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14 November 2016 at 16:47 #54738
Yeah, I’m pretty tired of superhero movies myself @ichabod. One reason I’m really looking forward to “The Return of Doctor Mysterio” is because it’s intriguing to ponder the Doctor, especially the Twelfth Doctor, in that kind of an environment. Maybe it would help if those and other “franchise” films weren’t the only movies out there in wide release these days! When I went to Wizard World Chicago in August, there was an all-trailer panel (which included the Doctor Strange trailer), and aside from the clip for Don’t Breathe (a horror film), all of them were franchise movies and they started blurring together after a while. The most distinct one of the bunch was The Lego Batman Movie, which looks like a lot of fun. 😀
Speaking of franchises and generic stuff…the full-length trailer for Disney’s live-action Beauty and the Beast remake, which opens in March, dropped today. Beauty is my favorite of the Disney animated features, and nothing about this remake is getting me particularly excited…
Also, headed out to see the “Power of the Daleks” reconstruction tonight! But I guess that technically isn’t a movie is it? 😉
13 November 2016 at 19:54 #54719@mudlark, the titles of both episodes certainly reference Clara, but the first at least can also be seen as referring to Davros’s relationship with the Twelfth Doctor! After all, Twelve feels deep guilt over abandoning young Davros and wondering if he didn’t set him on the awful path to villainy by mistake — as if he “taught” the boy a horrible lesson about survival at any price in a harsh world. (And boy did that get out of hand if he did!) Of course, the true lesson turns out to be something quite different.
13 November 2016 at 19:48 #54718I previously had posted a link to my Whovian poetry Tumblr Poems of an Unknown Companion, but in the discussion forum for “Hell Bent” I brought up a fanfic I recently completed posting that is set between that story and THORS. Having been reminded that this is the proper place for linking to that sort of thing (especially given the huge image link Tumblr provides!), the first chapter of “What You Hold in Your Hand”, a 16-chapter story, can be reached from the following link:
13 November 2016 at 19:41 #54717Sorry about that @pedant. (I had thought it would just come out as a little text link for anyone who might be interested, given the discussion, not a whole image to click on. In hindsight I should have just moved it over upon seeing that.)
13 November 2016 at 16:44 #54714@ichabod, Thank you for your compliments and insightful commentary. Yes, pain is a part of life but it sets off the joys and can be used constructively, to make something better. It took me a while to come up with a title for my fanfic but the amending of the Doctor’s speech in the late going, much the way he amended his credo in “Hell Bent”, wound up suggesting the best one.
(Also, I’m sorry to hear you’re down about the Powers That Be. I’ve never had anything drive me to drink, but I understand the gloom right now.)
12 November 2016 at 04:17 #5469311 November 2016 at 19:14 #54687In the meantime, some of you may recall the announcement a few weeks back of a new set of children’s picture books that are an (authorized!) combination of the famous Mr. Men series and Doctor Who, featuring the numbered Doctors. A preview of the first book, Dr. First, has just been released, and it looks adorable.
http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-doctor-is-an-adorable-grump-in-the-first-look-insid-1788865002
(This and three other books come out in April; the other Doctors covered in this first wave are Four, Eleven, and Twelve. The other numbered Doctors will get their own books later.)
11 November 2016 at 16:42 #54686@janetteb On Friday November 18th a preview scene from “The Return of Doctor Mysterio” will air as part of the BBC Children in Need telethon.
I do agree that details of Series 10 have been unusually stingy. As far as recurring characters and plot threads go, at this point it seems that the Daleks will be back and Missy will definitely return, probably in the season’s back half. I know a lot of fans feel Gallifrey got short shrift in “Hell Bent”, and want to see the Doctor get back there.
What’s most intriguing is that the Twelfth Doctor is in need of an overarching story for his tenure. Ten came to terms with being the last of the Time Lords, and it turned out that Eleven’s troubles all went back to his saving Gallifrey. Twelve’s lost a true love in Clara and he’s returned to Gallifrey and left again, so where does he go from here? What will be his great triumph, the moment when he finally gets a glorious happy ending to compare with “The Day of the Doctor”‘s? Will he find an even greater love? Stop the Time War from ever restarting? Defeat Missy, the Daleks, or some other recurring enemy for all time? Find the Promised Land and reassurance that all his suffering will be rewarded in the end? So many questions! 😉
11 November 2016 at 16:37 #54685By the by — since I can’t seem to edit my previous post — I was pretty happy with “Hell Bent”‘s ending when I first saw it; having it be followed by “The Husbands of River Song” helped. I understood why the Doctor couldn’t have what he wanted and how things would be better for him now. It was about a month-and-a-half later that I started having my doubts about how the Doctor made out in the end. I was having a bad day, thinking about all the crumminess in the world, and I tried looking to the Doctor’s trials in Series 9 for inspiration in these dark days. And suddenly I started finding weak spots to poke at. Autistic people are very good at spotting logic holes, etc., and wondering why things work out one way when they could easily work out another, especially if people could just act with compassion. The ending didn’t have him experiencing catharsis for everything he suffered through, and the time skip between this and THORS means I didn’t get to see that at a later date. Some kind of additional episode or scene (i.e., the Doctor returning to Karn to hash things out with Ohila, who admits that she was wrong too by not acknowledging his pain and suffering and trying to help him) could have allowed for catharsis. Maybe they’ll do a flashback episode in Series 10 to fill in the holes? 😉
Phew, I am rambling today! Trying to keep my mind off other things, I guess… 😉
11 November 2016 at 16:03 #54684@mudlark I wouldn’t say the Doctor forfeited any sympathy from the General and Ohila in his actions. It is not inherently wrong, after all, to fight injustice and evil and the cold hand of the grave. “Do not go gentle into that good night”, remember. Desperate times, desperate measures. Also, there’s the whole fact that he’s pretty much legitimately mentally ill by this point…so he deserves some sympathy.
