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Re: trolls on the Guardian blog, I find IMDb to be much the same. There is the occasional respectful and thoughtful discourse, but I find that, by and large, there are lots of drive-bys, and then there are those persistently negative posters who want nothing more than to proselytize about how awful the show has become under Moffat’s tenure, how no real Doctor Who fan worth his/her salt could possibly like the show now … unless one is a fangirl/boy … etc., etc., etc. It really gets tiresome, to the point where I went searching for something better. Thankfully this forum showed up near the top of my search results!

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@fatmaninabox: Oops, sorry about that … and thanks for the heads-up!

@Bluesequeakspip: Yes. Strangely, she also sounded incredibly like David Tennant in her very first appearance; Asylum of the Daleks.

Indeed! Thank you for reminding me. Must revisit that one again. One of my favorite episodes, and my favorite Clara – er, Oswin – episodes.

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@drben That remains my theory about the “three months” thing, that she’s dying.  Bleak to bleaker, I know, but for some reason it feels right.  And it definitely adds resonance to the line “Danny and I will be fine.”

It also makes her “You’re the last person who’s ever going to hear me say that” line to Danny that much clearer.

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Oh gosh, now I’m wondering if the “three months” Post-it note wasn’t that Clara was three months pregnant … but that she has three months to live? It’s just the way she says, “There’s something I have to tell you … and it’s not good news, so just listen.” That’s why she tells him she and Danny will be fine, because in death they will be together? Argh, I just put that together while watching the episode a third time. When the doctor says he’s found Gallifrey, Clara’s whole demeanour changes. She realizes she wants to leave him with that feeling of happiness and hopefulness … not the loss of yet another companion. Except that she doesn’t know he too is lying.

By the way, at the end Santa says: “It’s meeeee. Hello … doctor? You know you can’t end like that, hmmm? We need to get this sorted, and quickly. She’s not all right, and neither are you. I’m coming in. There you are. I knew I’d get around to you eventually. Now, stop gawking … and tell me: What do you want for Christmas?”

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Did anyone notice that during Clara’s “doctor” impersonation, Jenna Coleman’s delivery seemed eerily close to David Tennant’s?

I agree with @arbutus. Rewatching this episode, it is difficult to tell the colour of the blast when cyber-Danny shoots the three Cybermen. It looks like a bluish-white bolt, followed by yellowy-red flames as the Cybermen explode. When Missy is hit, it’s blue light and blue sparks. So it was different … but as to what that means, we’ll have to wait and see.

@janetteb Another mention of the Doctor’s family firmly establishing that he had children and grandchildren on Gallifrey. His despair at the end was truely heartbreaking. What does everyone want most for Christmas? Home and family. No matter where you are or how wonderful the adventures you have having, when it comes to Christmas there is a yearning, even just for a day, for home and family.

So true. For the Christmas special, I wonder if he will decide he must trade his wish for Clara’s … making it even more poignant?

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Oops, I should read posts before posting, myself. I was out of the loop on the Master’s hypnotic abilities, so that answers that about the guards.

Ah, yes, Danny’s sense of duty (and also the brigadier’s). That makes sense to me for why they were able to resist Missy’s commands and do the right thing.

I also agree with those who examine the show’s past history with handling the damage inflicted by time travel, and find it wanting. It’s true that we have had too-easy answers for that, and this season gives us a more plausible rendering.

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@peargrins and @phmd I agree with your sentiments. I confess that one of my sources of enjoyment of the new-era doctors has been their playfulness and overall lack of dourness (though obviously there are exceptions to that). I did enjoy those more lighthearted romps through alien territory that Nos. 10 and 11 gave us (though No. 9 was a bit more unflappable, less manic than his successors). I suppose I am also tiring of everything being about the catastrophic end of Earth and/or humankind. I understand the writers’ logic, that we viewers will care more about what happens here than somewhere out there … but it was the somewhere out there that, at least for me, gave the series its magic.

I think my difficulty with this finale is that my emotions are diverted by the mutual lying (again) at the end between Clara and the doctor.  Previous partings have been far more emotional because the companions are often at their most desperately honest with the doctor … and he with them. Are we in for a “Gift of the Magi” Christmas special, courtesy of Santa Claus? I want a satisfying conclusion to Clara’s story, because she and the doctor have basically been dancing around each other, never quite connecting, ever since her arrival. I don’t want to think it’s all for naught.

Speaking of unsatisfying endings: I would really like to see the return of Donna, not as a full-time companion, but given a more emotionally satisfying sendoff than what she got with No. 10. I know there are supposed to be fatal problems with her remembering the doctor and their adventures together, but surely those can be “fixed” in true time lord fashion? After all, she is the reason the doctor was able to choose that face.

I wish that Danny had been as animated in his earlier episodes as he was in these last two. He really grew on me here at the end, and Samuel Anderson really acted the lights out in this two-part finale. However, I had felt a bit “meh” about him up to this point.

Question: Was the little boy uploaded into a Cyberman before being sent back into the living by Danny? Or did he stay in the Nethersphere? I wasn’t clear on how that process worked.

Or was he somehow there with Danny in the same suit? Might that have been why Danny could resist Missy’s command with the bracelet, when all the other Cybermen did as they were told? Even though Danny’s emotions were deleted, the boy’s weren’t. Pure speculation, based mainly on my not being clear what happened to the boy between the Nethersphere and Clara’s hallway.

I loved it when Missy comes floating down into the cemetery like a demented Mary Poppins. Since she disappears in a cloud of blue (rather than fiery red), I am assuming that she teleported just before they were able to kill her, and we will see her again. I hope so, anyway. Even though I’m a bit tired of the recurring three nemeses (Daleks, Cybermen and the Master/Mistress), I enjoyed her performance.

I’m not sure it was ever overtly explained, but I agree with others who think 3W was just a con. After all, actual bodies were needed into which to upload the Cybermen. With cremation, the bodies don’t exist. So I think that whole “don’t cremate me” was cooked up in order to convince people to preserve their bodies.

UNIT was remarkably ineffectual; that must have been the world’s worst two guards chosen to protect everyone from Missy. Poor Osgood … though her death didn’t affect me as much as I think was intended. But maybe she was just supposed to show the shocking realization that yes, those the doctor cares about can be killed off. And the doctor, himself, was remarkably ineffectual. I admit that my most thrilling moments with the doctor are his “save the world” (whatever world that may be) moments, when he uses his capacity for rewriting time to save someone … even though we believe all is lost. I know it’s fantasy or wish fulfillment, but I love those moments. We saw precious few of them this season.

 

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@nerys Welcome! Is that nerys after the wonderful character in Deep Space Nine?

No, I’m not nearly that creative. Nerys was Donna’s oft-lamented “friend” from her pre- and post-Doctor Who life. I was trying to think of a name that hadn’t been taken, and Nerys certainly seemed like a likely candidate, LOL! I can just hear Donna yelling that in that fishwife voice of hers.

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Just popping in to say hello. I read over the posts in the Dark Water thread and greatly enjoyed them (much better than most of what I see on IMDb), so that convinced me to join up. I’m new to the group and am anxiously awaiting tonight’s finale, Death in Heaven!

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