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3 March 2017 at 17:02 #55719
(sigh) I just tried to respond to both @thane15 and @ichabod in a post, but it didn’t go through. Here’s a shorter version of what I wanted to say:
@thane15, regarding O’Donnell’s death, Bennett insists that had the Doctor been more forceful about having her stay behind and less interesting in “testing” his theory about the list, she would have survived. He doesn’t defend himself in this moment, so it’s not clear how inevitable her death may have been. Not to mention that he does try to save Clara later in the way Bennett was told he couldn’t save O’Donnell! Perhaps, in the episode that follows, the Doctor’s need to save Ashildr comes partly from reminding himself that other people besides Clara are important? (hmmm)
Also, the Titan Comics miniseries Supremacy of the Cybermen (which ran last year) shows the Doctor’s mercy in banishing Rassilon to backfire badly. Turns out he had a place to go after all, and all along — to the last of the Cybermen…the story ends with a sort of reset so it isn’t important to the TV continuity…but still! 😉
@ichabod, yes indeed, the poor Doctor’s great trouble in Series 9 partially stems from his choice to save Ashildr. But was it only for his own sake, his own sorrow, that he made the choice? Who would want to be the one who would indirectly bereave a father of his daughter, if he could help it? (Or, later…a daughter of her father? Rigsy…) And that this was the time he finally remembered where his face came from, and what he must do if he is to be the Doctor — a memory that hinged on a companion’s plea breaking through his cold TL “armor” — was there a pattern here? Was it providence? Something that had to happen?
Some days you only have bad choices, but you still have to choose…
What is the other factor in the great trouble? It is Clara’s choice to be a Doctor to save Rigsy! And the Doctor feels guilt that he didn’t stop her from choosing to be a hero…no wonder he finds it hard to be his best self for a while! 😉
2 March 2017 at 19:24 #55708Hmmm…maybe zen study is for me? 🙂 I could use some light-dark balance… 😉
2 March 2017 at 15:42 #55706(mmm) I’ve been reading a lot of comics/manga lately, which I enjoy a lot, but I haven’t found a really compelling novel to read in a while. I was wondering if anyone here had a recommendation for an uplifting sci-fi/fantasy story to help me power through these tough times? 🙂
2 March 2017 at 14:52 #55705Also, on a lighter note on my part…in this episode, the Doctor says he left Gallifrey because he was scared, as opposed to bored. But if that confession is indeed the truth, what was he scared of? If it was the Hybrid prophecy — which it may or may not have been, since he never says he was scared of the Hybrid — doesn’t that suggest he did know something about it that he never revealed to anyone, contrary to what he says to Clara? Or was it something else altogether? Do any of you think we might get an answer to this in Series 10?
2 March 2017 at 14:39 #55704Well, @pedant, it wasn’t meant to be taken seriously from what I could tell. It’s just that the thought of a bunch of panicking TL’s racing out into the desert with that thing makes me smile. 😉
2 March 2017 at 13:42 #55702Also @ichabod, I don’t see how the Doctor was turned from a sword to a plow through his ordeal in this story. If anything it was the reverse. He was already a plow when he decided to help Rigsy. But when that didn’t help save him or Clara, and couldn’t get him out of the dial, he realized over the course of “Heaven Sent” that he needed to be a sword, because just as the Time War was no place for a Doctor, this situation wasn’t either. How would he have got Clara back if he’d been a plow? (There really isn’t a sense given of what the Doctor would have done if he’d just up and confessed, and been back on Gallifrey without a TARDIS. After all, she still wouldn’t have been there.) And when he became a plow again, he wound up losing instead of winning. He keeps tossing away the chance to make the universe perfect! 😉
@pedant, That’s a good explanation about where the dial ended up, but here’s a funny one I heard at Tumblr — the TLs had it in the Citadel and all, but when they realized he was finally going to get out of there, they panicked. One of them ran out with it into the desert to drop it off, as if it were a bomb about to go off, so they wouldn’t be there when he arrived! 😀
2 March 2017 at 13:23 #55701@thane15, I think the central tragedy of the Lady Me situation was that the Doctor had two bad choices — let her die and live with the knowledge of yet another life lost on his watch (and so soon after he got chewed out over O’Donnell, too), or save her the only way he could, which had the immortality “side effect”. But perhaps it was providence stepped in by making him (finally) remember Donna and Caecelius, and he realized he must be The Doctor and save her no matter what the cost later. And he tried so hard to make it work, to keep tabs on her and try to help her maintain her humanity.
Before that, when he chose to be The Doctor and save Gallifrey rather than destroy it, it led to infinitely more grief for him in the long run than just letting it be done with. Had he let it burn, he would never have known the cracks in time, the confession dial… :'(
When he chose to help Rigsy, he was the Doctor; when he saved Anahson’s mum, he was the Doctor; when he spared Lady/Mayor Me his wrath, he was the Doctor. But it seemed like each time he was the Doctor, things only got worse for him!
So he had his breakdown in that horrible dial, and chose to fight his way out instead of simply make the confession, to win by bringing Clara back from the grave. Even so, he hadn’t completely lost his morals, never mind what Ohila might say — he chose to be the Doctor when he didn’t turn Rassilon into the red stain on the sand he deserved to be, and when he didn’t slay the General outright. He let Lady Me follow him onto TARDIS 2.0. And at last, he bowed to Clara’s pleas and chose to fully be the Doctor again by choosing not to wipe her memories, and losing his instead. (I choose to believe he knew it would erase his memories, because love is a promise and he will never hurt her.)