Also — the Doctor goes into things with the assumption that he’ll win, and more often than not he does. If everybody, Clara included, had just given him the time he needed, shown trust and faith in his abilities, he would have won in a way that would make everybody happy. He’s rebooted the universe and saved Gallifrey, after all. It’s just a matter of having faith, hope, and love in the end. And he certainly had all of those. Perhaps it was just a matter of waiting on the miracle and willing it to be. It would have been a wonderful conclusion to the story arc — the Doctor wins in the end, just as Clara knew all along in “Face the Raven”; her death was just a dark night needed to make the dawn brighter. But he didn’t get his miracle because no one else had faith.
Ah, when will the Twelfth Doctor have his Day? 😉
11 November 2016 at 13:00 #54681@thane15, the four examples are valid…but all but “The Husbands of River Song” happen to previous Doctors, not Twelve. Sure, Clara loves him, but as he’s had no other companions thus far*, no one else in the universe truly loves Twelve for himself aside from River. Just about everybody was picking on him in Series 8 (Clara, Danny, et.al.), at a time when he was very vulnerable, and then he keeps getting chewed out by others (Bennett, Ashildr, Ohila, the General) in Series 9 too. He saves people despite the odds, he gets picked on. He doesn’t save people because his hands are tied, he gets picked on. And despite saving the universe in both season finales by choosing to give up the easy path to happiness both times (his own army in 8, Clara forever in 9), he’s not rewarded.
All his happy adventures take place offscreen, as @mudlark points out. Maybe Series 9 would have been better had “Sleep No More” been put off for later, and the finale three-parter not actually been the finale. Leave one episode over for airing after “Hell Bent”: A joyous story about him healing after his bad experiences. Now THAT would have been a finale! 😉
If he is loved by so many, if they would do anything for him, then where were they in his darkest hours? Clara declared that no one would suffer when she died, but as the Doctor warned her, he did. Rigsy, Anahson and her mum — none of them stopped him from being teleported away by the backstabber Ashildr. No one was there for him in the dial, of course, not even his TARDIS. And once he escaped, though he was appreciated by his fellow Gallifreyans and able to unseat Rassilon, no one even considered he was in great emotional pain in the wake of his horrible torture — except Clara, and she had to be brought back from the grave for that to happen! Who stood by him and said, in response to his question to Ohila, “Yes, you ARE owed this and we will pay our terrible debt, amend our terrible failure to help you then, by helping you now”? No one.
I know it’s true the Doctor and Clara’s relationship had to end sometime, though I don’t think it “ruined” either of them. It’s true that Clara’s doom came as a result of her becoming more like the Doctor, or perhaps just more herself, but she handled it well when it came. As for the Doctor, had he been given a chance to heal himself and mourn, instead of being plunged into the cruel torture of the confession dial immediately, perhaps he would have not become so sick that he needed a virtual lobotomy to move on. (Incidentally, I think a “better” fate for Ashildr would have been for the Doctor to leave her to die at the end of time, alone and unloved, as he was for so long. Poetic justice, though she’ll only die once instead of billions of times over. As it is, there’s no reason for him to let her follow him onto the second TARDIS.)
Again though, there’s that sad question: “What’s the point of being a Doctor if I can’t cure you?” She never did answer that, and the story never gives us a reason why he decides to be the Doctor again aside from “He must.” His joys just seem too fleeting for the sorrow it takes to get them. 4 and 1/2 billion years of suffering is a long time…
(sigh) I’m sorry to be so cynical and questioning, but I’ve known, on a smaller scale, what it’s like to be emotionally abandoned by almost everyone who claims to care about me; I had a very bleak adolescence for a while as an autistic victim of bullies. I strive to be a Doctor-y person myself, in my own small, cautious ways, but again and again my idealism comes up against the azbantium wall of reality, especially now.
All that said though…@ichabod, I have tried to find other ways around this frustration, at least where the show is concerned. You noted that the Doctor needed time to heal on his own before he could have more wacky adventures. Well, last month I finished posting a fanfic to Tumblr, an ultimately happy fanfic, that is about his healing process, though he’s not exactly alone in it! It’s called “What You Hold in Your Hand”, and anyone who’d like to read it can see the first chapter (of sixteen) here:
Thanks for all your thoughtful comments, even though I’m stubborn as a mule when it comes to opinions!
*At least in the televised continuity; he does go through several short-term companions in the various comics being published right now.
10 November 2016 at 11:18 #54662@ichabod I see what you mean about tragedy having “its own rewards and gratifications”, but Twelve’s season finales thus far don’t have that. He’s always lonely and sad at the end of them, getting nothing in return for his suffering and sacrifice. He gives up what could make him happy — the chance to end all injustice in the universe, potentially-endless life with Clara — in exchange for…what?
(sigh) I’m sorry to be in such a glum mood, but I’m so frustrated by the disappointments of the real world on my best days, and with seemingly everybody online dour and grim of late about the state of things, it’s hard to take much hope from the Doctor’s recent struggles.
Also @mudlark, I’m not sure the Doctor finding a new companion at the end of “Hell Bent” need have been bathetic. Perhaps it could have been framed as the grateful universe stepping in to rectify the injustice of his recent suffering at last. Guiding someone to the TARDIS door… 😉
8 November 2016 at 15:56 #54602@mudlark, @thane15 : No, I don’t feel bothered by long posts or people expressing opinions contrary to mine. I am asking questions, and I appreciate people putting real thought into their answers.
It’s not that I don’t/can’t accept sad and bittersweet endings turning up in Doctor Who, but it might be easier to take them if there were more stories — at least in Twelve’s tenure — that truly ended happily for him on a personal level. Both of his season finales so far (“Death in Heaven” and “Hell Bent”) end badly for him in that regard; he ends up lonely and bereft when there’s no reason he has to. Certainly he does nothing to deserve loneliness.
