[Juniperfish @replies]

I thought people here might enjoy this rather brilliant post on why rather than simply contemporary drug addled Sherlock’s Victorian Mind Palace mashup, we may have seen two alternate universe time-streams brought together by a freak atmospheric weather storm.

Maths analysis and a Minkowski matrix ahead!

http://cosmoglaut.tumblr.com/post/136443248433

 

[Juniperfish @replies]

Well the internet is exploding nicely 🙂 Tumblr loves it, BTL Graun is confused and angry…

Looking forward to a re-watch.

[Juniperfish @replies]

Happy New Year everyone!

I loved it too – a rewatch definitely in order.

Turns out not only does the Doctor lie, but Sherlock lies too.

Mycroft deduced that Sherlock was already high when he said goodbye to John on the tarmac at the end of His Last Vow. He didn’t neck a bunch of drugs to solve Moriarty’s return in his Victorian AU Mind Palace. He thought he was never going to see John again and he took an overdose. Ouch.

Moffat’s New Year gift to shippers everywhere.  <heads off, trailing tinsel, to watch the internet explode> 🙂

 

[Juniperfish @replies]

@jimthefish Why thank you kind Fish. And you, with yet another “in universe” mention and all!  🙂

@pedant and @Puroandson (Puro half)

Just catching up here… I will have to be (relatively) brief as a) I have a deadline and b) I am sure everyone else on site is starting to roll the whites of their eyes re said topic.

I think you are mis-characterising post-structuralist thought, and conflating it with the entities of “po mo” and “lit crit”, when post-structuralism is simply one current in the field of literary criticism and post-modernism is a style built into some art, literature etc.

Derrida does not propound an “any old reading of a text goes” approach. In fact, Derrida was a “details man” and a close reader of texts. What he suggested was, that there are more things in the heaven and earth of a text than are dreamt of in the philosophy of the author.  Simon Critchley’s writings on the ethics of deconstruction, and the influence of the philosopher Levinas on Derrida’s thought are enlightening. It is from Levinas that being open to the “Other” comes.

Fundamentally, Puro, we do disagree. You say:

So my issue with reading a text like Hell Bent in a “new” and “interesting” way is that some theorists and reviewers will re-evaluate a text, rather than discover it according to the writer’s prime intent and so will re-invent a “voice” or “interpretation” for their own purposes. That is bad.

I don’t think this is “bad” at all. It is what happens to stories as they pass through the ages. Jack Zipes’ work on the transformation over time of fairy tales is wonderful on this. Little Red Riding Hood as an oral folk tale, likely intended to initiate girls into womanhood (the red cloak as a symbol of menstruation) and its gradual transformation, in the transition from peasant folklore to bourgeois nursery tale over more than two hundred years (17^th to 19^th C) being one example. Or, indeed take Shakespeare. Modern productions of The Taming of the Shrew are staged by theatre creatives and received by audiences in societies transformed by the impact of feminisms, such that, a purist insistence on the return to Shakespeare’s “prime intent” is in fact profoundly impossible. We cannot read The Taming of the Shrew in the way that Elizabethan audiences read it.  Scholars can research the reception of that play during Shakespeare’s time, and I am all for the importance of that branch of textual scholarship. But, you cannot put modern audiences back into a sixteenth century box.  Ten Things I Hate About You (1999) is actually a lovely movie adaptation of Shrew for us moderns.

Are any readings of modern Doctor Who which are not Moffat’s intended meanings “bad”?

I read a really interesting piece (which I think I’ve mentioned before) on neuro-atypical fan readings of the Eleventh Doctor by audience members on the autism spectrum, who see in that Doctor, characteristics which they identify with as also placing him on that spectrum. Did Moffat intend audiences to read Eleven as on the autism spectrum? We don’t know. Assuming not, is it “bad” that some readers read him that way? Ye gods – the audacity! No – it’s wonderful, and it enriches the text in the world.

Moffat in fact knows all about those who insist that texts should stay “pure” – hence the entire “Moffat  sucks… oh the lost glory of The Horns of Nimon etc.” brigade.

Texts change as the world changes, and as we live and breathe them, thanks to creatives and the creativity of audiences, and that’s beautiful.

[Juniperfish @replies]

Oh and just had to drop back in quickly to say I enjoyed the tribute to The Importance of Being Earnest” !

The “handbag” (containing the head) and River’s Oscar Wilde quote about her diary, “you should always have something sensational to read on the train a spaceship.”

[Juniperfish @replies]

Happy Boxing Day everyone, on several continents!

Well, I knew Capaldi and Kingston would be great together, and they didn’t disappoint, both on comedic and romantic levels – what a whirlwind.

Moffat has made rather a speciality of writing long love speeches (I’m thinking of Sherlock’s wedding speech in The Power of Three) and River’s long rant about how the cannibalistic dragon folk could scan the entire parsec because there was no way the Doctor loved her back and would be there with her, was a good one. Capaldi managed to make his answering “Hello Sweetie” really hum with emotion in the aftermath.

Someone called WillBrooks1989 has created a fabulous diagram of the way River’s time-line intersects with the Doctor’s from The Forest of the Dead to this Christmas, here: http://visual.ly/timeline-river-song-doctor-who-s4-s9  (especially for you @bluesqueakpip).

And Moffat managed to end a bunch of nasty genocide committing super-rich for Christmas. Not very Christian of him, but the Doctor didn’t seem that upset about it.

I’m still feeling emotional about River’s upload to CAL as the closest to a Time Lord funeral the Doctor could give her. And now he’s given her the screwdriver he’s had (since Silence in the Library) “all that time to think of a way to save her,” to make it possible.

Definitely one for a re-watch for River fans – I need to savour the Singing Towers. But, for now, it’s time to eat some leftovers and see some cousins…

[Juniperfish @replies]

@pedant

It doesn’t matter whether you like or dislike Avatar and/ or post-modern architecture. Taste is not the issue.

I picked Avatar simply because it’s an interesting example of a text with global reach and multiple public receptions (not quite sure why you think acknowledging those multiple receptions is “patronising”).

You write that “…nobody is disputing that there are different readings – there is nothing po-mo, or indeed post- anything, or for that matter insightful, about that.  And the last one is a critical reading that places the author very much at the centre by highlighting his cultural blindness.”

Well, ahem, you were disputing that there were different possible readings of Hell Bent, by asserting that yours is the one true reading, because (you claimed) it is closest to the meaning intended by the author, and you called on the script as ultimate evidence for that assertion. Above, you acknowledge that the author is not the ultimate authority on their text. Precisely…

What we are discussing, is where the “truth” of a text lies, specifically as we are here on the DW Forum, a television text. Which is a really interesting question.

Is the “truth” of Hell Bent in the script (as you suggested upstream) the actors’ interpretations, the set dressing narrative (hello bow ties), the edits, the final cut, the director’s cut, the text, the subtext, the vision of the executive producer(s), the conscious design of all these creatives, the unconscious design of all these creatives, the critics’ interpretations, the audience interpretations?

One reading practice is to create privilege at two sites – the “big author”, here Moffat, and the “authoritative reader”, here you. The “truth” of the text is then said to reside in the authoritative reader’s understanding of the intention of the “big author”.

Another, is to suggest that there is no one “truth” of the text. All these sites within the text/ the-text in-the-world, are sites of meaning. The slippages, the spaces in between, the conversations amongst these different elements are where the interesting stuff lies.

That does not mean throwing away the text (and it has never meant that).

Hell Bent has room for both a reading where the Doctor planned for Clara to reverse the polarity of the Time Lord neural block, and a reading where he did not plan for it. Your declaration that one is the “true” reading (based on your psychic link to Moffat via his script) does not make it so – both exist, because we have seen posters on here cleave to each. The interpretive room for both lies in the spaces between script, performance, edit and audience.

