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25 May 2013 at 18:59 #10936
@bluesqueakpip– yeah, I think if you have that, it’s basically their problem. You can prove you sent it.
(On a slightly related note, I honestly thought your username was ‘Bluepipequeak’ until the first time I tried to respond to one of your comments…)
25 May 2013 at 18:52 #10935SatsumaJoe- re: dyspraxia, the main reason it bugs me is that it might only affect about 3% of the population but a: that’s still a lot of people, and b: I can see how it could easily be higher among OU students- people who struggled at school because their condition wasn’t understood who want to do a degree and maybe don’t have the a levels etc to get into a brick university, one of the main selling points of the OU is that it more or less starts from scratch…
(Other than that, they’ve been lovely. Send me print-outs of audio materials, nagged me into applying for the disabled students allowance, so I got a voice recorder, some really fun software and a tutor comes to my house every week for an hour, let me take exams at home on my computer. So I’m not slagging off the OU.)
Anyway, I’m doing A151: Introduction to Material culture, hopefully doing the level two creative writing module next.
Take it you’re doing psychology?
25 May 2013 at 17:57 #10930@satsumajoe, if you’re studying with the OU, if you have your receipt code you should be OK. She did say in future put your name and id on every page.
What’s fOCUS? why would they even do that? (I’m in an on-going sulk because the OU forums spellchecker doesn’t acknowledge the existence of the word ‘dyspraxia’.)
25 May 2013 at 17:51 #10929@whisht– exactly. My father would go on to say that the seemingly infinite screw up capacity of computers is to do with the programing. Often, in other areas, if you make a mistake, you can see and fix it. In a computer program, like in an equation, the mistake can be hard to spot, but as the program or equation continues, the mistake is magnified. (a little like re-writing time, maybe…)
25 May 2013 at 16:55 #10921OK, bonkers theories potential I’ve just come back from an OU tutorial, and apparently something weird is going on with the OU systems: peoples assignments going missing and being found in obscure slush folders, and for online tutorials, everyone being put into separate ‘rooms’ in which they are unable to speak to anyone, or hear what anyone else says. My tutor didn’t say anything about Doctor Who but it is, as she put it, as though with all the information being uploaded, the system is developing consciousness, (and is neither a pleasant, nor helpful individual).
So off the top of my head: The Great Intelligence is meddling, dark tardis, or the beginnings of the ‘papal mainframe’.
(Or maybe just as my father, who was in to computers pretty near to their inception: ‘To err is human. It takes a computer to really screw up’.)
22 May 2013 at 00:43 #10312@jimthefish– re: Johnny Depp reincarnations- yes. I mentioned this to my boyfriend, and he informed me that if I reincarnated as Johnny Depp, he would learn to live with the change. I don’t know if Depp is a fair measure…
20 May 2013 at 13:55 #10004@whohar– good point well made, we should be better on here. (The best revenge is living well etc).
In future I shall resist the temptation. This is a genuinely nice space. 🙂
19 May 2013 at 15:14 #9833@scaryb– in my defence, they were very big glasses 😉 !
19 May 2013 at 15:07 #9830Oh, @jimthefish– I think it was you who was concerned how Clara pointing the Doctor towards the right tardis diminishing what was said in TDW about them running away together- I’m pretty sure that when Clara told the Doctor he was about to make a terrible mistake, and should take this one instead, it’s because the GI had somehow interfered with his choice of tardis, and he was always supposed to take the one with the ‘knackered’ navigation system, because its sexy who always took him ‘where he needed to go’ rather than where he programed. And Clara was just undoing the GI altering it.
19 May 2013 at 12:13 #9765@jimthefish– I know. I hated myself when I woke up this morning.
(Truckles clearly learned nothing from the DeM debate either. Certainly not what a DeM is. So I’m not going to try to explain to him that misogyny doesn’t mean ‘creating a female character that for some reason makes some men so feel intimidated they feel the need to describe them as ‘haughty”.)
19 May 2013 at 11:49 #9751OK, that was amazing.
I think I’ve said before that I find Moffits ending brilliant, although not particularly concerned with logic. But this one was, I think, both brilliant and logical.