I think a flaw of the very fine Series 9 was that because it focused on multi-part stories, it didn’t allow for a lot of sunny outcomes or joy. All along, the Doctor did his best to do the right thing whenever he could, even if it caused further problems down the line; to act with compassion. He saved young Davros, saved the Viking village and then Ashildr, stopped the human-Zygon war. But in the end his compassion was not returned to him when he needed it. When he was sick and in prison, no one came to his aid; he was abandoned to suffer. Compassion did almost destroy him. If he had left the boy, the villagers, the girl, everyone to likely unhappy fates…he would have had his Clara, and they could have still had wonderful adventures together. But because, even when ready to to toss his principles away, he always came back in the end to the side of right…he ended up lonely.
Why didn’t he go back to Gallifrey and at least have his home again? What could the people who will forever owe their lives to him hold against him, after his suffering thanks to their evil leaders? It ruins the ending of “The Day of the Doctor” — Gallifrey was not worth saving and returning to after all.
It’s nice to think that those who look out only for themselves are sociopathic and rare, @mudlark, but a glance at the sorry state our real world is in proves that truly compassionate people who cannot shut their ears and eyes to the suffering are few. Plenty of people go through lives with cold hearts and minds. And those who do care are borne down by the weight of all the good they can do that seems to do so little, and all the good they cannot do.
I happen to be autistic, and I’m a rather empathetic person. It is very hard to deal with a world that lacks in empathy and compassion. One reason I love the character of the Doctor so much is because he is compassionate.
So, while I know he can’t have happy endings all the time…it would help if he had them more often.
(Deposits 2 cents)
4 November 2016 at 20:24 #54559Thanks for all the comments!
@ichabod, I was thinking that the choice the Doctor could make at the end of “Hell Bent” was to keep traveling the universe, but stop caring about what happens to the others he encounters. Just enjoy life, and look out for himself, not others — if there’s trouble, just escape as soon as he can. That’s the path to pain, every time. Caring.
@mudlark, if it’s so important he has companions to keep him grounded, why was it wrong for him to want Clara back? Nobody on Gallifrey was stepping up to the plate, volunteering to travel with him. That’s one of the oddest things about the arc — it shows how hard things get for him without a companion, and yet he doesn’t get Clara back or get a new one in the course of the story. How hard would it have been for him to meet a new companion at the end?
And as for the Doctor being loved and appreciated, then why was he stuck in the dial so long? Didn’t anybody who knew he was in trouble, at least a captive, have the guts to do something, to raise an alarm, to get help? The whole universe failed to be there for him. Or, once he was out, why didn’t everyone band together to give him what he wanted, knowing he’d earned it?
2 November 2016 at 16:39 #54514@severusoswald Well, yeah, I see where he needed to do that! It’s just that he doesn’t have anything to move on to at the end, and no reason to keep being the Doctor. The whole sad experience just goes to show why he shouldn’t be the Doctor…because it will always leave him lonely, unappreciated, and unrewarded in the end.
2 November 2016 at 16:26 #54512Looking at these comments…I see where many fans found this ending satisfying, but I still feel a deep dissatisfaction with the end of the Doctor’s Series 9 arc (not counting the Christmas show, which I loved).
Basically, the Doctor suffered so unjustly, for so long, and for no good reason…and he slaved away to get a happy ending for himself, enduring all the cruelty thrown at him. Now, given that the Doctor has managed to reboot the universe and save Gallifrey when even he didn’t think it possible, there’s no reason he couldn’t have saved Clara…or better yet, others help him save Clara. But everybody keeps being ungrateful to him instead of helping him do so. Or, perhaps Ohila, the General, etc. might have shown him the compassion and mercy and forgiveness he shows to so many others, bringing that aspect of the arc full circle. Bringing him out of the darkness and back to his best self with love and kindness. (I also disagree that Ohila and the Doctor understand each other completely, because she does not accept that he is owed his happiness, that he was wronged. Had there been an ending showing them reconciling that could have made a big difference.)
In any case…after he gives up his chance at happiness and lets Clara go….why does he choose to keep being the Doctor in the end? What he goes through in this story arc goes to show that nobody appreciates his work. Nobody gives him a miracle when he needs it. Nobody’s there for him in his dark time in the confession dial. Ergo, nobody truly loves him.
Why should he keep helping this rotten, stinking universe when his life boils down to little more than loss and loneliness for his trouble? One can say he simply feels it’s best to do right, but he gains no lasting, true satisfaction from it, certainly not enough joy to stave off the pain of everything he must give up to do so, including those he loves. Joy is fleeting, sorrow forever.
It’s all so Sisyphean…why should anyone do good, if they must face so much more sorrow for it than they would if they didn’t care about others?
If the episode had answered that question, it could have made a world of difference…(sigh) Your thoughts?
5 October 2016 at 15:01 #54098As a note for U.S. Whovians — Class does start airing this month in the U.K., but not in the U.S. BBC America has decided to run it alongside Series 10 of Doctor Who next spring.
20 September 2016 at 13:11 #53976@missy Hey, Missy, here are my own thoughts on the matter of the Hybrid, working from the show and all…perhaps it will help you.
We do know that the Doctor learned something about the Hybrid prophecy as a youth, in the Cloisters, but not exactly what. It may indeed have been as he claimed — that he knew no more, in the end, about its identity than anyone else did.
What the show’s explanation (seems to) be:
In the original shooting script of “Heaven Sent”, Me is capitalized in its final line, and the Doctor goes on to claim to Ashildr that she is the Hybrid. She is the last person standing in the universe at the end of all time, the conqueror of Gallifrey by default, standing in its ruins (specifically the ruins of the Cloisters, which are exposed to the elements all those years later).