Funnily enough, our argument then has another layer.

Is that interpretive room the intention of executive producer, Moffat?

You, as it happens, say it is not.

But, actually, we don’t know.

Presumably, if you were to find out it was, you would then “allow” it. Whereas, to me, it doesn’t matter whether Moffat intended it or not – that doubling is there, because readers see it in the text and can support it interpretively.

I actually think Doctor Who under Moffat is a television text in the process of consciously embracing its own indeterminacy. It leaves deliberate “fan fiction” gaps, as I’ve said previously. Did Clara say “I love you” to the Doctor amongst the Cloister Wraiths or something else? We just don’t know.

This is because Moffat’s Who embraces its digitally connected “high engagement” social viewership, i.e. the kind of viewership which takes place communally in spaces such as our own Doctor Who Forum. The Doctor Who text under Moffat contains elements of indeterminacy which are designed to generate debate. One might say that it is a consciously “post modern” text in that sense.

Incidentally, I would say that the post-modern, is an umbrella descriptor for a set of aesthetic practices, across a variety of art forms, from painting to literature to architecture, each with distinct debates around them. Whilst post-structuralism, is an umbrella descriptor for a set of critical practices. Both now, are somewhat dated, but are still continuing to reverberate significantly culturally. “Po-mo” is a garbled entity of evil.

I am also a fan of The Left Hand of Darkness so we can agree there. Although I don’t see why “cis” is so hard – it means “on this side of” whilst “trans” means “on the other side of”, from the Latin.

@Puroandson (Son of) and @bluesqueakpip

Yes, I like @bluesqueakpip ‘s analysis of the reboot very much. I think of it as akin to DNA reproduction, where a few anomalies can get thrown in during the process (which is how mutations happen over time).

In one universe, the stars went out (remember little Amelia looking at the night sky with her angry guardian and perplexed social worker) and in the other, they didn’t.

All of which ties in with the above, because there is no way to pin down exactly what the implications of the reboot are. Moffat’s Who text is deliberately indeterminate about it!

[Juniperfish @replies]

@Puroandson

Yes but you’re saying -quite openly -that if people disagree wholeheartedly with the narrative of post structuralism and lit crit then it’s a “populist hack contempt based on a superficial understanding”

Puro, not at all – I also write in my post #49484 “there are intelligent critiques of post-structuralism”. I was specifically replying to @pedant ‘s post #49418 hence he was name-checked – I thought you didn’t want to get into it!

to me, the author writes the text -such as in Hell Bent, so his/her interpretation and meaning is more significant than the other, possibly lesser, interpretations. I know this is going to offend people but I can’t, in all honesty, really believe that all “interpretations are as valid as the original text itself.”  I don’t assume that the other interpretations are foolish or are not particularly “fun” to play around with, but in the end, surely, the writer holds the original intent.

Post-structuralism was never about the validation of a random generator “anything goes” approach to textual interpretation. That is why to suggest the author is “de-centered” is more accurate than to suggest the author is erased (and, as debated above, a television text is multi-authored in any event). If you were to claim that Hell Bent is the touching tale of a pack of elephants adopting a baby crocodile, whilst that might be delightfully absurdist, it’s not of much use to us in discussing the text.

Take James Cameron’s Avatar, for instance.

• Indonesian protesters against rainforest destruction have dressed up as Na-avi as part of their activism. They read Avatar as a story about environmentalism.
• Palestinian protesters against Israeli settler occupation have dressed up as Na-avi as part of their activism. They read Avatar as a story about colonialism.
• The Pope (not the current one but the one in post at the time the film came out) condemned Avatar as promoting paganism. He and his supporting theologians read Avatar as a story about religion.
• Finally, some academic film critics have pointed out that Jake Sully’s story is a classic Hollywood “white saviour” narrative, when the “morally good” white male outsider comes to help save a native tribe, in the vein of Fern Gully or Dances with Wolves. These critics also read Avatar as a story concerned with colonialism, but from a different perspective to 2)

We could interview James Cameron, ask him what his intention was and decide that his interpretation and meaning was more significant than any of the others, as you suggest above.

Indeed, from his interviews, he’d fundamentally go with 1), and 2) also to an extent (but there’s no word on whether he supports the particular Palestinian activist take on 2)). An approach to the text inspired by Barthes, or Derrida, would say, let us consider all the meanings of this text, which spring from within it, including those from the place of the other. It’s actually a profoundly ethical approach – to consider that readings other than ours, or the author’s, may have significant meaning in the world, from the perspective of readers unlike ourselves.

I’m willing to bet Cameron would repudiate 4) but, him notwithstanding, we can marshal significant arguments both from within the text and from reading Avatar in its cultural context, to support 4).

I think the playfulness in a piece like Barthes’ “The Death of the Author” is often missed. He was engaged in a game of Épater la bourgeoisie in other words, of teasing the bourgeois critical establishment of the time, because lord knows there was a tonne of turgid literary criticism which purported to mainline, from beyond the grave, the intentions of the author, generally in order to shore up the elitism of the critic.

Anyhoo, I don’t want to become a fishy bore….

And I cheerfully admit I know absolutely nothing about post-structuralism in the field of music.

@tardigrade

Oh no, I have just been hit by River feels, thanks to you 🙂 I always hated the fact that the Doctor uploaded River to CAL, because I thought he should have realised she was a free spirit and that would be like a living prison for her.

But now, after Moff’s revival of the idea that Time Lords are uploaded to the Matrix when they die in Hell Bent, I realise <sob> that he was giving her the closest he could manage to a Time Lord funeral (having figured out her profound significance to him, when she whispered whatever it was to him that made him trust her in Forest of the Dead/ Silence in the Library – probably his name). Gulp.

[Juniperfish @replies]

Well, I’m jumping back in after another working week filled to the brim!

@arbutus and @ichabod

I appreciate your writerly perspectives very much and celebrate you both for being able to allow the next layer of creatives; actors and readers, to add their layers to the creative cake without needing to drag everyone, screaming and kicking, back to the “truth of the author”.

@pedant Hmmn – well, there are intelligent critiques of post-structuralism… but, to be honest, amalgamating some very diverse and complex thinkers into a pastiche of the field is not one of them. The key thinkers who are grouped under the umbrella, Derrida, Barthes, Butler, Foucault, Kristeva for instance, all offer breath-taking insights into thinking critically about culture. They opened my mind and changed my life forever when I was a graduate student. It’s not that I worship at the shrine – indeed, developing nuanced critiques of each (although, I don’t have enough of a philosophy background to be truly up to the task in Derrida’s case) was the next phase, and another point of revelation on the journey.

The fact that a fashion for writing in an imitative convoluted manner swept, in the wake of these thinkers, like a tidal wave amongst a bunch of second rate scholars, was… unfortunate (if absolutely fascinating as a phenomenon in itself). This led to a populist hack contempt based on a very superficial understanding.

But, this is all rather a digression from the original jumping off point, which was your assertion that you’d found the truth of Hell Bent in Moffat’s script, and as I think has been satisfactorily established in subsequent discussion here, the script is only one element of the text.

The joy of the play in a text, was something the post-structuralists were very good on – the absolute delight to be had in following the multiple meanings in a work, embracing and holding contradictions and allowing them to deepen both one’s understanding and one’s pleasure in a work. The Doctor Who Forum, at its best, is very much in that tradition – taking delight here, in the playful multiplicity of interpretation.

[Juniperfish @replies]

@Puroandson

<laughs> fear not, I am not about to “talk shop” and expound upon Derrida, I promise.