Although I’m sad to see River go- and I do think this is the last of River, I loved seeing her get a proper farewell, and I loved seeing, at last, and without everything getting too sentimental, evidence that the doctor really did love her back. (Incidentally, River being an ‘echo’- wasn’t Echo a nymph who faded away from unrequited love?)
The Clara explanation worked perfectly. (And a lot of people on here actually got pretty close.) And Moffit did more than I expected him to do- he explained that mystery (for the most part) but still left us with enough questions to drive us crazy till November. Like, why was River still there when Clara had gone? (‘spoilers’). And, of course, the great John Hurt.
(I also discovered, on the other Guardian thread, that four glasses of wine is precisely the point at which I get into an argument with Truckles about the ‘misogyny’ inherent in Rivers character. Probably good to know…)
18 May 2013 at 21:06 #9611@scaryb– yes, off the top of my head, but on this site we had the theories:
This Clara was the original, pre-impossible Clara.
There was something about that leaf hitting her father so that her parents met.
Clara gets scattered through time, made into multiple versions
‘Clara’ as a kind of guiding influence on the Doctor (for some reason.)
18 May 2013 at 20:59 #9608@bluequeakpip- zero doctor makes sense, if you consider regenerations in terms of years- your first year starts at Zero, when you’ve lived a year, you’re one, in the same way, the 1800 is the 19th century.
The way Eleven (assuming he is still eleven, and this is why I think he is) said to the John Hurt character ‘but not in the name of the doctor’ could go two ways. It sounds a bit as though he’s angry at a kind of betrayal of the name ‘doctor’. But it could be that that was him then, before he became ‘The Doctor’, before he adopted his ‘real name’, why he adopted this name, why it was so devastating when River pointed out other meanings of ‘doctor’ caused by his actions. (Because he changes personalities with regenerations, but there is a core to him that is constant.
And maybe the dangerous doctor we’ve been seeing- using his name and reputation as a weapon, causing the badies to gang up against him as a big bad- is part of this?
18 May 2013 at 17:44 #9542@new avatars- brilliant work. (Just be glad I’m to technically inept (and fond of my fingers) to subject you to the endless series of various dogs in Stetsons, fezzes and bow ties my heart yearns for.
One hour twenty to go and still unspoiled- thanks in no small part to this community.
And sympathies to anyone who was ambushed with spoilers. Here’s hoping that the spoilers were in fact inaccurate, and you’ll be more surprised than you’re expecting. (there must be a chance…)
17 May 2013 at 20:08 #9472Just noticed in NIS, a nice little Rory reference: When the doctor gets to the castle and the soldiers draw their guns ‘don’t shoot, I’m nice!’
(in TGC: Rory:’ Don’t shoot we’re nice’
Amy: Did you just say ‘Don’t shoot, we’re nice?’)
17 May 2013 at 14:31 #944017 May 2013 at 10:59 #9423yes, the reason I like
looking at the BBC pictures is that they tend to raise questions rather than answer them, for me at least.
17 May 2013 at 09:59 #9417@ardaraith– if so, I would be caught between admiration and anger. Snipey though it gets at times, I’ve rather missed the Guardian thread, and the internet in general.
Big risk for them, though, because once the episode is out people will know if the so-called spoilers really were spoilers- I think someone on this site was saying they saw one by accident, so there must be some out there, even if they’re fake.
I suppose the three options are:
it happened, but people have been, overall, surprisingly decent.
It didn’t happen, the story is a marketing ploy.
It didn’t happen, some people just thought it would be funny to pretend it had.
17 May 2013 at 09:52 #9414@bluesqueakpip– brilliant.
Only now you’ve put that in my head, all I want for the 50th episode is David Tennant and Matt Smith face to face in a massive act-off.
(Moffit being Moffit though, we could well discover that Eleven’s entire run has been his farewell tour.)
17 May 2013 at 09:22 #9408spoiler
spoiler
spoiler
pics and trailer
Good news I think regarding River: from those pictures- @ardaraith– thanks for link- I can never help myself from peaking- doesn’t the next episode look fantastic? and new trailer on BBC website- looks like that wasn’t the Tardis interface projecting River, or if it is, River herself also appears. Which is in my opinion A Good Thing.
