar to Ahkenaten that I doubt it is a coincidence and @scaryb pointed out that Ahkenaten was the husband of Nerfertiti whom we’ve already met in “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship”.

Moreover, @lula pointed out that Clara was wearing a phoenix necklace (nice spot!). Well the Egyptian equivalent is the Bennu bird and apparently it is said to be the soul of the Sun-God, Ra http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bennu .

We’ve just met an angry Sun-God called “Grandfather” who devours souls and memories. This is a parallel for a dark version of the Doctor himself no doubt. So perhaps Clara is the Doctor’s “soul”?

This could mean soul-mate. River and the Doctor were married on the top of a pyramid!

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@janetteb Apologies – missed your re-mention of alternative timelines/ realities just before I posted! Great minds etc. 🙂

 

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Welcome to all new first-posters!

@theatreguy I like the deduction that perhaps Clara’s Mum died in the Time War.

@Shazzbot Yes – why was the leaf different?! Does that, perhaps, tie-in with @scaryb ‘s observation re Clara saying that her home “looked different” on being dropped back by the Doctor at the end of the episode?

Are we dealing with two different time-streams/ realities bleeding together (one of the many things I’ve been wondering about for a long time)? This would fit with the reference to “Through the Looking Glass” and the many, many passing through water-portals references previously.

I want that duck pond to end up being a watery portal!

It would also fit with the eventual “big bad” being “Dark Doppleganger Doctor”. Say, in one reality, the Doctor became “Evil Grandfather”, an old soul-sucking God. This is the Doctor whom Kovarian et al are in the “endless bitter war” against, perhaps?

The Doctor most certainly seems to identify with “Grandfather” in his speech to it, with a certain understanding borne of self-loathing (which reminded me of “Amy’s Choice” where the Dreamlord reveals just how much the Doctor dislikes himself).

@lula Yes I noticed the Doc was still wearing Amy’s glasses. Who does Clara remind him of I wonder? He says, “Someone who died”. That could be his granddaughter, Susan, given her mention in the episode. Or it could be Amy, or perhaps River, if we are at a point in the Doctor’s time-stream when he has already taken River to the Singing Towers.

I really do think this episode was a bit of an “F you” to the Murray Gold haters, given the importance of song/ music to the story – still loving the “space opera” pun 🙂

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Hello @scaryb 🙂

In terms of the date of Clara’s Mum’s death – I saw this on Tumblr – source http://m3jcnv.tumblr.com/

On Saturday 5 March 2005 (some three weeks before its TV debut), a rough-cut version of episode one, “Rose” was leaked onto the Internet by an unnamed employee of a third-party contractor to CBC in Canada. The person responsible had their employment immediately terminated. The version is mostly similar to the broadcast version – the most notable difference is that instead of using Murray Gold’s new version of the theme song, a remixed version of the original was used instead ”

Roses have appeared in relation to Clara on a number of occasions e.g. in-shot when she was Dalek-Clara inside her “mind palace”.

What if Rose, River and Clara are related?!

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@wolfweed I’ve been wondering whether “Oh my stars” is a reference to “the Doctor’s first stars”, i.e. the mobile which hung over his Gallifreyan crib.

Crikey, maybe Moff is going with the Doctor having an Earth mother and Clara’s Mum is it, making Clara the Doctor’s sister/ evil twin?

 

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Oh great detective work to all concerned on the DELSA connections. If Clara is an artifical life-form or a Doctor-virus, that might explain why the TARDIS is so sniffy with her.

@phaseshift – I missed your comments on The Mind Robber – just had a look. Oh, you were hoping for a back-and-forth with the “Dr Who should be hard sci-fi” crowd <grins>.

I noted on the “other place” that the Doctor’s speech in this episode about “days which never were” very deliberately references his speech to little Amelia as his time-stream unravelled in The Big Bang. Has the fabric of time been altered in order to conceal the identity of “the Old God” i.e. of the Doctor, even from himself?