I was simply assailed by the critical itch (as happens from time to time) to point out to our friend @pedant that a) relying on the script as the definitive meaning in a television text misses the fact that the script is only one part of the creative process and b) that calling upon the author to “lock down” one’s own reading of a text misses the (wonderful) complexities of the interpretive lives of texts.

I will now swim fishily under a rock!

[Juniperfish @replies]

@puroandson @bluesqueakpip

Well, I am very fond of Barthes’ “La Morte de L’Auteur” (the death of the author) and it’s a perspective especially applicable to television, as the title was a pun on Malory’s Morte d’Arthur which, Barthes convincingly argues, is likely a multi-authored text, transitioning over time. So, to pin its “ultimate” truths onto Malory’s personal life or authorial intent (both common forms of humanist literary criticism) would be patently reductionist.

The case of Moffat’s Who is different again. In an episode such as Hell Bent, Moffat is the script-writer, and the co-executive producer. So, he does have, as @pedant suggests, more power than an ordinary television show script writer in terms of input into all the stages of the  storytelling which come after the script (from script to screen).

What we can see, for ourselves, as the BBC have released the Hell Bent script, is that the journey from script to screen has added greater narrative ambiguity than a literal interpretation of the script would have delivered. Now, we don’t know if it was Moffat, or Capaldi and Coleman, or Talalay, or the editing team, or all of them in concert who suggested the tweaks. But we can see, as in the posts above, at #49382 @bluesqueakpip believes the Doctor did not “suggest” Clara into reversing the polarity on the neural block and at #49386 @lisa believes he did. I think both are plausible readings from the on-screen text.

Whether we treat Moffat as Word of God or not (meaning – the ultimate authority on the text) I think narrative ambiguity is part of the creative design of the show under his tenure. Contemporary television texts have learned, particularly since Xena and Buffy collided with the first waves of internet fandom, to include “fan fiction gaps”; deliberated spaces, into which readers can add their own interpretations/ extemporizations. A clear example of this, is Clara’s scene with the Doctor amongst the cloister wraiths, when she says, “People like you and me, there are things we should say to each other. And I’m going to say them now.” And then the camera pans away.

Goddamit, what did she say?! Half the internet thinks she said “I love you”, the other half thinks she said “Run you clever boy, and be a doctor.” There’s supporting evidence for both readings. Equally, you might argue she said, “It is time for you to let me go, Doctor.” That fits. The text purposively creates room to breathe.

There are culturally radical and culturally normative interpretations of texts. There are also more plausible and less plausible interpretations of texts (although that, to large extent, depends on the skill of the critic). And those involved in authoring a TV text, from script-writer to actors, have theirs. It’s absolutely not that their interpretations mean “nothing”, but they are not oracles either. Their job is to produce, not to explain, as Barthes would say. And as @ichabod says – experienced authors learn to accommodate, and indeed even to encourage, audience interpretations other than their own.

As for actors, with all due respect to one in the craft @bluesqueakpip ! I have seen television actors give interviews in which they interpret their character’s behaviour or motivations in one way, yet when reading the performance in its context there are layers they have either chosen not to discuss or do not themselves read. Jake Gyllenhal for instance gave an interview saying he believed his and Heath Ledger’s characters were not gay, but just two men who fell in love with each other in Brokeback Mountain. Sure, that’s a valid reading. But another, is that they were primarily attracted to men, but in the time and place they lived, having a “gay” identity was not an option for them. I don’t think we should take Gyllenhal’s reading as the definitive one. He is the instrument, not the ear.

In short, yes oh Puro half of @puroandson , I definitely applaud what post-structuralism (Barthes being in that vein) did for literary (and media textual) criticism, in “de-centering” (not, as some think, obliterating) the author, in relation to meaning-making in texts.

[Juniperfish @replies]

@Morpho

I’m looking forward to a female Doctor.

Hear hear, me too! Any ideal casting choices?

Tilda Swinton!

@pedant

In the case of Who, one person is producer and writer of key episodes and is known to take a close hand in editing and “take” selection (as did RTD: see the three versions of Tennant’s “I don’t want to go” for the best known Who example). That is a very strong authorial voice (and even the most casual comparison of any Moff seasons with any RTD season would highlight this, since RTD has an equally strong authorial voice). It is not a democracy. What Moff says goes, and he has made it clear he will intervene in scripts when he has to.

What I saw on screen – and what the script supported…

Oh my pedantic friend… your argument contains a worm hole or two. What you saw and what the script supported (for you) is a reading, of the text, not the Word of God.

The finished Doctor Who text is what we see on screen, of which the script is one element.

As @ichabod has pointed out, and as you mentioned, Moff’s directions for Capaldi in-script are NOT what we see on screen in the final scene:

He stares. And stares and stares. Not just at the box, but at the mural still painted on it. He kneels by it, puts his hand to – the painted face of Clara.

Oh! It was her!

In the final cut of Hell Bent, the one put out to viewers, Capaldi does not kneel in front of the TARDIS and put his hand to Clara’s portrait, he merely stares at it.

Now, according to your own argument, Moff will have approved that tonal shift, which has taken place at the actor interpretation and editing suite levels of narrative production. That already means we cannot read the script at any point as the final Word of God (as you suggest we should do in your argument). The script is the first draft of a television narrative, not the final cut. That’s how television narrative rolls.

There are other places in the final cut narrative, I suggest, where the same ambiguity can be read (whether you read it, or not). I’ve already given the example of this exchange:

ASHILDR Will you tell her what you’re going

to do?

THE DOCTOR Of course!

ASHILDR When?

THE DOCTOR Now!

We know the Doctor puns on his relationship to time. He does it in the diner when he tells Clara-as-waitress that he has been travelling “from time to time” (that’s an in-script ambiguity/ double-meaning on the Doctor’s part). Therefore, it is a perfectly valid reading of the text to read the Doctor’s “Now!” above, to mean, “Right now, because I know she’s listening on the monitor,” rather than, “Immediately after we’ve finished talking.”

Both are valid readings, and it is even possible to enjoy them both (as do I) without having to pin down an “ultimate” reading.

I pick this up, because the attempt to “fix” the meaning of texts by reference to authorial intent is I think inherently counter-creative, on several levels:

1. Unless you are the author or the author’s best mate, you are always guessing, to some extent. It is not the job (or the desire of the more sensible) writers to create narrative certitude.
2. There is more than one author of a television text (see above) and the story does not stop evolving once the script is written – it continues to evolve from script to screen, (see also above)
3. The author is not the ultimate authority on the meanings of their own text. Once that text enters the world, it belongs then, to its readers. Sure, some readings may appear more plausible to fellow readers than others. If I said that, for me, throughout Series 9, it is apparent that the Doctor is in love with Missy, I might not be able to find the textual evidence to convince very many other people! However, I would still be entitled to hold that reading, if I so wished. The fun, however, lies in chewing over the possible interpretations of texts where some evidence from the text can be marshalled to support several readings.

So, in conclusion, make arguments for your interpretation, by all means have at it, that’s what we do here! But, the “my reading is the author’s intention, and therefore definitive” argument is always IMHO a fallacy.

@Puroandson

Yes, Puro, I agree that the barn and the Doctor’s “High Born Gallifreyan” status are not necessarily in contradiction. The Time Lords probably put all their kids out into the drylands and make them undergo a series of unpleasant tests to see if they are worthy to look into the Time Vortex – very public school.

[Juniperfish @replies]

@mudlark

Oh, I missed @pedant ‘s link to the script upstream, but, absolutely, an author’s perspective on their work is a very interesting perspective, but it’s never the b all and end all of interpretation. Television texts are multi-authored texts in any event – the script-writer, the director, the actors, the set-dressing folks and post-production (the editing is a key element of the way the story appears) all “author” the text. So, multiple meanings are frequently held concurrently by such texts – which makes them all the more delightful.