Does anyone know how bad the spoilering from people with copies of the final episode is? I’ve kept to this site and the BBC one, and my OU site and that’s it, so it’s as though it never happened. (Don’t know if I could have resisted without this site, though. It’s made me feel I’d rather wait and discuss it with everyone at the right time rather than just find out. I don’t know what I would have done if I had received the episode though. I wouldn’t have gone online and spoilt it, but would I have left it in the box?…
16 May 2013 at 18:39 #9382@scaryb– well, I could have said ‘bonkers as a bath full of fish’ if I had dared! 😉
16 May 2013 at 15:49 #9374@ardaraith– that is interesting, but I’m not sure I like it as part of Who.
I don’t really like it when television- or other things- divide people into two groups and say: women as a rule do this/feel this, men on the other hand do that/feel that. And Moffit seems so far to have avoided gender stereotypes to a degree- that is, Amelia ‘counted as a boy’ as a child, Rory became a nurse. In TDW, we’re told that at least one TimeLord switched sexes.
If there is a difference between the Doctor and River and Romana, is it necessarily gendered? Not having watched much old who, I’ve only really seen the doctor, River and the Master. Three Time Lords, none of which are considered particularly sane (mad man in a box, bespoke psychopath and, well the phrase ‘box of frogs’ comes to mind, respectively.)
16 May 2013 at 15:11 #9368@satsumajoe– true, and @ardaraith is right about how unbothered she seemed about it.
I wonder if, despite being ‘raised’-ish by Amy and Rory, she was still so under the influence of her brainwashing as to see herself mainly as a weapon, rather than a person. River, in the library took her death more seriously (of course that was death without regeneration).
16 May 2013 at 14:59 #9362@ardaraith– ah, I get you. But I interpreted the idea of timelords ‘apprehension’ to regenerate, and it being a ‘more fundamental process than just changing shape’ to mean the end of one personality to make way for another. If I had the choice of dying, or regenerating into another person who happens to have my memories, I’m not sure I’d see much difference to me personally, if my own individual consciousness was gone either way. So regeneration would defiantly be a last resort.
I think the ‘dress size’ comment was just a dodgy aside…
16 May 2013 at 14:24 #9357@htpbdet– yes. I think there was a personality difference between ‘Mels’ and her regeneration, and I also think that River Song was greatly influenced by her encounter with the doctor- thinking back, didn’t ten stick his duplicate in another universe because he realised this was the duplicate of himself at the start of his time- before Rose had a chance to influence him- in the hope Rose could do the same to this version?
Maybe the reason the doctor is so attached to the human race, and ‘human’, and interfeariey, is because he’s tending to imprint on the first person he meets after he regenerates, and transfer this onto subsequent companions- which is why eleven is told not to travel alone, by River who would know from experience that brand-new regenerations are quite susceptible to outside influence?
16 May 2013 at 13:36 #9351@ardaraith– I don’t know. I saw some difference between ‘Mels’ and ‘River’. They shared traits, which they would, having at that point exactly the same memories, but I do think they were different ‘people’, and ‘Mels’ was no more the Doctors River Song then Ten was Alex Kingstons’ River Songs’ Doctor.
16 May 2013 at 12:28 #9339Thinking about the question- assuming ‘Doctor Who’ is the question, we don’t really know how it is punctuated.
‘Doctor Who?’ (are you) Doctor- who?’ (i.e.: Doctor- who (are you talking about)) ‘Doctor: who …….’ (for example: Doctor: who (am I?))
@bluesqueakpip– I like it. Also- wouldn’t this mean there is a ‘clean’ copy of the Doctor already in existence? Gives a little room to play for ‘Dark Doctor’ theories…
16 May 2013 at 12:24 #9338@scaryb– need to watch it again, I might be muddled.
If it is
Trenzalore, and this prequel is post-Trenzalore, it doesn’t seem all wrapped up…
Hehe, as River said, The doctor does love a museum. And we have seen some living collectables- The Dalek back under RTD, the Angel in TATM, the cybermen in NIS. Though I’m assuming this museum/props department is metaphorical.