But she argues that she’s really only a technical hybrid, and goes on to propose it’s either the Doctor himself — that perhaps he’s not a full-blooded Gallifreyan — or the Doctor and Clara together, suggesting the prophecy actually, if cryptically, referred to two people instead of one. She points out that Missy brought the two together to cause the Doctor grief. They had so much in common with each other (a need for adventure, a drive to help others, recklessness, dishonesty, etc.) and grew so close that they eventually, if unintentionally, egged each other on to increasingly risky heroics, which culminated in Clara’s unjust demise, which was the sort of sacrifice the Doctor might make, only it was one she couldn’t return from as he could. They had both become warriors for the sake of the side of right.
From there, the Doctor — who blamed himself for her death as much as he blamed anyone else — couldn’t bear her loss. (Although, and it bothers me that this wasn’t brought up, he might have had a fighting chance if not for the whole confession dial ordeal.) He decided he would do anything beyond reason and even his moral code to bring her back from the grave, even if he couldn’t actually keep her by his side since he’d have to keep her safe from the Time Lords. And that meant doing what the prophecy of the Hybrid foretold — he bloodlessly conquered Gallifrey on the basis of his reputation as a warrior in the Time War, burnt a billion billion of his own hearts in the confession dial to find a way out, began to unravel the web of time by extracting Clara from the moment of her death, and finally stood in Gallifrey’s ruins himself!
Now, since he wouldn’t have done all of this if he didn’t care for Clara so much — if their love hadn’t brought out the worst in each other — it is understandable to see that the two of them together were the Hybrid, thus fulfilling the prophecy. This was why he knew they not only couldn’t stay together, but one couldn’t even remember the other because it risked further desperate deeds on one or both their parts.
My personal interpretation
However, as he begins to swoon under the mind wipe, the Doctor says “I became the Hybrid.” Singular. My personal take is that, indeed, the Doctor himself became the Hybrid through his actions. Clara may have become like him, and they did go to great lengths for each other — and others — but she told him not to lose himself as she prepared to head to her fate, which she accepted, and was horrified by the desperate, universe-risking lengths he went to. She certainly did not think her life was worth risking the Web of Time or burning a billion billion hearts….
The Hybrid was destined to do what it did because it had to heal its heart(s). Her heart did not need healing…but his did. And he couldn’t find a rational way to heal himself, as she instructed, and no one on Gallifrey even acknowledged his sorrow….and if “the Doctor is not here, you are stuck with me”? Well, the Doctor doesn’t use his birth name anymore…so if “he can’t be the Doctor all the time”…all that might be left is…Me. The Hybrid.
Missy told the Doctor back in “The Witch’s Familiar” that “Everyone’s a hybrid” — of good and evil. Well, there are a lot of doctors in the universe, but then there’s THE Doctor, the definitive article you might say. The Doctor is THE Doctor, so perhaps in this story, as his good and evil sides alternately warred and collaborated with each other, he became THE Hybrid. But in the end, he chose to be the Doctor again…and answered the question of whether the Hybrid would be a force for good or evil, peace or destruction. In the end, it was a force for goodness and peace.
15 September 2016 at 00:15 #53934According to a press release Blogtor Who reported on today, Class will air in October in the U.K.
12 September 2016 at 18:16 #53919I myself thought the Beeb did mishandle Series 9 in some respects — they shouldn’t have started in September when all the live shows (rugby, X Factor) were running, the post-8 pm time slot in the U.K. was late for families, and then they let loose those massive spoilers about the finale three-parter after doing a good job of misdirection going into the Series 8 finale (i.e. the Next Time trailer for “Dark Water” suggesting Clara was the major antagonist). And then when they did do some misdirection over the focus of “Hell Bent”, all the fans who apparently wanted a “Doctor gets revenge on the Time Lords” story got upset when it was really about the endgame of his and Clara’s relationship.
With regard to launching Series 10 in spring, it won’t be as competitive ratings-wise, and the first few seasons ran at least partially then anyway. Hopefully it will get a big promotional push, given that they’ve mostly sat out conventions, etc. this year.
As for Class, I’ve read that they have finished filming, but no release date has been given.
12 September 2016 at 18:06 #53918Well, 12 did once say he’s made a lot of mistakes in his lives and it was time he did something about them… 😉
7 September 2016 at 17:56 #53863I love this news! And so awesome that BBC America will air it.
Meanwhile the Supremacy of the Cybermen comic miniseries continues to proceed at a snail’s pace. Had things gone as advertised, the story would have been wrapped up by now, but Part Three of five only arrives next week. In the end, this whole thing is already a major letdown for me — unless something huge happens soon, the plot isn’t a proper crossover of Doctors, just a story where each one does their thing in a different altered timeline that will be reset at the end. Such a shame, as George Mann and Cavan Scott’s scripts for Twelve’s solo comic are terrific.
7 September 2016 at 17:50 #53862Yeah, it’s a fez. Someone at TVTropes playfully suggested that maybe one reason River took so long to realize Twelve was the Doctor was because he didn’t immediately snatch it up and put it on! 😀
@pedant I was chatting on Tumblr with a fellow fan on the “most important companion” question and she said that every companion the Doctor’s ever had is the most important of all because each one has an impact on his life, and helps make him a better man, and moves him towards the point he meets the next one…and the next…and the next…and the next. So in a way they’re all heroes, no matter how big or small their actions are.
24 August 2016 at 22:12 #53771Sorry I didn’t reply to all of you earlier — but your posts make me feel a lot better! Thanks!
Also @puroandson (PuroSolo in particular), I think of “Listen” as another example of a “magical” Twelve-era story. It’s darker than most, but it’s full of wonder and mystery and, at the end, tenderness. I think that was the one that cemented my love of Twelve.
Thanks again!