@lisa

I don’t think Clara is technically dead as in a corpse – she has been extracted at the very end of her timestream, and “locked” between heartbeats by Time Lord tech. So, I reckon we can imagine her body is still capable of getting pregnant. She can nip back to visit Danny on a weekend when she knows Clara in that time, her former self, is away visiting relatives, do the do, then run off with Ashildr to have the baby.

I agree with you  – Ashildr says to the Doctor at the end of time, “Are you going to tell her?” The Doctor says, “Of course.” Ashildr asks, “When?” and he says “Now.” The “now” means, right now to me – as in, he knows Clara is listening in on the TARDIS monitor. But, this is what I mean – the text has a deliberate ambiguity within it – some wriggle room of its own – you can legitimately read it either way.

[Juniperfish @replies]

@ichabod

Well, on a rewatch, I inclined to the Doctor-has-it-all-figured-out version. Watching the lovely acting tics of Capaldi, such as the slow way he raises his eyes to Clara’s face in the diner – it all leaves room for still waters running deep and yet deeper.  I don’t think this reading has to make his grief in the TARDIS at the end of time fake though, because either way, he knows he’s saying goodbye to Clara properly. He’s finally letting himself express the grief at losing her that he buttoned up during those billion billion years of stubborn determination inside the dial.

But, I also like the Oh-no-he-doesn’t-seat-of-his-pants version too. And, being fond of paradoxes, I find I am quite capable of holding both readings in my heart.

I think the text permits either reading, and that’s one of its pleasures.

@bluesqueakpip – Happy for you that the TARDIS rose graffiti did indeed turn out to be a foreshadowing of Clara as Sleeping Beauty!

@whisht I like to think that Clara and Ashildr will refer to themselves as “Impossible Me”.

 

[Juniperfish @replies]

@pedant

Thanks – re the Graun posts. I think @arbutus was kind enough to mention them up-thread as well, and request a re-post here. I was just spit-balling about Moff’s take on time and emotion.

You’re right, he did kill Danny Pink. Although, given that we met Danny’s ancestor at the end of time, and he had the toy solider from Clara’s TARDIS visit to young Danny, and that Clara now has a time machine… The inference is clearly that Clara goes back to see Danny in his pre-cyberisation time-stream (of course she can’t resist – she just has to pick a time when she won’t run into her school teacher past self and create a paradox) and she gets pregnant. So, Moff’s theme of “death is just a bad date, when you have a time machine” continues.

For those interested – my fishy meanderings on The Graun were:

I think Moffat has been fascinated with the question of time as non-linear, on Who. I for one, have very much appreciated and enjoyed his story-teller’s play with time.

In particular, he has wanted to explore what the time vortex means, emotionally, for the Doctor’s human companions, those who get sucked into the wake of this mad man in a blue box. And likewise for the Doctor, who must experience his companions greater fragility and more imminent mortality.

Amy meets him as little Amelia, and has a screwed up adolescence as a result of her absent imaginary friend and all those shrinks. She gets to go adventuring, finally, but in the end, she escapes from the lure of TARDIS travel by choosing to strand herself in the past by Weeping Angel, in order to be with Rory. She chooses the slow path, in the end. The cost, to her and to the Doctor, of their encounter, is immense. But, he is more devastated than she is at the last. That’s the emotional story Moff tells, of a Time Lord and the little girl he stole away, who grew up and left him (it’s his time travel take on Peter Pan).

River meets the Doctor backwards. She’s conceived on the TARDIS (she is literally, his creation). She dies for him. River, unlike Amy her mother, is unable to escape the time vortex of encountering the Doctor. Hers is the least free (as in, free will) companion arc of the Moffat era, in terms of time and determinism. Neither she, nor the Doctor, can ever really exercise free will in their relationship – it has always already happened, for one or other of them. But, despite that, they love each other – really, deeply, and often quite painfully, because of the gaps in memory they must encounter in each other, depending on when in their time-streams they meet. It’s a beautiful meditation on time and mortality and love and inevitability. We are all, after all, trapped between free-will vs determinism.

Finally Clara – psychologically, this arc is about what happens when you become so enmeshed in another person that it becomes unhealthy. Clara too is trapped in a certain determinism – she was “born to save the Doctor”. She jumps into his time-stream at Trenzalore to save him, and in so doing fragments herself throughout that time-stream, his own guardian angel – her purpose = him. That gives her very little autonomy. He, in turn, is radically affected by this enmeshment too. He cannot let the version of Clara he is traveling with go. Indeed, he almost destroys the universe because of his inability to let go. Clara finally regains her autonomy and makes the decision for him. Plus, although between one heartbeat and the next, she escapes to have adventures in a TARDIS of her own.

If I have a problem, it’s that I can see that watching the struggle of a succession of human (although part Time Lord in River’s case) women go through the profound disruption of love (each of different kinds, but all love) for an immortal man, and the concomitant struggle with timey-wimey determinism, well, it could become a bit of a time-loop in itself.

I’m looking forward to a female Doctor.

On another note – it occurs to me that we now know why the TARDIS was so uncomfortable with Clara and kept ringing the cloister bell around her. The TARDIS experiences at least seventeen dimensions and has already archived console rooms the Doctor hasn’t even invented yet. She would therefore have been aware of Clara’s paradoxical state to come – of being a runaway between heartbeats from a fixed point death in time. The fate of the universe depends on Clara’s willingness to “face the raven” once she’s had her fill of “wiggle room”.

[Juniperfish @replies]

Yikes, well I’ve only been able to skim read – it’s been busy at work and there’s a lot to catch up on. You have been busy, people!

@Morpho In terms of who the hybrid is – I agree the hybrid is the Doctor/ bound to Clara, but also a bootstrap paradox (hence the point of telling us about such paradoxes earlier in the series).

Basically, the Time Lords are worried about the safety of Gallifrey, because the Matrix prophesies tell of a hybrid who will stand in the ruins of Gallifrey and destroy a billion billion hearts to heal its own. Presumably the prophecies also suggest that the Doctor holds relevant info about said hybrid. So, Rassillon arranges to have the Doc interrogated/ tortured in the modified confession dial, and to get him into the dial, events are fixed to lure the Doc to Trap Street. Clara’s death is a fixed point in time, because it’s part of a Time Lord trap for the Doctor, which must always happen.

In trapping the Doc in the confession dial, Rassillon creates the very fulfillment of the prophecy he sets out to prevent. The Doc, as you say, destroys a billion billion of his own hearts, and ends up at the End of Time with Ashildr in the ruins of Gallifrey. He has to get to Clara one last time, to heal his own heart.

Now, that begs the question, as to whether the Doctor knew, before he punched through to Gallifrey, that he would not be able to restart Clara’s pulse. Obviously, he always intended to trick the Time Lords into contacting Clara via the extraction chamber, but did he also already know, having figured it out inside the confession dial, that her death was a fixed point in time, given that he clearly figured out he was inside a Time Lord trap?

If so, then the Doctor always planned to steal a TARDIS for Clara and let her go off into the universe. He let Clara play out her refusal to have her memories erased (never in fact, intending to do that to her) and in so doing, helped her come to accept that he and she nevertheless had to let each other go. In other words, it was his plan (fomented during his time in the dial) to give Clara the only thing he could –  wiggle room between her last heartbeat and her death to go and have some more adventures. And, he also figured out, in the confession dial, that he would give her a companion and pay his debt to Ashildr at the same time (to whom he had given the burden of immortality but refused the joy of time travel).