16 May 2013 at 12:01 #9332p.s. above only spoilery if you haven’t seen the prequel.
16 May 2013 at 11:59 #9331@scaryb the setting was interesting. Almost as if they set it in the props department. It certainly wasn’t the room Clara went into in JTTCOTT, which seemed to me a kind of attic space/ in terms of the marketplace in TROA, a bank vault.
um- just in case
spoilers?
The main thing I took away from the prequel was when they both suddenly said they ‘knew’ who the other was- they’ve known since TROA. That doesn’t mean it’s in the episode, it’s been speculated that the Doctor seemed to disappear for a while. It does seem to contradict other episodes, assuming we’ve seen them all in order, and assuming they always remember what they ‘know’. And assuming they’re correct, and that they’re not bluffing- who are they talking to? Each other, us, or themselves?
16 May 2013 at 11:45 #9329@scaryb– last night I dreamt I was a dalek. Now I don’t know if I am a dalek dreaming I am a timelord.
nooooo is sort of my reaction too. Thinking of River- ‘not those memories, don’t you dare.’ I know River died in SITL mostly to protect her own memories of who the doctor was going to be, but it would be heart-breaking if she was left alone with them.
But I can see it happening. I tend to think with Moffit as well we’re more likely to see a weaving together of themes and patterns, rather than having every separate plot tied up.
16 May 2013 at 11:33 #9326@bluesqueakpip– yes, I’m with you on that one. Incidentally, all the more reason to have a copy of a ‘history of the timewar’ on the tardis. The tardis being the tardis, that could be acquired at any point in the doctors timeline, surely? and still be found by Clara when it was. In fact, the encyclopaedia as well, and the memories played by the tardis in JTTCOTT. The tardis would still remember and be able to guide him/(her?).
16 May 2013 at 10:22 #9316@scaryb– thank you!
I feel Matt Smith’s always played Eleven as though he is, frequently, having conversations in his head. I even wonder if that is one reason he was so happy to see Ganger Eleven- he appreciated the back-up.
I can see this as a reason for a finite number of regenerations, aside from physical limitations- it gets increasingly crowded in there. So even if the regeneration limit can be addressed- is there a physiological limit?
I don’t think they’d be in there in their entirety, like the uploaded consciousness’s in TBOSJ. But memory has been such an important theme in Moffit, along with duplicates, and the question of what makes them ‘real’. He could do something really interesting with this, maybe for the anniversary special.
(Thinking of the meta-theories as well. To what extent are memories of previous doctors, in the minds of fans, interfering with their reactions to nu-who? For all the people able to say ‘well, x is my doctor, but I enjoy y’, or ‘y isn’t really my cup of tea, but nor was x, I liked z’ and keep an open mind, there seem to be many (guardian thread) who can’t see past their memories of older who, and seem to watch nu-who only to carp on about how bad they find it in comparison. Which would be fine if they wouldn’t, sometimes, be so mean spirited and abusive about it. As a show, DW regenerates both with different doctors, and different show-runners. Obviously, as it gets older, it’s legacy gets longer and more complex.
16 May 2013 at 08:50 #9314@whohar– while I found ten’s farewells tedious in places enough to cushion the blow of his leaving, I did also find it an interesting aspect of Who. It bought home, I thought, the fact that although he regenerates, with all the memories of the incarnations before him, it is still death, because the personality changes, and that particular person is no more. In fact, in one of the flesh episodes, when the real doctor (who people think is the ganger at the time) loses it over the flesh crying out, eleven does say something about ‘dying over and over again and all you can ask is why’ and I wondered if this affected him partly because he has the memories of all these different ‘doctors’, including their death.
I felt that ten’s struggle at the end of his time was because he, personally, the person he was, was going away. His body (in a different shape) his history, his memories, his mission and even his penchant for human beings might remain. But for his particular consciousness, it does feel like death. (reminded me a little of Tibetan Buddhism. ‘reincarnated Lamas are thought to have the memories of previous incarnations, recognising old toys etc, but are not expected to have the same personality. (One of the previous Dali Lama’s wrote poetry about women and wine. In brief: he was a fan).