And @ichabod, it is a powerful moment when he makes that choice. But…what does he win for doing the right thing, at the end of all his awful trials? Sure, he gets his TARDIS and freedom back, even a new sonic, but those things can’t hold him, and he’s bereft of not only a companion but memories of a beautiful relationship. He does not choose to return to Gallifrey, his home, even though the wicked Time Lords cannot hold anything against him and, as pointed out, he is loved by the “little” folk there. And those who chose to hurt him for whatever reasons have not been brought to full justice, so he has no satisfaction in that.
I do see how his saving Gallifrey was repaid with kindness by the good Drylanders and soldiers — though Lady Me didn’t do much to help, mocking his sorrow and all. I also don’t see how Ohila really stood by/helped the Doctor. She couldn’t even acknowledge the evil done to him, evil that had to be punished in some way, much less acknowledge the horrible loss of his companion. I think she and the Sisterhood just wanted to see what would happen when he faced Rassilon, as there seemed no love lost between her and the Lord President. 😉
After every big bad thing he’d gone through, a bunch of little good things weren’t enough to satisfy me dramatically. Maybe it’s an American thing — we do tend to think big here. 😉 He didn’t win anything for himself, for choosing to be the Doctor instead of the Hybrid — he only lost, literally as it happens. Moffat even missed a trick by not having the story end with him going back to Karn to hash things out with Ohila, now that he was himself again. And how long was it for him between “Hell Bent” and THORS? (The expanded universe suggests it was quite a while.)
I’m sure my feelings are self-referential. Especially over the past few months, I’ve found it difficult to hold myself to the loving ideal of Christianity I believe in when it seems like the bad guys have all the power. Like the Twelfth Doctor I can be a sourpuss, but I try to believe in the value of small acts of kindness and virtue — I think a lot about things I can do with my somewhat limited means (physical and mental), and put those thoughts into action. But I don’t know how much good they really do, and I often wonder if they have ill effects too, as you suggested @ichabod about the harshness of nature. Sometimes I think of what I give up to do those good things, and wonder if I’d be happier if I just looked out for number one. I’m sure the Doctor wonders that a lot too… 😉
Thank you all for your comments. I don’t know how much they’ll help me personally — autistic brains tend to get stuck in thinking ruts — but you all made good points, about the show and about life. (hugs)
28 February 2017 at 15:48 #55680Or, inspired by suggestions I’ve read on this forum…
Perhaps Twelve’s last Christmas special will prove how loved he is by doing something like “Journey’s End” or “The End of Time”‘s denouement, where all of the key Moffat-era companions and recurring and/or beloved secondary characters come back, either to help him or to be there as he regenerates.
Yes, this means Amy and Rory Pond would return, along with Clara Oswald and River Song — plus Idris, the Paternoster Gang, Kate Stewart, the two Osgoods, Ohila, the General, Danny Pink, and Ashildr/Me…just for starters.
How is it possible? Because they love him, and that’s all that need be said! They may have failed to be there for him in the dial…but that’s because they didn’t love him enough. But they do now! 😉
28 February 2017 at 14:45 #55679Much as I love this episode, I do have an issue with it that carries over into those that follow:
Why didn’t anyone in the universe try to save the Doctor?
Why was there no Time Lord aware of his suffering with the courage to set him free? Why was the dial left to moulder in the desert?
Where were all the people in the universe who love the Doctor, as River Song claimed was the case in “The Husbands of River Song”? Rigsy and Anahson and her mum owed him (and Clara) their lives. Why did they turn cruel and cowardly by not sending up an alarm of the horrors that had been wrought on the Doctor? Why didn’t Rigsy bash Me over the head and get the TARDIS key back, and set off to get help in that instead of just painting it? Why did even the TARDIS itself abandon him? Why did Me even teleport him to begin with, instead of atoning for her evilly backstabbing him? How did she survive until the end of time when surely lynch mobs would have been baying for her blood upon learning of what she did to the Doctor? Where were all the creatures who can travel through time and space? The thousands of civilizations who owe him their lives? Where was the White Guardian? The Shadow Proclamation? River herself?
Is the Doctor truly loved?
And if so, and if the universe really did have its hands tied, and failed him this time — when he merely asked for what he was owed…why did it fail him again by denying him it?
28 February 2017 at 13:17 #55678@ichabod I know how you feel about Twelve’s regeneration, and you make an interesting point about his getting a sort of one with the mind wipe. It’s just that this Doctor hasn’t had his “day in the sun” yet.
He hasn’t ended a season in glory, even bittersweet glory. Both Series 8 and 9 leave him abandoned, alone, and with no one even shaking his hand thanking him for his noble deeds and sacrifice, or comforting him in his sorrow. Nothing but unjust loss, while villains get away, backstabbers reap the spoils of his pain, and those he saves do not repay him. Series 9 saw everyone fail to be there for him in his hour of greatest need. Why? Is it because he’s “old and ugly”? Do they not truly love him?
Since there isn’t much hope that his final Christmas special can make amends for whatever suffering he’ll endure this season (the way the previous ones did), unless they take a really unconventional approach to it, Series 10 must do the job. IMO, the universe must prove it loves this incarnation of the Doctor as much as it loved the others. He must have his day, and receive what he is owed at last.