Sneaky old Doctor, eh.

By the way – and I can’t claim credit, because I saw it elsewhere on the interwebs – The American Retro Diner in Space has the acronym – TARDIS – pretty cool huh – that made me smile – what a nice Easter egg.

[Juniperfish @replies]

@pedant

No – I heard that too – Clara’s TARDIS is definitely stuck as a diner.

And I’m still wondering if she might have been his blood family, which would fit with the circular theme presaged by all the snakes – not only does the Doctor return to Gallifrey only to steal a TARDIS and run away again, but last time it was with Susan his granddaughter, this time with Clara his ???

I say this because it was interesting Clara chose that diner for the reunion – a place connected to the Ponds, whom the Doctor then mentions.

Definitely one for a re-watch.

 

 

[Juniperfish @replies]

Well, Moff really doesn’t like the Grim Reaper, does he?

I actually loved that Ashildr finally got to travel in a TARDIS with her own functionally immortal companion (as long as they take the long way round). And wow what a punishment that is, courtesy of the Doctor. Because Clara is always heading for the quantum shade on Trap Street, but, as Ashildr spends that stolen time in between with Clara, it is going to get harder and harder for Lady Me to lose her. The Doctor gifted Ashildr a taste of her own medicine and everything she ever wanted (time travel) all at once. He knew perfectly well, of course, that he would be the one to forget, when he and Clara had their stand-off…

To be honest, in one sense, I would have preferred the sadder ending – actually seeing Clara step back into Trap street and face the raven again. But, as we know it’s always coming, and there are a tonne of Ashildr and Clara fan fiction adventures to write in between… good call.

The Doctor described himself as the Fool, so the tarot cards have indeed come full circle.

Gallifrey is still in its bubble, far out in the time stream. But no doubt capable of returning for the odd story any time the fancy takes.

Rassilon finally got his comeuppance for the dastardly writing business in The End of Time.

The Doctor may, or may not, be half human by birth (strong indication he might be) but he was a hybrid by virtue of Clara having jumped into his time-stream and the two of them having got so tangled up together that he nearly burned the universe to get her back.

All in all, a most satisfying finale to a lovely series.

Did I mention I love Maisie Williams?

[Juniperfish @replies]

@whisht

Oh, never fear, I believe I may have ranted about the tarot a bit in BBC Approved Spoilers 🙂 and had a bit of a chat with @phaseshift and @kharis and others in there on the subject, where we mused on the cyclical nature of the tarot journey, which fits in rather nicely with all the snake (ouroboros) imagery.

Yes, Heaven Sent could be read as Judgement or as Death (in the form of the Veil, as @phaseshift pointed out) but personally I think it’s the Tower – the castle in the ocean in which the Doctor is imprisoned for billions of his subjective years.

I think the Judgement card is yet to come. But the World card, is definitely Gallifrey. We still have the Lovers card to come too.

Bless whichever little posse on the Who creative team it was who decided to weave the tarot into this series – I love it. There’s so much scope to weave similar recurring undercurrents into episode sequences in this way. You could have a whole series which is the Doctor’s own Alice in Wonderland journey, with various aliens along the way which recall the Cheshire Cat and the March Hare and the Hookah smoking caterpillar and the Red and White Queens. Are you writing this down, Moff?

@nerys

“Heaven Sent” is, for me, when Capaldi truly became the Doctor. Capaldi wasn’t just embracing the Doctor; he was embodying him.

Well said – I do hope we get a couple more series of his Doctor!

@jimmyp

Welcome! This is a great spot – thanks to @craig our founder and Emperor and the various mods who have served and do serve with us.

I am always amazed that there so many readers who haven’t yet posted, almost 3000 active members now, from our humble beginnings as @danmartinuk Guardian blog refugees (not refugees from his writing, obviously 🙂 but we used to get upset because The Guardian always closed the comments thread before we were done bonkers theorising) – wow.

 

[Juniperfish @replies]

@serahni

Glad I could help! Google has a reverse image search function which is really handy so you can put images into it and it will search for the origin:

https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/1325808?hl=en

@ozitenor Welcome back and good luck with the tour!

I think the reason the Doctor interprets the word “home” as meaning the TARDIS is beyond the glass wall, although he cannot see it, is an emotional (and a telling) one. He thinks of the TARDIS as home first and foremost, before he thinks of his origin planet Gallifrey. He is now, truly, a nomad, at home in his blue box in the universe, after all that wandering since the first Doctor stole a type 40 (and she stole him).

 

[Juniperfish @replies]

@serahni  I love the pic, and I’m a fan of fan art, but (unless you are the artist yourself of course) I think we should attribute fan art, in the same way we attribute other art, so the author’s hard work is not lost in the maw of the internet.

The piece you’ve posted is by http://mmmmmppppfffff.tumblr.com/

[Juniperfish @replies]

@kharis – well we haven’t visited each major arcana card in order, have we – the Lovers is still to come. As this is the BBC approved spoilers thread, we know River is coming back for Christmas, so perhaps the Lovers have been saved for a hopeful last port of call.

Perhaps the tarot card timey-wimeyness is an indication that, as many have suggested, there is something timey going on with the Doctor’s time-line this season.

@lewis97 Ooh creepy picture – perhaps the Time-Lords are reviving Omega somehow.

[Juniperfish @replies]

Reading back over the above post…. duh… the Valeyard IS a hybrid – as an amalgamation of the darker sides of all the previous incarnations of the Doctor – so actually, perhaps the Valeyard is the hybrid.

[Juniperfish @replies]

@janetteb

I like the idea that the Doctor is half human and half Time Lord too. But, I’m pretty sure that’s a misdirect and he’s not the hybrid in question.

I hope the fires are safely out in your neck of the woods now? How scary for you all.

@puroandson

Yes, I’ve been hoping for ages that the Doctor’s “wicked” incarnation the Valeyard (somewhere between his Twelfth and final incarnations in the lore) will make an appearance in some way under Moff. He makes an appearance in Trial of a Timelord (old show). He’s supposed to be an amalgamation of the darker sides of all the Doctor’s previous incarnations, and as we’ve been getting so many nods to previous incarnations recently, from the second Doctor’s check trousers to the third Doctor’s velvet frock-coats and the first Doctor’s portrait in the Black Archive, perhaps the Valeyard is upon us!

@everyone Just having a think about why Clara’s painting was in the confession dial/ trap. It was there to make the Doctor angry, but also I think there to sustain him, so he wouldn’t give up. I’m sure the confession dial’s purpose wasn’t simply to extract the identity of “the hybrid” from him – but to get the Doctor to “punch through” to Gallifrey (thus giving them an escape hatch back into this universe).

Additionally, the fact that Clara appeared as a painting, made me think of the painting Gallifrey Falls (No More). That was Time Lord art in which a real slice of time was frozen. What if Clara is not dead, but has been “frozen in time” temporarily? Yes, her portrait didn’t look 3D, but, that could be a disguise because the TLs didn’t want to give the Doctor hope, at this point. A “quantum shade” sounds like Time Lord business, doesn’t it?

 

[Juniperfish @replies]

Just having another thought about “the Veil”. @phaseshift suggested it’s another incarnation of the tarot Death card.

I thought that the glass wall is actually the timelock (the veil) between the bubble universe Gallifrey is in and “this” universe.

But what if “the Veil” is also a play on “the Valeyard”?

“I am in twelve” is what the Doctor writes on the grave inside the castle/ trap/ confession dial. Confession-dial Doctor appears hell-bent on revenge on whoever was responsible for Clara’s death, although Clara expressly told him not to seek it.