So while, as I said, I felt ten’s farewell got rather tedious, I do think the concept of it was interesting. And it also underlined how the incarnations of the doctor, in nu-who at least, turn up all fresh and funny and enthusiastic, (we didn’t see nine at this stage) but when they leave- when ten did at least, and eleven is showing wear- they seem slightly broken. And maybe new personalities are necessary to cope with living so long-
14 May 2013 at 13:20 #9043@timeloop and @jimthefish–
I
also
hope not.
But it has sort of been set up.
(A kind of ‘goddess in the machine, but NOT a DEM.)
By the way, given that Moffits offered some extra footage if the final episode isn’t completely spoiled, if it is (I wonder how many people have held out, if this is just one of many little strongholds of desperately grasped at ignorance…) I would like to see instead perhaps a montage of River saying ‘Spoilers’ ending with her crashing into a room (I’m imagining a bedroom with lots of lurid rock posters and dirty plates and laundry) gun in hand shouting ‘SPOILERS’ and opening fire.
14 May 2013 at 12:03 #9031Didn’t know if I should put this here or in the NiS thread, because I know some people don’t watch the trailers, and
there
is enough spoiling on the internet right now without risking it-
I want River back in the next episode. But I just saw the trailer again on television, and remembered some speculation on this sight on how she looked rather ‘virtual’ or ghostly, so could she still be uploaded and wondered:
Is that definitely River or could it be the tardis interface? last time sexy projected Clara back at her, which was either a clue or a snide comment, that this was the person Clara most respected/trusted. Could she for some reason, this time, using River? and what would that mean about Clara’s mind/personality/origins?
11 May 2013 at 21:36 #8605@galactus– good thought. Now we know the Cybermen don’t know about him, previously we only saw Oswin wipe him from the Daleks databases, which presumably gave him the idea. But we’ve been told now that he’s been erasing himself from history, and that this will leave a doctor shaped hole.
Maybe they have already noticed this hole, and just want to put a name to the space…
11 May 2013 at 21:11 #8591@galactus– agree about the ‘monster’ line. Especially coming after the Doctor being ‘named’ monster last week and not protesting. Now I’m thinking also about what ‘Mr Clever’ said about him erasing himself, and being findable by the gap he leaves- which the doctor seemed struck by- and what the emperor saying about how it was nice to get away (he got a better run I think than the doctors short-lived anonymous ‘caretaker’ stint) but now they’ve found him (the emperor) they’ll keep more of an eye on him- getting away was a one chance thing. And what will be the reaction across the universe when various species realise the doctor was trying to pull a ‘silence’ on them- making them forget he existed- that’s what made the silence so terrifying.
@bluesqueakpip– good point re: Clara’s failure (I was surprised by DM’s comment about making a hash of negotiations with the Ice Warrior, like you, I think she succeeded there. Here, I was going to say at least the planet didn’t get blown up on her watch, which was her main task given by the doctor, but then I remembered the only reason for this was because the soldier walked towards a window and got shot. Thinking back, the nearest I can think of, of Clara disobeying a direct order is in Cold War when he ‘forbids’ her negotiating with the Ice Warrior, but that was to manipulate the captain. She did insist on hacking the WiFi upload people (again, her own initiative to good effect) but I don’t think there was a direct order.
She did, here, pick a good spot, which could at least slow the Cybermen down. Maybe, had she picked the ‘beach’ or the ‘Cauldron’ they would have run out of time?
11 May 2013 at 20:41 #8578OK, interesting: Clara switching into Command mode very easily.
Why did the CyberDoctor (Mr Clever- OK, not good at names, in a rather elevenish way) call her flesh girl? Red Herring? She’s been scanned and read as human. (The empath would have read a flesh-Clara as human if Clara thought she was human, but the salvagers device…)
The doctor fighting for control of his memories.
A very Dark Doctor, reacting to the Cybermisation with a very eleveny enthusiasm and talkativeness.
6 May 2013 at 15:03 #8023@haveyoufedthefish– jammy dodgers and fishfingers trifle!
6 May 2013 at 14:06 #8018@chickenelly– well that’s just cheating 😉
Shame really- can’t quite find it in me to blame the students, though.