25 February 2017 at 21:44 #55650Interestingly, this teaser is already sparking speculation that poor Bill is going to be killed off to better set up a “clean slate” for Series 11 (Pearl Mackie isn’t contracted for multiple seasons). I don’t see it happening, mainly because Twelve himself is going to regenerate at the end of it all, and having all that death/”death” at once would be wearying. I’d rather hope that everybody, most of all Twelve, gets a gloriously happy ending instead before a more melancholy Christmas show.
Or maybe the regeneration story will find a way to be gloriously happy…i.e., Twelve gets to the Promised Land at last and “dies” content. Or the memory wipe is lifted and he can be happily reunited with Clara for a while, because he was owed it. Or he reconciles with the Time Lords and/or Ohila, who beg his forgiveness for their heartless treatment of him in his dark time. Or… 😉
25 February 2017 at 18:54 #55648BBC America’s just posted a new 30-second teaser for Series 10, which is up at YouTube. It teases a bunch of old and new enemies at the end. 🙂
22 February 2017 at 13:00 #55633@missy I understand. That gets me to thinking how long we’ll have to wait for the Complete Series 10 box set, because it wouldn’t surprise me if they did the same thing they did with Series 9 — wait until after the 2017 Christmas special/finale for Twelve has aired and then pull everything together! With that in mind, I’m more forgiving that they’d like to get a “budget” release of DM out now.
21 February 2017 at 19:43 #55621Also @ichabod, I think the claims that Capaldi/Twelve is not popular internationally are hogwash. BBC America has enjoyed excellent ratings by American basic cable standards for his tenure from my understanding, and in the U.S., it is not easy for any television show to draw in viewers on a Saturday night. Most American networks don’t program fresh material for Saturdays anymore. (“The Magician’s Apprentice”‘s American debut ranked third in its time slot across all channels for that night, behind only a college football game and the series finale of the beloved Univision variety show Sabado Gigante.)
I wonder if Capaldi’s fanbase is less noisy and brash than those of Tennant and Smith…
21 February 2017 at 19:34 #55620@missy Yeah, cold is no word for Twelve!
“The Return of Doctor Mysterio” came out on DVD today in the U.S. and I made sure to pick up a copy at my local “big box” store. (Hmmm, I don’t remember DW being so easy to find at the Wal-Marts and Targets of the world in the days of Tennant and Smith…those places, they only stock what the masses want…) 😉
Along with the special, there’s a short featurette that must have aired on the Beeb in the runup to its premiere, “A New Kind of Hero”, in which the Doctor — Twelve specifically — is compared and contrasted to the traditional costumed superhero by the cast and crew. Moffat points out at one juncture that Twelve is “the most emotionally exposed” of the Doctors. He goes on to say that, paraphrased, if Twelve sometimes comes off as cold, it’s because feeling deep emotions is painful for him and he’s trying to steel himself against them. WOW!
The featurette made my eyes misty, to be honest…it could be used as a sort of “defense witness” for Twelve and Capaldi!
14 February 2017 at 14:19 #55541I saw The Lego Batman Movie this past weekend. It was a great deal of fun, with surprisingly great action sequences and a more interesting storyline than a lot of “straight” superhero movies. It’s a well-worn basic plot — the lone wolf hero realizes he has to connect with others, despite the risks — but its willingness to play the concept for lots and lots of laughs as well as heart freshens it up considerably. It would make a good double feature with “The Return of Doctor Mysterio”, actually!
8 February 2017 at 18:31 #55486No, nothing is. I tend to read older books, actually — can’t get into the “literary” new stuff, and the kind of authors that are sold at those big box stores (James Patterson, Danielle Steele, what have you) that crank out books like sausages I can’t get into either. At least in my part of the country, there are hardly any bookstores anymore. There’s a pretty good Barnes and Noble I visit every other week, but that’s about it.
8 February 2017 at 17:52 #55483@ichabod, I’ve noticed that more and more I’m reading books (and comics) instead of really watching TV and movies myself. Maybe it has to do with that breathing space issue? Doctor Who is about the only fiction show I pay much attention to right now.
8 February 2017 at 17:49 #55482Right @missy, and the word on the street is that it will be at least a few months of waiting on the announcement.
8 February 2017 at 17:46 #55481@ichabod wrote:
I guess the difference is that I see it as the Doctor *choosing* the strong possibility of a raw deal because — he’s the Doctor. And I love him for it.
As do I…(sniffle)
But let’s hope he gets the long straw in Series 10 anyway! 😀
8 February 2017 at 02:12 #55469@thane15 Sorry to confuse you with explaining my personal head-canon/interpretation at length up there! And for going in circles too. My fussy autistic mind tends to do that, I’m afraid. 😉
Yeah, Clara got a relatively happy ending…it just didn’t feel that way on the Doctor’s side. I still can’t help but think he got a raw deal in Series 9, and I want that fixed in S10! 😀
7 February 2017 at 13:42 #55461@mudlark Right — some of the Pertwee episodes were restored from black-and-white copies, weren’t they? Maybe that’s what our newbie here saw!
7 February 2017 at 13:39 #55460I don’t feel I’m passionately on any particular side of the multifaceted issue of female/POC/etc. Doctors at this point. I’ve heard good arguments on many sides of the debate, including at conventions. At Wizard World Las Vegas at a panel about Doctor Who‘s female characters, there was a lot of support for the idea. At Wizard World Chicago at a panel about diversity in “genre” media, the panelists I talked to about this issue liked the idea, but also pointed out that a white man who uses brains more than brawn/firepower is a relatively rare protagonist in these kind of shows!