23 August 2016 at 12:40 #53737@ichabod Hear hear!
I spent this past weekend at Wizard World Comic Con in Chicago. I had a great time but there was some disappointment…even at the Doctor Who fan panel, there weren’t a lot of Twelve fans out and about, but there was chatter about how the show wasn’t as “magical” anymore, too dark and gloomy. I felt heartsick to be at a panel where I felt left out. It’s nice to be back here where my love of Twelve is seen as acceptable. 😉
Some people still don’t see him, I guess…
10 August 2016 at 20:50 #53644I was over at comic book artist Rachael Stott’s Tumblr a few minutes ago. She is one of the current artists on Titan’s Twelfth Doctor title — she’s the best artist working on it, IMO — and at her Tumblr she sometimes posts original art and even the occasional cute comic of Twelve. This one she just posted is a very funny salute to the first companion departure…(on the page, click to enlarge it)
10 August 2016 at 16:44 #53642@jimthefish and @janette True, true. Still — he had a point when he asked if he was owed the chance to save Clara. He’s done so much good for so many others, and when he asks for so little in return, he doesn’t get it! I’d say he has a lot of debts to collect upon — especially after the confession dial torment. (Rotten old Time Lords!) Maybe he can’t have peace…but at least he can finally know eternal happiness someday, can’t he? 😉
@jimthefish You’ll probably be waiting quite a while for the trade edition of Supremacy of the Cybermen. Part Two was supposed to be released on July 20, but it’s been rescheduled for next Wednesday (August 17). And there are three more parts to go after that. Titan Comics really botched this one — I would have thought they’d get their “big” event series for the year out on time, but nope. What’s really sad is that it probably won’t be good enough to make up for the endless delays (Part One’s pretty much just scene-setting, and the Doctors aren’t even close to getting together as yet); it might have been great fun released over 10 weeks as advertised, but over several months…(sigh) Hopefully I’m wrong, but I have a hunch most of Part Two will be more scene-setting and backstory.
9 August 2016 at 17:25 #53634@janetteb, I agree that it’s frustrating having no new Who to discuss. Perhaps there should be a thread to talk about expanded universe stuff like the novels and comics? There’s plenty of that out there still. 😉 I am getting so impatient for Series 10 and more of the Twelfth Doctor and getting to know Bill…
9 August 2016 at 15:20 #53633@jimthefish, Talk about sympathy for the devil! 😀
It will be interesting to see where it goes. Maybe Gallifrey is done and dusted, though already the Titan comics are playing with it in “Supremacy of the Cybermen”. Maybe it’s not the real Promised Land and it’s something, someplace else where the Doctor will finally find peace…
9 August 2016 at 11:47 #53629Over at Tumblr there was a poster who argued that Clara is the most powerful hero in Doctor Who history because she kept the Eleventh Doctor from dying — and thus allowed him to finally make his date with River Song on Darillium as Twelve. After all, Eleven didn’t have any more regenerations when he went to Trenzalore in “The Time of the Doctor”…and he couldn’t leave…so how was he to make the meeting after getting out of it in the “Last Night” short? The Eleventh Doctor almost created a universe-destroying paradox because he couldn’t accept the end of his time with River, is the thinking.
Now I haven’t seen many Eleventh Doctor stories but I’ve read plot synopses. Question: Who’s to say the Eleventh Doctor didn’t already know that he wasn’t going to die on Trenzalore after all?
Conjecture: His whole story arc turned out to stem from he and ALL of his other lives, including Twelve’s, banding together to save Gallifrey. Twelve could not have existed unless he were given a miracle to have more lives. Which came from the Time Lords. Who only survived because Twelve helped his other lives save Gallifrey, a classic stable time loop situation. So Eleven knew he was going to keep living somehow; he just had to wait things out and let a miracle come to pass and not let others, i.e. Clara, know what he already knew.
Does this make sense? 😉
8 August 2016 at 18:31 #53617Getting back to “Face the Raven”, one thing I only recently thought of that makes this story even sadder, and the Doctor’s actions throughout Series 9 more understandable:
By this point, both the Doctor and Clara know there isn’t an afterlife in the Whoniverse. When one is dead, they’re dead; dirt in the ground, smoke on the wind. No “promised land” waiting, except the false one that was the Nethersphere. (I’m surprised the Doctor never mentioned that to Ashildr. He may have trapped her in life, but consider the Cyber-alternative…) So the Doctor couldn’t assure himself that Clara would be in a better place. Maybe that’s why he was starting to get more concerned about not losing people he cared about — especially her.
When one considers that Torchwood suggests there’s nothing, or nothing good, on the other side as well…well, it’s harder to blame the Doctor, really. There’s nothing beyond the veil in the Whoniverse, unless I’ve missed something…
Actually, given the heaven/hell and death motifs in his tenure thus far, perhaps the Twelfth Doctor’s “big” arc will finally reveal there is a real promised land and give him something to work towards/look forward to?
2 August 2016 at 14:55 #53526Hi new guy! I know I can’t wait for Series 10 either. Well, I can wait, but I don’t want to. 😉 Thank goodness for the expanded universe stuff (books, audios, comics, etc.)…
2 August 2016 at 14:53 #53525Well @time-lord-alvey, remember that the diner TARDIS in hindsight is the diner Eleven and his friends visit in “The Impossible Astronaut”! Obviously Clara and Me were making sure the Great Intelligence wasn’t poking his nose into a particularly important time in the Doctor’s timeline! 😉 (Jenna Coleman was recently asked about returning to the show at some point; she said she wouldn’t rule it out, but it wouldn’t be for a while. But given that past companions tend to turn up when a Doctor’s about to regenerate, I think it will happen eventually and we’ll get an update on the whole business.)