If it had been me I would have just removed the fake head, and put the mummified one under his arm…
6 May 2013 at 13:27 #8011Oh, another literary reference: Horrors of Oakendale Abbey contain a scene worth of Japanese Horror, where a young woman sees what seems to be a monster or undead, but it turns out
(this is spoilers)
that it is there result of a botched hanging, who revived before the resurrection men had a chance to sell his body for dissection.
6 May 2013 at 13:15 #8010@chickenelly– doh! I did know that at one point. Top pedantry.
See, this forum is educative and fun.
I nearly mentioned Bentham skeleton, dressed in his clothes which he wished to have topped with his mummified head, but the rather poorly preserved physical head now resides in proper gothic/horror story style, at his feet.
I did wonder if this last episode was also supposed to make us think of the plasticisation process perfected recently, which is really something people have been working towards for centuries, albeit not with that material.
6 May 2013 at 10:37 #7978@woolweed- re: gramophones- I think they were just a mock up of a working factory- no matches were being made, so they provided the sound of manufacture to cover up the real purpose.
6 May 2013 at 10:34 #7977@Shazzbot– regarding Victorian display- there really was, including very grotesque arrangements including baby skeletons holding preserved pieces of human organs. A kind of art meets parable (death comes to us all) meets scientific display. The Victorians were an interesting, and often unsettling people. (Then again so are we- the past might be a different country, but it’s the same planet…)
There was also a bit of an obsession with preserving corpses or at least the organs- for the most part in enable further anatomical study- usually using the bodies of criminals or people from the workhouse because of lingering beliefs in bodily resurrection- in other words, that you would need your body intact for the end of time.
What I like about this episode is the way the two are combined- preservation, to enable full bodily ‘resurrection’ at a later date. And the use of enormous bell jars bought this out nicely, because bell jars were used to kill specimens, I think.
5 May 2013 at 16:16 #7893@Shazzbot– fair enough, sorry about that.
It could just be courageousness- reasoning that if the monster started anything, she’d just kick its arse. It seemed to me though that she was interpreting his double knock as agreement. (And its usually a good idea to sort out at the start ‘one knock for yes, two for no etc)
5 May 2013 at 15:32 #7889just watched it again and was struck by the way Mrs G talked about the coming ‘Golden dawn’. At first I thought of the Greek far right party, then about the late 19th century philosophical/occult movement/organisation. Then I thought there is a reason such phrases get reused a lot, its a very useable phrase.
@Shazzbot– it seemed pretty clear she was far more interested in Clara than the Doctor. Interestingly, a line in the America trailer for next week strongly implies that she is the boss at some point. But then, she might be bluffing someone…
And yes, I found the conversation when he was locked in that room odd. It was more as though she understood the knocks rather than a code…
5 May 2013 at 09:52 #7841@juniperfish– *waves back* defiantly. Nice to come across someone else who’s read it.
5 May 2013 at 09:14 #7838Loved that episode. Ada was especially well written and well played, sympathetic and unsettling- the moment when she said she would never forgive her mother and her mother said ‘that’s my girl’ beautifully avoided a pat resolution for her- (she’s ok now she’s had a hug or some such nonsense). And the doctors reaction when her mother held a gun against her head, more for Ada’s sake than his own. I think this character could easily come back on either side at the moment.
I think the comedy with Stax worked well to offset this. I do wonder about ‘Thomas Thomas’… it could easily just be a joke, and a very fine one, but if RTD hadn’t already done a ‘there’s a very sinister device in everybody’s car’ episode, I’d defiantly be thinking there is something more to it. Then again, that episode featured Sontarins…
Re: next week and the end of this episode- is it possible the children Clara is taking care of are part of a trap involving the Cybermen? Wittingly or unwittingly?
1 May 2013 at 22:35 #7519@haveyoufedthefish– modify away! yes, I had a thought after I posted, Amy re-booted the universe from her memories, and ended up writing stories.
@scaryb– not only is she written on, Clara has fairly few memories of her own. One that she does have, she tells the girl in TROA, about getting lost, and her mother finding her then telling her a ‘story’ that wherever she is, her mother would find her. Which I thought at the time was an odd, potentially ambiguous use of the word ‘story’. The word implied cynicism to me at the time, but that wasn’t how she was telling it.
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