I think I’ll just wait and see what happens, myself. 😉
7 February 2017 at 13:31 #55459@pedant Sorry about that again.
Going back to the episode itself, and specifically the ending: I was looking at Cracked.com today and there was an interesting discussion on the sad truth that good people succeeding because they do good things only happens in stories. That in real life, people can’t hold to their principles and get everything they want. This unhappy realistic situation seems to happen a lot to Twelve. He decides to be the Doctor and give up Missy’s gift of the army, and ends up not getting to bring peace to the universe (and later, loses Clara for a while too). He decides to be the Doctor and save Ashildr, and she backstabs him and Clara ends up dead on top of that….
He decides to be the Doctor and accept Clara’s death, and he loses even his right to grieve her due to the lost memories. Sure, he held to his principles, but where’s the reward? How come the Doctor no longer gets situations like in “The Day of the Doctor”, where he holds to his principles and brings the Time War to an end? Is it just a move by Moffat and company to make the show more realistic and sad?
5 February 2017 at 17:50 #55432@ichabod, Thanks for the compliments!
In “The Hybrid Hearts” I posited that the Doctor was a Hybrid of a Time Lord and a far, far more ancient Gallifreyan race that never had a name — Lovecraftian creatures that could exist in every moment of Time and Space and destroy armies with but a word, feeding on the energies of their conquests. But Time and Space grew too big for them; they realized it too late. They snapped like rubber bands pulled too taut…scattered to the four winds. They tried reforming themselves but now they were hardly more than protozoa physically. And to add insult to injury, as they stewed in primordial soups trying to heal, the lifeforms that eventually evolved into the Time Lords came to be…the shadows of this race, and that’s how they ultimately managed time-space travel in their own way.
The old creatures grew resentful of the Time Lords and decided they would give up physical forms, become one gestalt Power, possess an unknowing woman’s body, and wait for an innocent babe to be conceived in her womb. That turned out to be the Doctor, the Hybrid of cross-breeding between dimensions, purely Gallifreyan by blood but not by Time and Space. He knew he was different than others, but never knew why until, troubled by what he’d heard about a certain prophecy, he ventured into the Cloisters and learned that one day he would be the one to fulfill it. Oh, the Power wasn’t influencing him — but one day he would choose it of his own free will and become a god capable of rewriting and “fixing” time to his satisfaction, provided he constantly fed.
When The Hybrid saved Clara, it was with the hope that he would have more time with her before he did the “inevitable” mind wipe, but something in him kept telling him not to do the easy thing and start destroying others to feed his already-gnawing hunger (as the “meal” of all his confession dial selves could only last so long), but to try…more Doctor-ly solutions, i.e. traveling to the end of time.
When Clara made her stand for her memories, not knowing what he had become (she wondered why his smile was growing more feral, the skin of his hands tougher, but…) he thought about revealing to her what he was now capable of: He could reshape the whole universe into a happy place by burning up all those corrupt places and peoples, and he could give her a perfect life, and of course this would be the act of a loving and merciful selfless god because he wouldn’t keep her, as much as he wanted to…
But he just couldn’t, because it wasn’t what she wanted. Love is a promise, after all. And he will never hurt her. Realizing his pain and passion made him desperate enough to become the Hybrid, he chose to lose those deep feelings so he could be the Doctor again. The Doctor can’t get rid of the Hybrid’s power altogether. It sleeps in him, awaiting the day when all hope is gone. But he was a strong man before, perpetually able to resist the temptation against insane odds — because there’s always a better route to take, he’s clever! — and he can be strong again. 😉
Anyway, my personal head-canon aside, while a “simpler” Twelve might be pleasing in S10, I would rather see his personality continue to deepen and evolve, and I think it can with the setup of this season. There’s no pleasing all of the fans even some of the time, so you’ve got to please yourself, to paraphrase the Eagles.
And I agree that with time, his tenure will be looked upon more kindly. Already, many professional critics have been happy with his tenure thus far, especially S9. And once Twelve has breathed his last, and the fans start picking over Thirteen, there will inevitably be comparisons between eras that will express nostalgia for Twelve that they didn’t realize until it was all too late! 😉
4 February 2017 at 12:31 #55409Hey everybody!
I do think S10 may well be going back to the old-school Doctor/companion relationship you mention, @ichabod. There are nice things to a partnership with equals as Twelve had with Clara, but it was becoming too much of a distraction for him by the end. @pedant, He could, with sadness and shame (if only he’d stood his ground…), accept poor O’Donnell’s fate in “Before the Flood”, and before that had accepted his own death in both this story and “The Magician’s Apprentice”…but in both cases, as soon as he realized Clara might be next to go he decided to try and defy the fates no matter what the danger might be. That pesky “duty of care”!
Before Moffat revealed to Doctor Who Magazine that Twelve/Clara was the Hybrid (and that the TARDIS’ knowledge of this, given her ability to see all things, was why she didn’t like Clara at first — knowing the sorrow that would eventually come), I wrote a one-chapter short story, “The Hybrid Hearts”, working from the idea that the Doctor was the Hybrid all along and all alone. Basically, he was able to be the Hybrid all along but never felt the need nor desire to use it (he was scared!), but when he was finally all alone in that confession dial he felt helpless enough to call upon it. Why doesn’t the universe start falling apart when he “saves” her? That’s the Hybrid’s power — if he burns enough hearts, say a few billion, he can hold the Web of Time together. For a while.