Is it the Valeyard inside the Twelfth Doctor who will seek the annihilation of Gallifrey as revenge, and the Doctor inside the Twelfth Doctor who will, in the end, come to his senses and remember Clara’s dying wish?

[Juniperfish @replies]

@phaseshift – yes, of course, we can see the Veil as Death – definitely be fun to look over both series together.

I’ve also been pondering that the Veil may refer to the veil between this universe and the bubble universe whence the Doctor(s) shifted Gallifrey.

Perhaps the Time Lords weren’t really after the identity of the hybrid in the confession dial. Perhaps the reason the glass wall didn’t keep resetting along with the rest of the puzzle, is because it was the lock between our universe and the bubble universe. Maybe the Time Lords figured out that only the doctor could break through, as the originator, but that he would never do it, unless they could get him angry enough – so they did.

@jimthefish Yes, the tarot theory stacks up! It was a collaborative effort on here though, not mine alone – @kharis got it going.

[Juniperfish @replies]

Well – it would seem that the tarot theory is firmly go!

The Doctor was in a tower (the Tower card) in Heaven Sent and he ended up (in the preview trailer for next week) on Gallifrey (the World card) as predicted by said theory, undergoing a Time Lord judgement (Judgement card). Yay!

All the portents @phaseshift mentioned over on The Guardian, such as Ashildr as the Nightmare Child, have also, as predicted, led us to Gallifrey. Double yay for bonkers theorising!

I’m personally thrilled we’re back on Gallifrey – pompous Time Lord outfits and all.

The confession dial and the time loop it implies is interesting.

It was pretty heartbreaking that the Doctor really wanted to just die in that confession dial/ trap but, as Clara was the one who got him a new set of regenerations and as, clearly he holds the Time Lords responsible for her death, he had to go on, despite the desire to surrender, finally, in order to get to them.

[Juniperfish @replies]

OK @craig thanks – I will nip over to BBC approved spoilers for more cogitation.

@pedant lol:-) Yes, I’ve no doubt the Who production team nick all their best ideas from us!

[Juniperfish @replies]

As Missy has the Doctor’s confession dial at the start of the series, and the Doctor gives it to Ashildr in Face the Raven, has he already lived through the thousands upon thousands of years in the puzzle torture-chamber/ confession dial before series 9 starts, for us?

Is Series 9 itself a bootstrap paradox (the creation of the confession dial being the loop without origin)? I know others have raised this possibility before…

 

[Juniperfish @replies]

Wow – I loved this episode.

Capaldi was really marvellous in this extended riff on Hamlet’s famous soliloquy, his sticky-insecty frock-coated Twelve enacting the madness of mourning, just like the Prince of Denmark. That determined deductive mind of the Doctor’s, fueled by grief, despair and rage, on a mission to punch through time itself.

I thought the musical score was beautiful. @puroandson you can tell us more, puro.

Holy cow, that must have been pretty scary for the younger audience though – a lake of the Doctor’s own skulls?

Does the last part count as a preview and so should be discussed in BBC approved spoilers, or is it part of this episode @craig? There’s a lot to say, but it rather relies on that end-segment.

While I wait for that answer – what?! @phaseshift – I missed the costume designer for the Smithy era confirming that they were playing with red-shift and blue-shift in relation to the red and blue bow-ties. Not that I believe creative confirmation is the end-point of interpretation, the so-called “definitive” take, because once you loose a text upon the world, it belongs to the audience, to make of it what they will, BUT, I will have to pour myself a small congratulatory something 🙂

[Juniperfish @replies]

@bluesqueakpip

It’s a pretty impressive technology, being able to import body and soul into a database, but yes, it makes sense that CAL was on the fritz because she couldn’t handle all the data at once.

I still wish River could escape from there – I really think the Doctor “saving” her to a post-death prison, however filled with literature, was a dubious decision.

@pedant

Although the text has been hitting us over the head with Clara becoming Doctor-ish as a bit of a problem, I don’t think the fault, if there is fault, for her death (if it is her death) lies with her.

She managed to persuade three incarnations of the Doctor not to press the big red button and commit genocide on a planetary scale. She changed the history of the Time War and she knows it. If, as a result, this particular companion has an assessment of her capabilities which one might call reckless, it’s hardly surprising.

[Juniperfish @replies]

@jphamlore

I didn’t see an unequivocal reading from the text of Face the Raven that Clara’s soul had been taken for torment by the quantum shade? Your reading is a valid interpretation, but not explicit text. We are left to wonder what the shade actually “does” with souls – consumes/ feasts on them was my sense. But I think perhaps you are working off the titles of the next episodes – so, to be continued in BBC approved spoilers?

Certainly, in Moff’s Who we have very explicitly seen that souls/ essences could be understood as “software” – the Doctor uploaded River to CAL in the Library, when her body died in the electricity connection needed to “save” the people there. Those people had been uploaded to CAL to rescue them from the Vashta Nerada. However, it was never explained satisfactorily how the people saved to the library data core regained their bodies, given that we saw the Vashta Nerada consume bodies to the bone. It seemed to be possible, to undo this paradox, to upload soul and body to CAL, but that wasn’t possible for River, as her body died before that could be achieved.

At Trenzalore, the Doctor referred to dead River as “an echo”. She seemed, however, to be capable of having incorporeal adventures i.e. not simply being frozen at the point she was uploaded to CAL. So her “software soul” was capable of continuing to evolve.

Missy was also, in Series 8, harvesting the dead via some sort of upload mechanism for her cyberman army. In Dark Water and Death in Heaven, she seems (using the cyber pollen) to reanimate the dead, which included their skeletons and their consciousness. They remain dead, as Danny Pink was, but zombiefied, in a cyber sort of way.

In other words, the connection between the soul and the body, and the nature of the soul under Moffat are not clearly explicated (nor will it be, I am sure – why be definitive when you can play with such a deep mystery) but they are strongly present. The soul is likened to computer software – a rather mechanistic perspective (as opposed to a religious one).

It would be very interesting to hear the Doctor’s take on the nature of the soul, as he is (in Nu Who) apt to use the word. But perhaps he is just using language he knows humans will understand.

 

 

[Juniperfish @replies]

@lewis97 Good trousering!

The check trousers remind me of the second doctor and the long red coat in Face the Raven reminds me of the third Doctor.

I wonder if, because this Doctor has been given a new set of regenerations by the Time Lords, he’s revisiting his first incarnations of the previous cycle.

The Tarot card journey can, as well as being the Fool’s journey through the inner and outer universe, be seen as the cycle of the Doctor’s regenerations? He’s cycling back through his journey as he approaches his home-world?

It’s not entirely tenuous – we did see the image of the First Doctor’s face on the safe in The Zygon Inversion.

 

[Juniperfish @replies]

@janetteb

So sorry about the fires where you are again – climate change, I know. I hope everyone you know is safe? Have things calmed down?

@Puroandson

Hi Ilion – your take on what has been scary, or not, is interesting.

I remember being absolutely terrified by some Doctor Who episodes when I was 9 or 10 (the Brain of Morbius in particular, for old hands). The fear is part of the thrill, however, and how we learn to confront our fear too, with the help of stories, because real life is scariest of all.

I would hope the Beeb and most parents know that kids want to be taken out of their comfort zone, to an extent, with a show like Doctor Who.

Raises a mid-week glass to all here abiding.

 

 

[Juniperfish @replies]

@ichabod

As to Captain Jack, a male example of a human with serial lifetimes but always as himself, I can’t speak much, since I had no interest in the character — he seemed very static to me, and dull in the ways that old-fashioned hero-protagonists of the pulps were static.

You said you were curious to know what others thought of the good Captain?