NB: the Doctor appeared to be reading a “Summer edition” of the Beano whilst watching an incongrous autumn leaf fall onto Clara’s father-to-be’s face. Seasons are mixed up indicating that we are, again, watching episodes out of sequence perhaps? Or certainly, that Clara’s time-line is squiffy?

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Incidentally, Akhaten is so very similar to Ahkenaten that I doubt it’s a coincidence.

You can find out more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akhenaten

Akhenaten was an ancient Egyptian pharoah who abandoned polytheism in favour of monotheism.

Could this have been what the camel references were to in the previous episode? A nod to ancient Egypt?

The parallel with the Doctor is that he destroyed his own people, the Time Lords, “Gods of the Universe” and thus became the “Lonely God” ergo a switch from poly to monotheism.

Interestingly, Akhenaten’s crusade failed and polytheism was restored.

My deduction – the Time Lords are definitely returning or I am no doppleganger-fish!

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@wolfweed – Jinx on the Lewis Carol reference! 🙂

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Hello dear comrades, old and new, with a special shoutout to @tiddler as the smallest and newest of the Fish Clan! A warm welcome.

I loved this episode, so mark me down as a rank sentimentalist alongside @phaseshift, but I don’t care!

From the trailer, I was eminently prepared to despise it. I’ve been muttering to myself that the “chemistry” between Clara and the Doctor is being over-forced and, to be  honest, I still feel they could afford to stop trying so hard, and just let it unfold organically (the magic “X factor” is clearly there).

Anyway, I was delighted that the Doctor quoted Lewis Caroll’s “The Walrus and the Carpenter”, thus providing us with an explicit “Alice Through the Looking Glass” reference to add to all the many mirror references of the Moffat tenure. This poem, of course, is all about eating unsuspecting oysters/ souls…

I think it was fairly obvious we are supposed to consider the Doctor himself a slumbering “Old God”  (cue references to Lovecraft and the “Old Ones” as beloved by Alan Moore) who, likewise, needs to be fed souls, particularly, it would seem, the souls of children, as I have remarked over in “the other place”. My “dark Pied Piper” theory gathers apace…

Agreed that it is very interesting the TARDIS appeared not to trust Clara. What does old Sexy know that we don’t? Perhaps she was sulking on River’s behalf… ?

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Hello and welcome @edmund and @jamesunderscore ! Great contributions already.

Oh if only Elizabeth Sladen could be with us this year. I do love the idea of a tribute to her being incorporated into the 50th.

As for Klone/ Clone – love it! Especially as it fits in with all my doubling/ doppleganger theories. More evidence Clara is a River Song avatar perhaps?

 

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OMG @scaryb that’s actually brilliant! Clara/ Great Intelligence = CGI (and the 50th is being filmed in 3D!)

So Clara and the Great Intelligence are both manifestations of something (or rather, someone) else.

If Clara is a manifestation of River and the Great Intelligence is a manifestation of the Doctor (the doppleganger “Dark Doctor” version) then I smell an epic romance show down…

Possibly involving River / Eleven  vs Rose / Ten (I don’t know, in terms of epic angst?)

Which, I think Moff’s had a bit of a bee in his bonnet about since he took over from RTD…

So it’s basically Who ship wars with the two NuWho showrunners and their OTPs [look that one up :-)] going head to head in some way…

Sure, I blame @wolfweed as well, why not 🙂

 

 

 

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@jimthefish Of course, comrade fish, you are not getting deep fried with chips like them others… 🙂

The again <twitches and flips doppleganger switch> there is really no telling whom Dark Juniperfish plans on having for cosmic breakfast next 🙂

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@wolfweed – liking the chess-board metaphor…

@pedant Yes I see what you mean about a possible resemblance – which would support @jimthefish ‘s theory that the Great Intelligence has been “Doctorised”.

What would need to feed on souls in the way the GI seems to need to in “The Bells”? Some kind of malfunctioning Flesh Doctor?