In the climax, he thinks about forcing not only a mind wipe on Clara to give her the safe life he felt he took from her as the Doctor, but fixing everything to give her the happiest life possible (give her back her mother, give her back Danny…). He’ll burn billions and billions more hearts, other hearts, to do it, it will all be worth it…but he can’t. So he tells a lie about the mind wipe device and gives up his memories and power. As a friend put it when she read it, he chooses to be the better man again.
As for S10, it’s been interesting to read BTL comments on the news of Capaldi’s coming departure this week. Some commenters, and even article writers, are arguing that we never truly got to “know” Twelve because so much of his story so far has been working out loose ends of Eleven’s (namely his relationships with Clara and, to a lesser extent, River), and he supposedly never got to carve out a personality of his own in the process the way Ten and Eleven did. Others feel Capaldi was just let down by bad scripts. There doesn’t seem to be the outpouring of laments I thought there would be for his departure — more head-shaking over wasted potential instead, with some wanting Chibnall to hurry up already and save the show.
It’s strange to see how many viewers seem to have missed/not appreciated how complex Twelve is. Has his character arc been too subtle? I still cringe to think of the “Doctor Who Ultimate Fan Panel” at last year’s Wizard World Chicago convention where half the room was no longer watching the show and even one of the panelists hadn’t seen Series 9. I detected the foul smell of ageism there.
It will be interesting to see where S10 and the followup Christmas show go, as Twelve’s last season. He is a man without a planet, without a sweetie, without a people. What is his journey leading up to? And how will Miss Bill Potts factor into it?
2 February 2017 at 13:36 #55374@ichabod, Deep thoughts indeed! Another work that discusses the idea of a long-lived alien learning from/adapting to humanity and its messiness is Walter Tevis’ novel The Man Who Fell to Earth, most famously, if freely, adapted as a 1976 film in which David Bowie played the title character. (It was his first major film role.) “Thomas Jerome Newton” is an alien who, in disguise, can pass as human. He comes to Earth with amazing technology from his homeworld, and becomes a tech billionaire to rival Gates or Zuckerberg. His grand, secret plan is to fund construction of an ark that will bring the rest of his people to our planet, for theirs is dying of terminal drought, and once they assimilate into society they will be able to set humanity on a better path than the one that destroyed their world. He has decades to work on this. It goes well at first, when he’s still a recluse ala Howard Hughes. Alas, he is introduced to often-painful emotions and vices on Earth once he starts really getting to know other people. Slowly he becomes addicted to television and alcohol, and in the film enters a romantic relationship as well. He becomes more emotive, more human, but it also sets him up for betrayal, abandonment, torment, and in the end tragic failure. He ends the story a lonely wreck, living out life with no purpose — but he’s not bitter, feeling that his kind might have done the same things to a human had the situation been reversed. (One of the Big Finish Eighth Doctor audio dramas, The Zygon Who Fell to Earth, is a deliberate variation on this story in which the main character is defying his people by choosing to give up galactic conquest in favor of a human life and love — which is to say, a more typical “humans are special” story.)
31 January 2017 at 18:02 #55333@missy (hugs) I heard the news about Capaldi leaving just after I got up and it soured my whole day! But beyond any issues with pay there might have been, I think he’s just ready to do (more) other stuff. The role has been part of his life since 2013 after all. I know some fans are wishing there hadn’t been such a long gap between Series 9 and 10 — then he might have felt up to doing 11, is the theory! But we have him for this year, don’t forget.
If Ben Whishaw gets the role, that means the Doctor’s going from Mr. Curry to Paddington Bear himself! 😀
31 January 2017 at 09:17 #55329@thane15 (hugs) Thank you, all of you.
31 January 2017 at 07:33 #55324(sniff) I’ve had a bad day…not just because of the news about the Twelfth Doctor’s final season, either. I still can’t find anyone in the “real world” who thinks as I do about the way things are going of late, who feels horror and sorrow. They just think I’ve let online liberals get to me, saying without words that I’m dumb and gullible. I don’t know what to do anymore….
31 January 2017 at 07:27 #55323(hmmm) I’ve been thinking about this story again in the last few days…
@thane15, among others, pointed out that the Doctor needed to let Clara go because he had become preoccupied with her and it was getting in the way of focusing on his own health and the needs of others. The Doctor devotes himself to saving as many people as he can, after all.
But his misery in the Series 9 endgame came precisely because he cared about others besides himself and Clara and was tired of losing people — not just her, although it certainly colored his melancholy. Think of how much better things would have been if he’d let Ashildr die, accepted that nothing could be done, as he had with O’Donnell in the previous episode (it would have been nice for the Doctor to defend himself over that). After all, battles come with losses. But the Doctor chose to live up to his name — and she proved unworthy of his kindness, his concern.
The Doctor could have chosen, given the information he had at the time, not to save Anah and thus let himself be trapped. But he did because Anahson needed her mother and (as far as he knew) Rigsy was in danger. How did they repay him? They did not even whack Mayor Me on the head and let him escape back to his TARDIS with his key!