Oh absolutely, he was a pulp hero, but I completely loved that about him. He was cheesy af, but his omnivorous lust for life, and life-forms, was glorious. We hardly ever get to have non-straight sci-fi central character heroes or heroines on-screen, so I cherished this one, despite the ignominious end of the show as Miracle Day the US.

In Children of Earth (which was superb) they gave Jack a Doctor-ish problem, and he made a really, truly, terrible choice and had to live with it, which made quite a dent in the swashbuckling early Jack from Who.

I do smile that Peter Capaldi was also in that series, brilliantly, playing a hapless civil servant. I wonder how that squares in the Whoniverse? The Twelfth Doctor has actually borrowed his face, not only from a functionary in Pompeii but also a functionary in HM Civil Service.

As Twelve doesn’t seem to have a particular patience with functionaries, perhaps that’s the lesson he’s trying to teach himself – that not everyone is cut out to set the world on fire, but even timid rule-followers are worth saving.

 

[Juniperfish @replies]

@whisht

Well I think we should visit all the major arcana if tarot theory is go.

So far, and others may map these differently:

0= The Fool – the Doctor

1 = The Magician – also the Doctor

2 = The High Priestess – Missy

3 = The Empress – Ashildr

4 = The Emperor – Davros

5 = The Hierophant – The Fisher King

6 = The Lovers = TBD

7 = The Chariot = the TARDIS

8 = Strength = Ashildr plus Lion-Alien

9 = The Hermit = the Doctor alone (minus Clara)

10 = Wheel of Fortune = the Raven

11 = Justice = TBD

12 = The Hanged Man = Clara

13 = Death = Rassmussen (who murdered sleep) and/ or Clara’s death

14 = Temperance = Osgood (x 2)

15 = The Devil = Ashildr’s handlers?

16 = The Tower = The Doctor’s prison?

17 = The Star = TBD (Clara resurrected?)

18 = The Moon = the Le Verrier spaceship?

19 = The Sun = TBD (a child of the Doctor)?

20 = Judgement = TBD

21 = The World = Gallifrey

Just guessing really !

[Juniperfish @replies]

@bluesqueakpip

Ah that is tough for you. Different Docs for different folks, I guess. I didn’t realise you were sitting on that one!

As @htpbdet resisted all my attempts to get him to like Smith’s Doctor, I realise it’s simply whether the actor’s interpretation of the character “works” for someone, or not. And sometimes things change in retrospect too – looking back, I am considerably less fond of Ten, than all the other Nu Who Docs.

Hang in there – hopefully you’ll love whoever takes on the mantle after Capaldi. I highly doubt they’ll do a whole series without a companion on board, so there’ll be someone new for 2016 I’m sure. No consolation right now, if you are mourning Clara, I know.

Big Finish audio are bringing out some good River Song adventures in the meantime, if that tickles your fancy. I must order them…

Capaldi’s Doctor is a bit of a “social disaster” as you put it – I find it terribly endearing. But, I’m sure you’re not the only one who finds him harder going.

As for next week, I’m pretty sure Clara’s story is not quite over yet.

I’ve been wondering who, apart from the Time Lords/ Missy could have made that bargain with Ashildr. There were a couple of Judoon in Trap Street – Shadow Proclamation perchance?

@jammiedodger  OK – quick summary of the tarot theory…

@kharis first noticed that there might be a tarot motif running through this series. It’s most obvious in the first two episodes perhaps – the Magician (‘s apprentice) and then the upside-down pose Missy traps Clara in (Hanged Man). But it’s also pretty obvious in the Lion-alien and the Maiden in The Woman Who Lived (the Strength tarot card depicts a lion and a maiden).

Now that Clara has (at least ostensibly) died “by raven”, that brings us back to the Hanged Man, insofar as that card is often associated with Odin, the Norse God, who hung on the world tree Ygdrassil for nine days and nights in order to gain access to the magical power of the runes.  Which suggests, perhaps, that Clara’s death has a significance beyond the random accident of dangerous adventure with the Doctor

The tarot can be understood as the Fool’s journey through the major arcana (a spiritual journey towards greater understanding of self and the universe) and if we read the Doctor as the Fool, then the journey ends with The World card (although, in timey-wimey fashion, we haven’t been visiting the major arcana in order) so – ultimate grand theory – this tarot journey could be a portent for the Doctor’s eventually re-union with Gallifrey.

If this theory has legs – we should expect The Lovers card to make an appearance at some point, as well as Judgement (some kind of judgement for the Doctor).

 

[Juniperfish @replies]

@bendubz11

I think you’re into something there with the Hanged Man/ Odin connection.

A long, long time ago, when we first met Clara, there was a lot of internet spec about the meaning of her name. Oswald means “power of God” (Germanic).

When Odin hung on Ygdrassil, the World Tree, for nine days and nights, he was seeking the power of the runes, a system of magic – a key, if you like. He sacrificed himself, to himself (according to the Norse poem, the Edda) in order to gain this knowledge. So, a part of him lived, and a part of him died.

Perhaps Clara’s sacrifice to the chronos shade, is a key to time (i.e. a key to the lock on Gallifrey)…

[Juniperfish @replies]

@nerys

Exactly – Ashildr is a wonderful character because she is shades of gray.

She was a storyteller and a young hothead as a girl. Her bravado brought the Mire back to her village. Her consent to wear the Mire helmet as part of the Doctor’s plan of trickery then saved her village, but killed her in the process.

And the gift the Doctor gave her, of functional immortality, was a poisoned chalice. No wonder she is angry. He changed her to be unlike any other of her species, yet he chained her. She knows what is out there in the universe, but he refused to show her.

How far is the Doctor responsible for Ashildr? I think – very – especially as she was a child when he gave her the immortality chip.

 

 

[Juniperfish @replies]

@Purofilion and @geronimo – a lovely exchange.

Oh no @Puro – so very, very sorry to hear that. I think it’s clear many on the Doctor Who forum have loved your company along the way, and if you do want to stay, while you can, I’ve no doubt you’d be warmly welcome. You should do what’s best for you, of course.

We lost someone else, @htpbdet , before your time here I think (?) but a life-long Who fan, who wrote some very moving pieces about how Doctor Who had been with him on his own life journey, in both joyous and traumatic times. The Doctor is special like that.

Stories live on, and you and @htpbdet have both become part of the story of this little corner of the Whoniverse.

Our journey through the universe, like the Doctor’s, leaves scars, but those who know us and love us are glad of them.

Sending all solidarity,

JFish.

[Juniperfish @replies]

@timetot

I meant to say – welcome! Don’t apologise for taking up space – we don’t (usually) bite.

Glad you are enjoying this series so much. I am also pleased there are women writing and directing this year (TPTB have listened to some of the reasonable critique on that score). I also love the addition of Maisie Williams very much.

I was deeply fond of Matt Smith’s Doctor, but didn’t think he “worked” with Clara in the same way that Capaldi’s Doctor has done. Amy and Rory and River were Eleven’s companions, for me.

Anyway, do post again – and be warmly welcome.

[Juniperfish @replies]

@avaris

Yes, I’d forgotten about Clara’s association with roses in the first series in which she appeared. I think that motif was definitely designed to spark speculation about her potential connection to Rose, now that Moff and co realise that what fuels engagement (for many) is spec. It paid off in that the Moment (in the form of Rose as Bad Wolf) ensured that Clara was there when War Doctor faced the big red button. Might it pay off further? Well it would be lovely if we found out the Doctor had somehow been traveling with Rose/Ten’s daughter, Clara. Which would make her his daughter of sorts. Somehow, I don’t think that’s it.

But, I’ll certainly be surprised if we don’t find out more about Clara before the series ends.