I can’t get enough of what a great couple Twelve and River made either. 🙂
1 August 2016 at 13:08 #53517Also, if I’m to say that Clara wants to have it all, it’s only fair to say the Doctor tries to have it all too — he’s so restless, jumping from place to place, when sometimes he and others would be served better by slowing down and seeing through the aftermath of his heroics. 😉
One of the best stories so far in the Titan Comics’ Twelfth Doctor title was the four-parter “Clara Oswald and the School of Death”, which is sort of a finale for her in the comic (after a one-off story in the next issue that also featured her, the comic moved on to post-Series 9 stories for Twelve). It’s set sometime between “The Zygon Inversion” and “Face the Raven” (it takes place at a school called Ravenscaur, even) and she is effectively the lead; she takes up the adventure of her own initiative, and as in “Flatline” she even gets temporary companions. Twelve is mostly comedy relief until midway through Part Three, and even then his role for the remainder of the story is more giving Clara and the others an extra boost of help than to save the day himself. I thought it was a great way to see the character off in the comic, by paying tribute to how much of a heroine she’d become in a story that has an unambiguously happy ending, albeit with a bit of after-the-fact foreshadowing for her televised fate.
1 August 2016 at 12:54 #53516@puroandson and @ichabod, you both make excellent points. While Clara made mistakes on a personal level, like the Doctor she learned from them, and when it came to adventuring she was never anything less than brave and intelligent — though she could be foolhardy at times, just like the Doctor. 😉 I agree that she got a harder time from much of the fanbase than she should have, and that it reflects larger problems in popular culture when it comes to how female characters are depicted. I just tend to identify with the Doctor more than the companions, so he tends to draw away my attention. 😉
(Also, I didn’t mean to imply that the Doctor’s insensitive remarks were okay — just that they didn’t necessarily come from a mocking/mean place. But like a child who bluntly says out loud that the person ahead of his family in the checkout line is fat, he certainly needed to (re)learn to filter the pathway from his brain to his mouth. At the very least, he did deserve that smack upside the head from Clara when he was spooking out poor Rupert Pink!) 😀
31 July 2016 at 21:52 #53505Welcome @trillianwho — that is a pretty neat theory, that the Doctor literally can’t say his name for some reason.
@thedentistofdavros — The people mentioned in “The Invasion of Time” are called Shobogans — apparently regarded as hoodlums by the Time Lords. I agree that with what we’ve been given in the televised canon over the years, it would seem that not every Gallifreyan becomes a Time Lord, but I’m not sure how the regeneration issue works out. A lot of the Doctor and show’s mythology only evolved over time, after all, and there seems to be hesitation about revealing too much of his pre-show backstory at this point. Back in the 1990s, the New Adventures novels worked from some ideas that were being floated in the original show’s final years, and the authors came up with, on their own, a ton of new information about Gallifrey and the Time Lords — such as that they were sterile and new Gallifreyans were effectively test tube babies, and that the Doctor was something of a genetic reincarnation of a forgotten co-founder of Time Lord society — but that’s pretty much been ditched by “official” continuity. They do want to keep some mystery about him, after all. 😉
31 July 2016 at 21:34 #53504Yeah — I agree about how powerful a character the Doctor is. My favorites, Four and Twelve, are so compelling that I can tolerate flawed scripts, secondary characters, etc….even if I nitpick them later! 😉
I actually became interested in Who with the 1996 TV movie. It’s not great Who, but the Eighth Doctor was an intriguing character, and it worked as an introduction to the bigger picture and all the other awesome Doctors. That says a lot.
31 July 2016 at 21:28 #53503Hey @trillianwho!
I confess that Clara was a hit-and-miss companion for me. I haven’t seen any of her episodes with Eleven, mind, but I’ve seen most of her work with Twelve. On the one hand, she did have an interesting character arc as she became something of a distaff counterpart to the Doctor, something few companions in the old or new series ever develop into (the only one I can think of offhand would be Romana). On the other hand, in Series 8 her negative traits seemed to dominate — her control freak tendencies and chronic dishonesty towards both of the men in her life just because she wants to have it all (the kind of lies the Doctor has to spin when he’s got a plan in mind are one thing…but lies solely for personal/emotional gain are another; maybe that’s just me) especially. She could also be really insensitive to both of them, particularly Twelve. Twelve gets picked on for his comments about her appearance, but his insensitivity comes off as blunt honesty and confusion gone awry; her comments about his appearance — “grey-haired stick insect”, etc. — seem a lot meaner. This wasn’t so much of an issue in Series 9, where she is more Doctor-esque for good and for ill, culminating in her tragic death (and then second “life”), and she and the show both benefited for it.
Jenna Coleman is a fine actress (if only because she was also Bonnie the Zygon!), but a Cracked article comparing companions in that site’s usual snarky manner may have had a point when the writer said Clara came off like a refugee from a Disney Channel tween sitcom (“That’s So Clara!”). Her line delivery, in particular, could be on the broad side. But this, again, wasn’t so much of an issue in Series 9 — and she had great chemistry with Peter Capaldi. In the end, I cared about her fate more because it was affecting the Doctor so, so badly than for her alone, but still.
I went to a sci-fi/fantasy/horror convention in Las Vegas this past March and there was a great panel discussion of “The Women of Doctor Who“. 45 minutes was not enough time for that topic! It focused on the prospect of a female Doctor and the awesomeness of Missy, Amy Pond, and River Song (the panelists were big fans of “The Husbands of River Song” especially) in turn, plus some fond remembrances of (IIRC) Sarah Jane Smith, Leela, Ace, Martha Jones, and especially Donna Noble.* Finally they opened the floor to questions and I brought up Clara (specifically, whether her bittersweetly happy ending in “Hell Bent” came at the expense of what might have been a more emotionally cathartic one for the Doctor). A panelist joked, “Are we gonna go from ‘Everyone loves Donna’ to ‘Everyone hates Clara’?” The resultant discussion wasn’t that negative, but I think that was telling! As were the groans when someone else brought up Ashildr…. So like you @trillianwho there are plenty of folks waiting to see what Twelve can do with a fresh companion.
*Talking with a pair of friendly ladies after the panel, they were amazed that Rose wasn’t brought up at all!
28 July 2016 at 16:30 #53454Hi! Looking over these comments — I agree that the character/story arc of Series 8 is strong and thoughtfully drawn conceptually (Danny and his concern for Clara, the Doctor and his identity crisis, etc.); it was just bumpy in its execution at times. Also, glad to hear you’re feeling better @ichabod .