And of course, the Time Lords proved backstabbing monsters. The “small” people of Gallifrey may have appreciated him, but would they have fought for him to save Clara had he asked? Would they have filled the empty space in his hearts her loss left? The Doctor may have broken every code he ever lived by in “Hell Bent”, but perhaps it’s because he realized that they were wrong. “To Hell with you!” 😀
Perhaps Davros was right — compassion is a weakness. I’ve certainly been feeling that way the past few days, as I’ve been chewed out by others and watched others get chewed out for not agreeing with the powers that be over what should become of the “little people” of the world, for being compassionate. In the real world, those who show compassion for everyone will never be powerful…but doomed to an existence of trying to help others for little or no reward or appreciation, of brooding over all that can’t be done. I suppose it’s not surprising that the Doctor suffers this way too. Why should he be any better off than the rest of us? 😉
31 January 2017 at 06:55 #55322Just woke up to the news. (sniff)
I’m trying to look on the bright side. Since this is Twelve’s final run of shows, logic dictates he has to have a happy finale, given how badly things went for him in in “Death in Heaven” and “Hell Bent”, where he was cheated out of the happy endings he earned with so much toil.
Perhaps at last the universe will pull together to prove it loves him, atoning for failing to be there for him in “Heaven Sent” and “Hell Bent”. Perhaps Missy, Rassilon, Ashildr/Me, Ohila, and all those who hurt or betrayed him will be mightily punished! Perhaps his mind wipe will be lifted and he’ll have a happy reunion with Clara. Perhaps he’ll find the Promised Land. Perhaps all the knees of Gallifrey will bow to him at last, instead of denying him his happiness and home. There’s so much potential!
30 January 2017 at 12:52 #55292(sigh) I really wish, right now, that I could find something to distract myself with. There isn’t much I can do about the way things have been going of late, but it’s hard not to focus on it either. But there’s been no fresh Who-news in a while, and none of this year’s big movies are exciting me… :/ Is there any major good news out there in the world?
24 January 2017 at 15:27 #55205@thane15 @missy @mudlark @winston @ichabod Thanks for all your support. (hugs) I wish I could do more than sign petitions and give to local and not-so-local charity groups.
22 January 2017 at 11:34 #55183(whew) All that ranting aside, I have found out through Tumblr that Peter Capaldi was at the London “branch” of the massive women’s rights march yesterday (Saturday), along with Elaine. 😉 See, the Doctor is on our side!
22 January 2017 at 11:25 #55182@janetteb @missy (hmmm) Thinking back on the Doctor’s story in Series 9, it’s hard to see what lesson to take from it that can apply to me in these grim times. As Missy tells Clara, and Clara points out to the Doctor later in that season, the Doctor always wins in the end because he goes into situations knowing that the way to win just needs to show itself. Go into the situation believing you will win, and you will, no matter how impossible it may look at first. It’s that attitude that helped him save Gallifrey, among other things, the simple belief in his own abilities.
So the Doctor does just that in “Heaven Sent” and “Hell Bent”. He goes into the situation with winning in mind — saving Clara and at least giving her a peaceful, happy life alone, and at most happiness with him — perhaps forever. He’s righting the wrongs that were done to her and to him by fighting fire with fire instead of reasoning with the unreasonable, because he knows from experience that’s doomed to failure (after all, would Rassilon have repented or the Time Lords have resurrected Clara if he’d just asked them?). But everybody throws him in metaphorical chains and tells him he can’t. The thing is, given his previous “impossible” feats, he could have given everyone a perfectly happy ending if they’d simply shown faith in him. They just don’t all of a sudden, not even Clara. In the end everybody wears him down, treating his suffering as insignificant compared to the greater good.
He decides — again — it’s better to serve others than himself, so he gives up, loses, and is deprived of even his right to grieve losing her. And he gets no reward for sacrificing the happiness he worked so hard for. No one hangs their head in shame at this act, one perhaps far nobler than any they ever made. Of course, he has to keep being a Doctor, even though everyone failed him when he needed them the most; even though he has apparently nowhere to turn for comfort because otherwise wouldn’t that have been shown? It’s just who (or Who) he is. It’s terribly noble, but for me extremely depressing right now.
It feels kind of like what I’ve been going through since the election — watching the “bad guys” rise to power and proving as incapable of humanity as I suspected, and constantly being told that no, I can’t change it by being good or bad. Like the Doctor I feel a compulsion to keep being good and helping others, no matter how futile it probably is. But unlike the Doctor, I have no happy “ending” on Darillium awaiting me come Christmas…
20 January 2017 at 19:30 #55173@thane15 @missy @alexwho Thank you for your kind words. @ichabod, I’m afraid I live in the middle of Illinois, so I don’t think phone conversations would be feasible. But being able to talk about things here does a bit of good in and of itself.
Yeah, I am trying to do kind and charitable things — not always easy under my circumstances — but it’s not like I wasn’t already doing them anyway so I just keep on keeping on. I’ve signed a few petitions, but I haven’t graduated to the “nagging the congressmen/representatives” stage just yet. It’s just hard not to feel helpless.
16 January 2017 at 19:21 #55146@janetteb, in the comic strip featured in Doctor Who Adventures — the kid-friendly tie-in magazine, as opposed to the more adult-oriented Doctor Who Magazine — Twelve is currently traveling with an alien, talking, even flying horse as a companion!
16 January 2017 at 17:50 #55145@missy I loved London too, the two times I visited (1995 and 2014).
How’s everyone in my country (the U.S.A.) handling all this icy weather, huh? 🙂
I’ve noticed a lot of anxiety for this year to come everywhere, including on these boards. I’ve been feeling it too — I was heartbroken by the presidential election. I’ve noted before that I’m an autistic woman. I live with my family still; I don’t drive but they carpool me to my job and elsewhere. “Real world” friends are hard to find where I live, due to a lack of support groups for autistics — or even clubs I would enjoy. It wouldn’t be so frustrating right now if not for the fact that my family holds different political views than I do, and was happy with the election results. I’m too sensitive to hold up in an argument with others, so I have to bottle up my emotions. I’m even hesitant to bring them up online. And forget about doing any volunteering to help causes I care about. (Who would take me?)