But let’s not forget the GI wanted those souls to have computer skills, so I’m still going with trying to hack the Time Lock on Gallifrey…

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@pedant The shipping discussion is probably “off message” in this thread (not sure where it would go – the sofa perhaps?). BUT, I nonetheless challenge you with my lightsaber, as I have a deep and abiding affection for Spuffy <wolfish grin>. Shipping doesn’t have to mean demanding “happily ever after”.

I also love Marti Noxon…

It’s a complex subject. Slash can be deadly serious. I’m actually wondering if Dean/ Castiel is going to hop, skip and jump from subtext to plain old text in Supernatural.

But yes – back to Dr. Who news and ZYGONS. I ship Zygons/ Silence waltzing in suits at some eerie anachronistic ball presided over by Richard E. Grant.  Zygons can shapeshift so maybe Richard E. Grant is a Zygon pretending to be the Great Intelligence?

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Well I tell you what @wolfweed everyone who has ever poured scorn on my long cherished “red/ blue bow-ties = two versions of the Doctor” theory will have to eat humble, humble pie… <villainous fishy eyeroll from “Dark Juniperfish”> 🙂

I’ve jotted down their names in a little notebook 🙂

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Oh, hello @lula, you are most welcome! We don’t bite, honest…

Join the “Bells of St. John” thread to add your review/ thoughts on the new episode!

@jimthefish and @wolfweed – huzzah, other people I can enjoy In the Flesh musings with. Head to the Non-Doctor TV thread… Apparently the Beeb received good enough ratings/ buzz for there to be talk of further episodes (before it is cancelled and wins a BAFTA, as some wag on The Guardian dryly pointed out).

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@scaryb So excited to see Smithy and Tenant together but so very sad we won’t have Ecclestone to complete the NuWho trio – SUCH a shame.

@pedant Wut? Shipping is fun! Not so commonly practiced in your demographic as some others perhaps 🙂 Cute fan art and fictions are involved… what’s not to love? Moffat seems to ship Eleven with everyone, or rather he knows how to plant shipping bait… We’ve had a Rory/ Doctor kiss and a Craig/ Doctor almost kiss as well as Amy, River and Clara kisses. Let’s see if he manages to shoehorn in a Ten/ Eleven kiss. Bets anyone?

Meanwhile – I want my Captain Jack fix! Maybe Moff just can’t cope with having the mess that Torchwood became anywhere near his bright shiny 50th anniversary? Shame, as he created the good captain in the first place.

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One of our old friends @htpbdet has just surfaced on The Guardian (Dan’s blog). Some of you might want to give him a friendly wave! He has good theories, as ever.

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Ha! My greeting double posted – a sure sign that all our speculations about doppleganger Doctor as the dark-side villain of the piece are correct!

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@vizier Hello and welcome! Nice avatar. Do join us in our merry speculations!

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@bluesqueakpip – yes! Excellent – a cloister. And it was also in “The God Complex” that we hear “Oranges and Lemons” being sung…

Ergo dark Doctor has a full blown God Complex (something “our” Doctor has teetered on the edge of at points – thinks Waters of Mars).

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@bluesqueakpip

I believe River would have the compassion, just not the patience 🙂

Oh how I would like to see a River/ Kovarian confrontation, bearing in mind that Kovarian is, in this reality, still out there somewhere. Perhaps she was captured by the Great Intelligence as a child, however, and we will get to hear her own child voice before the end…

Nice catch on the Canada/ Alaska collection.

One Glenn Bradbury on The Guardian points out that “Oranges and Lemons” was a motif in Orwell’s 1984, which reminded me that it stood for the loss of a shared culture in that novel, as it was gradually forgotten.

This parallels the Doctor erasing himself from the universe, which he thinks is a solution, but which River has already pointed out is a mistake.

So more evidence that the Doctor himself is Big Brother aka The Big Bad.

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