25 July 2016 at 13:37 #53431@puroandson The negativity surrounding a lot of reviews, etc. of Series 8 initially scared me off from it, and when I finally saw it I was heartbroken to have not given it a chance sooner! I think it’s terribly underrated, in fact. It does have rough spots — a little more script polishing might have worked wonders — but the story arc of the Doctor and Clara’s evolving relationship is compelling, Danny is a worthwhile character if not a favorite of mine (I have a friend who wishes he hadn’t died simply because he had an interesting, fresh perspective on the usual space-time hijinks) and the even better Series 9 is clearly built on its foundation. That says a lot right there!
@missy Hey, we fans have to stick together! There’s too much negativity these days. Better to be positive and respectful of opinions! I love this forum for that.
24 July 2016 at 20:54 #53417@missy I’ll protect you! I wasn’t a big fan of Danny either; Series 8 just didn’t need to give over sooooo much time to a romantic subplot. Clara adjusting to the new Doctor, and the Doctor having his identity crisis of sorts, could have been enough. Still, it was tolerable. (I think Samuel Anderson was put to better use in some of the audiobooks — he was the reader for “Lights Out”, the terrific Twelfth Doctor short story that appears in the “12 Doctors 12 Stories” anthology.)
23 July 2016 at 22:50 #53410Hey @ichabod, since you asked…
Each autistic person’s condition manifests itself in a unique stew of “unconventional” behaviors, strengths, and weaknesses. But there are certain basic behaviors that seem particularly common across a cross-section of them….
The Twelfth Doctor isn’t good with names, or remembering faces. He’s prone to gesturing extravagantly with his hands. He seems very touch-sensitive, especially if the contact is unexpected (i.e. a hug). He focuses so intently on a task at hand that often he doesn’t pay attention to the people around him and their emotional needs. He’s not much for bantering, or small talk. He wants to talk about what’s concerning him in the here and now, even if no one else understands his passion about the topic (say, the dream of what’s under the bed). If something is obvious to him but it isn’t to others, he’ll be frustrated with them for not seeing it, forgetting that they aren’t him. He doesn’t understand practices that more “neurotypical” folks take as a given, such as wearing makeup. He lies as well as any Doctor does, but most of the time it’s only in the service of a given plan to save the day — otherwise he tends to be brutally honest. And he is not good at masking his emotions just to be “polite”, because that wouldn’t be honest either.
So he often ends up rather detached from others in the course of a given crisis, especially in Series 8. He’s looking at the big picture and how to save the day, and he often ends up having a cold, blunt attitude that comes off as cruel, snobby, and grouchy, or just insensitive. Clara being referred to as a “carer” calls to mind the need many autistic people — I am one of them — have for someone who can take them aside and explain that not everyone is interested in what they are fascinated by, especially when it’s distracting them from the more immediate needs of others (think “Under the Lake”). Someone who can tutor them in better social skills, as Clara does with things like the cards. Unfamiliar places and people can be both exciting and scary for autistics, who often thrive on routine.
But just because an autistic person seems heartless doesn’t mean they are. In fact, their emotions may well be stronger than in most people — capable of great fury, but also great love — and they wear them on their sleeve when they are sparked to do so. When they are around people they know well and are comfortable with, they can be warm and lovable, and show off their sense of humor and imagination. They can adapt and learn, become more comfortable in their own skin and willing to show their gentler, rocking-out side. And contrary to popular belief, they are capable of great empathy. Give them the information they need to understand where another person — or mummy, or shapeshifting rebel, or mad scientist, or former friend, or lonesome immortal lass — is coming from, and they can empathize with their plight and help them if they can.
So that’s how the Twelfth Doctor has autistic qualities. At places like Tumblr, with a bit of searching there’s a lot of interesting headcanons, interpretations, and fanfics by autistic Twelfth Doctor fans that explore all this in greater detail. butterfly-in-the-well, in particular, is an autistic blogger who has written much on the topic.
@missy I see what you’re saying. He may seem more “other” and “alien” to other characters than his predecessors did, but his emotions and passions are so raw and real that he touches the heart more profoundly. He’s more honest with himself, more capable of shame, guilt, atonement, rage…and love. He’s too much heart for others to take! 😉
23 July 2016 at 22:14 #53409Of the Series 8 episodes I’ve seen, I did think “The Caretaker” was slightly bogged down by the fussing over Clara’s changing personality in the late going (I just couldn’t get into the Clara-Danny thread of the season’s story arc, though it was tolerable and certainly had a purpose), and it has one of those plot structures I generally can’t stand — the kind where everything could easily be resolved if the characters were just honest with each other from the beginning, whereupon no one would jump to incorrect conclusions. (I’m a pretty honest person by nature, and just don’t see why other people do that! This effectively makes whole subgenres of comedy inaccessible to me, alas.) But it is certainly one of the funniest episodes of the season and is an extremely clever use of the Coal Hill setting, so I can forgive it its flaws.
Fans of this episode should check out the wonderful Time Lord Letters book, which has several hilarious “letters” that expand upon Mr. John Smith’s tenure at Coal Hill! He left behind some interesting suggestions for the head teacher when he was through, based on his observations….
23 July 2016 at 22:02 #53408The Sixth Doctor encountered a young H.G. Wells in “Timelash” in Season 22, with the revelation of his identity the story’s “punchline” (up to the ending, he was just known as Herbert). Of course, that’s not one of the better-regarded classic serials or even Sixth Doctor serials…so maybe a new series episode could bring in the older Wells? As Twelve has said, he’s made a lot of mistakes in his life… 😉
21 July 2016 at 09:58 #53380Thanks for the emotional support everyone! 😉
@puroandson Oh yes, the reviewer I’m describing is still passionate about the show, but the Zygon 2-parter and a few other stray episodes aside — ones like “Time Heist” and “Sleep No More” that, tellingly, don’t have much impact on story arcs — she’s pretty harsh on it (she’s really not a fan of how female characters are generally depicted under Moffat…Osgood is one of the few exceptions, and even then, there was what happened to her in “Death in Heaven”). When her blurb for her “Face the Raven” review includes the phrase “I feel nothing”…well, there’s no choice but to agree to disagree. She hasn’t even reviewed “The Husbands of River Song” yet.