It’s disheartening to see how vitriolic the various sides of all these ideological conflicts are becoming both on and offline, and it’s hard to hold out hope for the future. Every day seems to bring more bad news from every side, even in the world of entertainment.
One reason I love Doctor Who is how it prizes brains over brawn, compassion over cruelty, but right now it’s hard to be inspired by Twelve’s struggles. He was raked over the coals at the end of Series 9, after all — the bad guys, the torturers and their enablers, effectively won…while he was abandoned, mentally ravaged, and denied his hard-won happiness. And I think, how much happier would he have been if he hadn’t been so determined to save others? If he hadn’t saved Gallifrey? If he hadn’t saved Ashildr? If he wasn’t a Doctor?
This struggle is turning up a lot in the real world. Those who show and encourage compassion are mocked and shunned, the needy and small are neglected, no one can be trusted, and the bullying and powerful always win in the end. If it is good to do good, to be a Doctor, why is it those people who get the short end of the straw?
13 January 2017 at 21:05 #55107@kharis I like your theories on who might have written on the chalkboard.
During Series 8 I wrote a poem playing with this sort of thing, in which the Doctor — having lost Clara for good — is alone in the TARDIS and brooding but then senses an invisible presence. He believes it must be the “Hider”, though it could just be his imagination again, and decides to tell it the story of him and Clara…
13 January 2017 at 20:43 #55106Wow, interesting conversation about the Doctor and his sorrow. I know I’m deeply affected by the wounds he has in his hearts and the cruelty he has experienced — look how much I wrote over in the “Hell Bent” thread! And I still haven’t brought myself to watch and cope with the feels in certain Series 8 episodes…especially the finale. I’ll get to them eventually, I think. It took me a long time to cope with “Logopolis” back in the day! 😉
I hope he does find more light in Series 10! We all need it now. In my case, I’m full of anxiety and frustration, but in my physical world — as opposed to the online one — I don’t have anyone to talk to about it, as my views are not the majority. (sigh)
3 January 2017 at 16:23 #55012Over at Tumblr, some fans noted that Mr. Huffle’s hair, all dark and done up, looks kind-of-sort-of like what we’ve seen of…Bill’s hair! Could it be foreshadowing of the help he needs coming along this spring? 😀
@missy, @ichabod, et.al. — Talking about kids and Doctor Who — in the United States, Doctor Who has never really treated as a show that has kid appeal. At least since cable really broke out and established programming niches, there’s a much stricter delineation between kids’ entertainment and adults’ entertainment on TV — once you hit your teens, you’re sort of expected to graduate to the “grown-up” shows on the other channels. I can’t think of a currently-running American show that would be classified as a “family drama” the way Who is (maybe Once Upon a Time?). There is more and more entertainment, especially in the animation medium, that’s erasing the distinctions — being suitable for children yet challenging enough for teens and adults — but it’s a slow process.
Certainly the way the merchandising is handled in the U.S. bears out these artificial distinctions — all of the tie-in books are inevitably stocked in the adult sci-fi/fantasy section at Barnes and Noble, even the ones very much intended for children like the Annuals and the Eleventh Doctor chapter books. I also think this is why the deliberately kid-friendly The Sarah Jane Adventures never found a proper home on U.S. TV — SciFi Channel viewers weren’t interested, but none of the American kids’ channels had a place for a dramatic half-hour live-action show. Oddly, back in the summer of 2015 Disney XD tried running NewWho starting with Series 2, but it was scheduled rather late on Saturday nights after their action cartoon block and they gave up on it midway through the Series 3 episodes (I think they stopped with “Family of Blood”). Were they scared that unsuspecting parents might have been put off by the content had it had more kid-friendly time slots?
I found it quite amusing that one of the posters in a recent issue of Doctor Who Adventures, the kid-oriented tie-in magazine of puzzles and whatnot, was of the fatally burnt, agonized Doctor making his way back to the teleportation chamber in “Heaven Sent” (the still of him slumped against the wall). The content and themes of “Heaven Sent” would be rejected out of hand by most U.S. producers trying to make “kid-friendly” entertainment, much less celebrated! 😀
26 December 2016 at 13:37 #54920I rather enjoyed this one! I would rank “The Husbands of River Song” above it as far as the Twelfth Doctor’s Christmas shows go — to be fair, I haven’t got around to “Last Christmas” yet so I can’t make a final ranking; shame on me — but “The Return of Doctor Mysterio” is definitely well worth the wait. And I think you’ll like it too @missy . There’s lots of fun and wonder in it.
By way of avoiding spoilers, I will say it’s definitely a “breather” episode, probably the most lighthearted Twelve story since “Robot of Sherwood”, the episode that got me into Twelve — a lot of laughs, but there is also heart. There’s the corny-in-a-fun-way relationship between Lucy and Grant/The Ghost, and we do get a few tender glimpses of the hearts beneath Twelve’s bluster. The closing sequence is truly lovely.
At this point Peter Capaldi is unstoppable — his first scene here will go down as one of the great Twelfth Doctor entrances. Other highlights include a marvelous bit involving a security camera, and even his famous “dad skills”! And I liked Nardole even more this time around; I’m looking forward to how that relationship will develop once Bill enters the picture.