@Purofilion

Glad you apologised. I can see how the tough health situation you are dealing with must colour your perspective – sympathies for that. I hope the latest hospital visit isn’t too rough.

@bluesqueakpip

Losing a companion is always upsetting, but I don’t think Sarah Dollard is the first to show us that traveling with the Doctor is very, very dangerous for humans. That’s been a bit of theme in Nu Who since the start. He inspires courage and sacrifice in his companions and that has consequences. Rose looked into the heart of the TARDIS to save the Doctor, and the only way to save her in return was for him to regenerate. Donna became the Doctor-Donna and the only way to save her was to wipe her mind. Amy and Rory got blown back in time by a Weeping Angel – they were happy because they were together – but the Doctor couldn’t save them from that fate. So, if this is Clara’s final end, I don’t feel it’s out of synch with the broader narrative. We do need a female incarnation of the Doctor at some point though – I feel you on the gender dynamics.

@sirclockface

Yes, the connections to Flatline are very interesting and I think there for a reason. Riggsy’s drawings came alive in that episode, which fits with the Sleeping Beauty motif noted above.  That was also the episode in which we saw Missy watching the whole thing unfold on a monitor and in which she remarked at the end that she had “chosen well”. Clara as a companion chosen for the Doctor by Missy is a narrative thread we have definitely not reached the end of, so have no fear @bluesqueakpip I think further Clara-related threads will unfold!

 

 

[Juniperfish @replies]

Thanks @craig – I am not the most tekkie of folks!

Yes absolutely – check out that really beautiful memorial – but doesn’t it look like a Sleeping Beauty motif? Especially as Rigsy has painted the flowers travelling from the pavement to the TARDIS so that there in no confinement to death, but rather something organic?

[Juniperfish @replies]

@phaseshift and @bluesqueakpip

Definitely Time Lords, and yeah not sure if Clara’s death is for real – there are a lot of roses on the TARDIS memorial (I’d upload a pic but can’t work out how to do that from my desktop) which made me think of Sleeping Beauty. And also the fact that in the last episode we saw Rigsy in, drawings came to life…

 

[Juniperfish @replies]

Well, well… so Ashildr has been keeping peace on alien-refugee street with a raven “time eater”? How very Norse of her.

Did Clara really “face the raven”?

Moff is so likely to bring folk back across the Styx that it’s hard to be sure. I hope this is the real death for her, because I loved it – just a misadventure along the road with the Doctor, but one she met as bravely as could be. Had she been searching for death for a while, as she suggested, looking to run after Danny Pink into the beyond? Perhaps…

The Doctor made Ashildr immortal, and without that act of meddlesome God-like hubris, Clara would not have died this way, in a trap set for him, so it feels rather as if Twelve is in the midst of a Greek tragedy, with fate the inexorable character at the center of the play.

With whom did Ashildr make her bargain? Time Lords, renegade or otherwise?

This was probably my favourite Ashildr appearance to date – Maisie Williams as queen of a London street of renegades from all over the universe, wielding time itself as a weapon to keep the peace. She is indeed what the Doctor has wrought.

Capaldi was beautifully understated, but you felt every inch of his agony.

This has to be the Wheel of Fortune card for me – time turning on itself.

Loved the TARDIS painted in flowers by Rigsy as a memorial to Clara at the close.

And the Doctor really does love baby humans… awwww.

[Juniperfish @replies]

@phaseshift

I second @mudlark ‘s sentiment – recommended your post in t’other place – I’m convinced the tarot journey (all credit to @kharis for spotting the theme initially here) is heading for Gallifrey and I’m looking forward to it. Hoping to see Lord Borusa again!

This seems to have been a bit of a marmite episode BTL at @danmartinuk ‘s place. I continue to prefer the two-parters but enjoy watching Gatiss expanding his oeuvre, especially as he’s definitely in the running as a potential new showrunner, if Moff ever decides to step down.

[Juniperfish @replies]

Thanks for replying @craig – it’s your website at the end of the day 🙂

Yes, it’s perhaps easier to feel less queasy about the Scottish flag.

I just, in the midst of this horror, have reservations regarding the French state (banning the niquab in public does not seem to extend “liberty, equality and fraternity” to all).

<pours everyone a tipple of their choice>. If only the Doctor was able to help us out, the way he’s helped keep the Zygon/ human treaty.

[Juniperfish @replies]

I see we have the French flag flying on the frontispiece. Whilst feeling, of course, tremendous empathy for all who lost their lives in the Paris terrorist attacks, I am wary of the symbolism of solidarity-by-flag. Solidarity with the people not being quite the same as solidarity with the nation-state.

I like Syrian activist Nader Atassi’s response:

“Attacks like the ones tonight in Paris are committed to purposely trigger an Islamophobic backlash. That backlash is not an unintended consequence of such attacks, it is part of their logic. ISIS types want an Islamophobic backlash because it lends credence to their narrative that there is a war between the West and Islam. By strengthening and emboldening the xenophobic right-wing in Europe, they strengthen their own worldview as well. And the most tragic irony is that that backlash may target refugees who themselves had been fleeing ISIS’ reign of terror.

Thoughts with everyone in Paris tonight. May the forces who wish to beget an apocalyptic “war of civilizations” be defeated.”

https://www.facebook.com/natassi/posts/10153709731622389?pnref=story

I just want to be careful that flag-solidarity doesn’t feed into a narrative of division between “us” and “them” which places all Muslims in the “them” category.

[Juniperfish @replies]

Well I did find the shaky-camera “found footage” style disorienting.

As much as I like the “monsters on a claustrophobic space station” trope, I feel it has been a bit over-used.

I’d missed the Babylon 5 tribute @phaseshift but I did pick up on the Gaiman Sandman reference, and felt this also owed something to The Ring (US version)/ Ring (Japanese version) with its story of the cursed video-tape. The Morpheus corporation struck me as very Blade-runnery too. Morpheus co-opted into the over-drive spirit of capitalism, and the Sandmen as the by-product monsters such over-drive capitalism creates was a nice allegory – capitalism will eat itself.

@frobisher – tar0t-card wise, it seemed to be the Death card, particularly with the “dust to dust” quote, and the ending suggesting a 38th Century human genocide by the Sandmen which the Doctor fails to prevent, as he doesn’t stay for the end.

I appreciated Gatiss in his literary element, as always. The Doctor quotes Macbeth, “Macbeth hath murdered sleep,” and I thought that was interesting, as that speech is all about guilt. As if the Doctor is carrying a great burden of guilt (which we already know he is for his part in the Time War) but I wonder if this guilt is specifically in relation to Clara.

@spacedmonkee Yes, Clara trapped in a pod, rather like the Fisher King’s tomb from which the Doctor emerged – more “enemy inside a friend and friend inside an enemy” stuff.

 

 

[Juniperfish @replies]

@jphamlore

The hybrid is humans as hosts for Time Lord souls, vessels from which the Time Lords can once again rule space and time.

Well that’s a bit chilling, before breakfast! Thing is, River is/ was already a human/ Time Lord hybrid and she was trained as an assassin, a weapon. So perhaps Davros’ prophecy was actually about River. And if River and the Doctor did, in fact, have kids…

On the other hand, the Doctor infused a whole bunch of Daleks with his regeneration energy on Skaro, and Davros himself caught a dose. We didn’t see them all die, and of course they didn’t, Davros never dies. So, there’s a Time Lord/ dalek hybrid out there somewhere too.

It does occur to me that if Clara IS the Doctor and River’s descendant (great granddaughter, whatever) she might now be both a human/ Time Lord hybrid AND a human/ Time Lord/ dalek hybrid, thanks to recent events on Skaro. The key to ending the remnants of the Time War or the key to starting it all over again?

[Author]

Posts