So between that and the fact that Twelve is a broodier, frostier sort and that causes a lot of unhappy drama for him in Series 8, it was hard not to get the impression from the various review sites I track that it was a total gloom-fest, even when reviews were positive. Upon watching it, I realize it really isn’t, though it is feels-heavy. Because I am awfully sensitive (part of it’s my autism), I still haven’t caught up with “Kill the Moon”, the season finale, and “Last Christmas” as yet. But hey, it took me years upon years to finally bring myself to watch the entirety of “Logopolis”! 😉 I’ll get there. Someday. 😉
(Actually…one reason I find the Twelfth Doctor so fascinating and compelling is that many of his character traits and quirks aren’t far removed from those of many autistics. If anything, Twelve comes off as a more authentic, sympathetic portrayal of an autistic person, both strengths and weaknesses, than some of the attempts to depict autistic people in fiction that I’ve read are. One autistic, Catholic blogger who is also a fan of the show once joked, while discussing the lack of a saint for autism, quipped “Sadly the Catholic Church has been slow to canonise the Twelfth Doctor”.)
21 July 2016 at 09:33 #53378@missy One of the Big Finish audios tackled Boudica, “The Wrath of the Iceni”. It was a good, if dark, Fourth Doctor/Leela adventure (Leela initially decides to leave the Doctor to fight alongside her!). As with most all Fourth Doctor audios, it’s only an hour long, so it could be adapted into the TV show without having to drop much of the plot; obviously it would have to be rethought for a different Doctor/companion team, but the basic “bones” of the story are very strong.
20 July 2016 at 22:40 #53367Looking above at the comments about people who complain the show’s not what it used to be…
I confess to being a bit of a sinner in that regard. I sampled all of the classic Doctors when I got into the show in the ’90s, and lots of expanded universe stuff. I found the Fourth Doctor to be my favorite and focused on his era (as a young, hungry college student I had only so much money for VHS tapes!). When the series was revived in ’05, I wound up binge watching Series 1 and later worked my way through most of Series 2…but while I knew it was quality work, it wasn’t my preferred “flavor” of Who, much the way I wasn’t a fan of the New Adventures novels. So I just moved on to other interests, but I kept up with major news about the show and didn’t waste time complaining about it in forums and the like. Why be a negative Nellie? 😉
Last summer, I was feeling a bit guilty about not being better caught up with things, not liking the feeling of being an outsider in a larger, bigger fandom. I was nervous about sampling the Twelfth Doctor’s stories, because an online critic I respected, who’s been a Who-fan for years, had been dismissing Moffat-era stories right and left and was coming down especially hard not only on Twelve’s stories, but on Twelve as a character. With all that negative talk, and the understanding that Series 8 did have an often-gloomy story arc when all was said and done, I was prepared to sample one or two of the better-regarded episodes, and move on. Just to have some headcanon.
But I worked my way through the bulk of Series 8 and wound up loving the character of the Twelfth Doctor, warts and all, and feeling awful that I hadn’t just gone in cold and instead let online chatter scare me off. Soon I started writing fan poems — I’d never felt such a drive to create before — and not a month had gone by before I sent Peter Capaldi a fan letter and one of my better poems, just as I’d done once upon a time with Tom Baker. (Both men sent me a sweet personal reply.)
And that was how I watched Series 9 as it unfolded, bearing up under mountains of feels, ending with the sheer joy of the realization that he got a “happy ending” at last. And while I still respect that critic, a good person, it breaks my heart that she thinks so little of the show right now; save for the Zygon 2-parter and “Sleep No More”, oddly enough, she disliked/hated every episode of that season. Yes, even “Heaven Sent”. I couldn’t bear to read the full reviews.
I’ve felt very happy to become a part of this forum — I feel welcome, the conversation is fun and constructive, and positive! <3 <3
20 July 2016 at 22:14 #53364Yeah, I think that by the time he regenerates, or perhaps when he regenerates, the whole business about memory and Clara will be settled, done and dusted. After all, Ten said goodbye to his companions and other associates, and Eleven had a vision of Amy. Twelve will likely find final closure regarding Clara when he comes to his destiny.
Actually, I think one of the most intriguing questions about Twelve is what his total story arc will turn out to be. It has to be something bigger than Clara, bigger than finding Gallifrey…something cosmic that will tie everything together.
20 July 2016 at 22:02 #53363@roshin I think it would be nice to have a fanworks corner at the official website. Actually, the official Tumblr for the show already features a lot of that. (http://doctorwho.tumblr.com) It’s run by BBC America and alongside basic show news and updates, it basically combs the whole of Tumblr for the best fan art, cosplay pictures, etc., updating a few times every day. (A poem I wrote about “Under the Lake” was reblogged by them.) It’s well worth a look!
20 July 2016 at 14:37 #53350Well, Matt Smith has debunked the “degeneration” rumors, so there’s that.
Elsewhere, Titan Comics dropped the ball on Supremacy of the Cybermen — Part Two was supposed to arrive today, but they’ve missed the deadline. Now, last year they botched their first multi-Doctor story Four Doctors by publishing the final issue two weeks late when it was supposed to be five weeks, five issues, so Supremacy being announced as biweekly was clearly meant to avoid a similar blunder, but instead, it fell behind far sooner…this one better be really good. (The first issue was strong, but I’m worrying that the structure/setup will take too long to team up the Doctors — at the end of Part One, they were all in separate time/space locations, with not a hint as to how they’ll get together.)
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