It’s a special with laughs, heart, a few thrills, and even its own snacks! 😉
And yes! There’s a Series 10 teaser trailer at the end…I really do like how this season is being pitched as a fresh start, especially after so long, and yet we have a Doctor we know and love to guide the way. Can’t wait for April!
(Also, the ad breaks during the BBC America airing confirmed that Class will indeed make it to U.S. shores in the spring — they ran a preview.)
24 December 2016 at 16:58 #54900@missy Thank you!
I’m feeling a bit lonesome today myself. We have friends coming over to the “family homestead” tonight, but they all talk around me; I’m no good at small talk. A close family member spent part of this last week in the hospital with a concussion from a fall, though they’re recovering. And all the sour news in the world is casting a pall over the holidays. And I have to record “The Return of Doctor Mysterio” for later because I have to work that night! 😉
16 December 2016 at 15:05 #54881@missy, I didn’t attend Chicago TARDIS 2015 so I haven’t met Billie Piper yet. 😉 Actually this was the first Chicago TARDIS I attended since 2008, where everything went a little pear-shaped with the schedule and the lines were insanely long for the guests!
15 December 2016 at 13:54 #54877Oh, @missy — to answer your question, Chicago TARDIS, as a regional, fan-organized convention, can only get so many special guests from year to year — and Capaldi and the key creative team are busy filming right now, after all. Professional commitments always take precedence over conventions, unfortunately. Last year Jenna Coleman was all set to appear for the Saturday events (and just a week after “Face the Raven” aired!), but Victoria filming got in the way and she couldn’t make it. At least McGann, Samuel Anderson, Alex Kingston, Ingrid Oliver and Billie Piper were all there as the “backup team”, as it were! 😀
This year with Series 10 filming, the convention had to “settle” for Michelle Gomez and a bunch of old-school performers, and that’s cool too. I mean, I met John Leeson and Anneke Wills!
So far, no contemporary series Doctor has been at Chicago TARDIS, alas. Eccleston just doesn’t do cons of course, and Tennant and Smith are either busy with other projects or appearing at the professional, general sci-fi/fantasy conventions such as the Wizard World Comic Cons; they’re just that popular. But they do get a lot of supporting players and classic Doctors, plus plenty of folks from Big Finish. I’m hoping that with Series 10 airing in the spring, there will be some big names ready to go for the 2017 convention… 😉
15 December 2016 at 13:40 #54876Haven’t seen the clip, but I’ve read the story it features. The Twelve Doctors of Christmas book is a truly exceptional short story collection — there seem to have been quite a few of those lately (Time Lord Fairy Tales, the Ashildr and River Song anthologies, The American Adventures…) But this one is the best I’ve read of late. They had some of the top expanded universe writers work on this, and it shows; several stories cross over characters from the classic and contemporary series in creative ways. It’s aimed at kids, but it has a lot to offer adults.
13 December 2016 at 15:12 #54867I have largely avoided the trailers/clips right now because I want to preserve surprise and fun! I learned this from my experience with Series 9, which often revealed too much in the various promotional materials, especially in the last stretch of episodes. In fact, mostly avoiding THORS hype wound up being to my benefit…
13 December 2016 at 15:04 #54866Hey everybody! Finally managed to get back in here. I’ve been busy the past few weeks — and it’s not always easy to log into these forums!
Best wishes with the surgery @missy.
I attended the Chicago TARDIS convention over Thanksgiving weekend. Compared to the general-interest Wizard World Chicago, this was much more rewarding when it came to Who-related stuff. Alas, I learned too late that the video room was actually running the first few Class episodes in the late-night slots. I was busy with, among other things, the lovely reception for Michelle Gomez, who is also lovely.
There weren’t many discussion panels specific to the latest seasons this year, because Series 9 was just about to wrap up when last year’s convention (which I didn’t attend) was held and everybody had a chance to chew things over then, though there was a panel on what we’re hoping to see with Bill, and a retrospective on Clara’s time on the show. A lot of the panels were retrospectives — the First Doctor and Second Doctor eras each warranted a panel, as did the Cybermen (50th anniversary), K-9 (40th), and “The Trial of a Time Lord” (30th) — or discussed topics that apply to multiple eras of the show (companions returning after dramatic departures in the contemporary series; whether the Doctor is better with a single companion at a time or a “Team TARDIS”, etc.).
The special guest list definitely leaned towards the classic series after multiple new series performers (plus Paul McGann) headed up the 2015 convention. All of the companions represented came from the Fourth Doctor’s era or earlier, and Gomez was the only new series performer to attend. Everybody seemed happy to be there, both special guests and us common rabble.
One thing that was rather nice was that all eras of the show were given love, not just Ten and Eleven’s, which seems the case at general-interest sci-fi/fantasy conventions. Where I was the only person who dressed as (a genderbent) Twelve for Wizard World Chicago, there were several Twelve cosplayers here. For that matter, all of the Doctors bar One and War had at least one attendee dressed up as them! There were also a lot of great companion and villain cosplays (Missy was the most popular female character represented, though Clara and Osgood clearly have lots of fans too).
23 November 2016 at 20:43 #54798Happy Doctor Who Day!
@ichabod, You put Capaldi’s skill into words better than I ever could! @missy, I feel the same way about his work — the way he gets under the skin. Just a few minutes into “Robot of Sherwood”, the first Twelve episode I watched, and I wanted to give him all the hugs. “Listen” was even better in that regard. The pre-title sequence with Twelve’s monologue about the perfect hider is one of the most magical things I’ve ever seen on television.
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