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Had a definite Hitchcock vibe at times. I enjoyed the episode, although I share the sentiment that the vlogger character seemed underdeveloped, if not shallow. The rest of the cast was superb throughout.

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Thanks to everybody for helping me with my questions. You are all excellent people, and I am most agreeable with the answers.

One more question, however, what do we think Clara actually did say to the Doctor in the cloisters? At the end Clara hints “What Clara told you in the cloisters … you said memories become stories when we forget them, maybe some of them become songs”. In the cloisters, it was right after she realized the Doctor suffered for billions of years for no reason other than to save her. She says “People like me and you, we should say things to one another, and I am going to say them now”. I wonder if it was just something simple and sentimental, an expression of gratitude and love. Anybody have any insights?

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@tardigrade:

After all, Clara’s told him that she “reversed the polarity” on the neural block – let’s be honest – that means she put the batteries in backwards. In my experience that means a gadget just doesn’t work :-).

Note the way that the sonic glasses work, as Clara explained to Ashildr when they first met. You just think the thing you want to be done, and the glasses (or screwdriver, as the case may be) will execute a task based upon your thought. So, even if Clara described what she thought when using the glasses as “reverse the polarity” what she was thinking at the time she reprogrammed the neural block gadget was more likely “make this work on the Doctor not me”. At least, that is my wild speculation! I doubt her thought was “reverse polarity” I think that’s just the shorthand used verbally (and I suppose inaccurately) to describe what she did.

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My observations and questions to the hive-mind:

1. Sunglasses: Clara gives them back to the Doctor who, later in the diner puts them on the countertop to connect his electric guitar to the speaker system. BUT, the diner and the furniture in it are all part of Clara’s shiny new TARDIS, so when she dematerialises to leave the Doctor alone in the desert with his old TARDIS, the sunglasses have stayed presumably on the diner counter, and are now in the ClaraTardis for use by Clara and Me in their future wiggle-room adventures.

2. I absolutely 100% agree with @lisa – the Doctor likely knew Clara would watch him outside with Me, left the glasses there for her, knew she would “reverse the polarity” and so forth. He always intended it to be him to get the memory wipe. In fact, when they arrive at the end of time Clara asks him what they are doing here. He says he only needs to stay there a minute to change some programming on the black memory wiping device. And yet, he never actually does any of that. I think the minute he needed was in fact the ‘minute’ he knew it would take Clara to watch him talk to Me and reprogram the device. When he hears the 4 knocks he doesn’t act surprised. In fact he knows it is Me before he even walks outside.

3. This is what REALLY confuses me. I have watched the episode 3 times now, the last time with lots of pausing and thinking and rewinding. Clara takes the passed out Doctor back to Earth in her timeframe, and drops him in an American desert, instructing a man to be there for when he wakes up to help him (why she picks there, I do not know). Then at some point soon after I presume she must surely go off to London to pick up the Doctor’s TARDIS and store it inside her ClaraTardis – to be revealed as she dematerialises at the end of the episode. (Note: a TARDIS can be stored inside another TARDIS, remembering the Master did this way back in the day). Now, here is where it gets confusing to me:

— how long has the Doctor been wandering around before he walks into the diner? … long enough to get himself from the US to London to discover somebody has removed his TARDIS from there (as he says). And long enough to piece together the Clara-shaped hole in his memory. A year? a month? … it has been some amount of time. He hasn’t woken up in the desert and walked for an hour into the nearest diner, that’s for sure. He is sporting a brand new red guitar, different from the black and white one presumably still back inside his missing TARDIS. He had to get that from somewhere.

— and here’s the rub; Why is the Doctor now back in the US desert again walking into this diner? and what has Clara and Me being doing in the interim? Did the Doctor just return to the scene of the crime, so to speak – where he last remembers waking up after his Clara story ends, to put the final pieces of the story together in his mind?

— And the most strange thing of all: What is a diner doing in the middle of the desert, not near any roads or houses or shops or anything? … and why would the Doctor, of all people, walk into it thinking everything is normal? Wouldn’t he think “what’s this ruddy great big diner doing in the middle of the rocks and sand not near any roads, all shiny new with neon lights and a perky British gal behind the counter”? … it seems like he walks in like everything is normal and sits down to tell a story and play his guitar.

4. How does Clara know to chameleon the ClaraTardis into that particular diner? She wasn’t there with Amy and Rory and River was she? Even if we assume a Claricle was there to save the Doctor once upon a time, that is not this Clara, with this Clara’s memories. How did she know to choose that tardis disguise? … perhaps more importantly, WHY did she choose that disguise?

5. This has been bugging me since last week also: If Rassilon and the high council set a trap for the Doctor, which teleported him into his nefariously modified confession dial, I presume that part of this deal involved Me handing this dial, now containing the Doctor, back to the Time Lords. So, whether this is the case or not, why is it that the dial ends up being out in the dry lands of Gallifrey when the Doctor exits it? … why there? Why isn’t it being held in some secure place near the high council? It’s as if the plan was for Me to hand the dial to the Time Lords, the Doctor to reasonably quickly confess, and to exit under guard or something, but over billions of years the high council got frustrated that the Doctor was taking so long that they just chucked the thing out in the desert out of desperation. Seems odd.

6. Finally, Snake motif: I note, for whatever it is worth, that the seal of Rassilon’s looks a lot like 2 snakes intertwined around each other.

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@miapatrick – yes, true. Now I think about it more, Capt. Jack is closer to Ashildr in the method of immortality. Although, as we know from the face of Bo, Jack definitely does age over time, while Ashildr does not. And certainly Clara will not either.

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To clarify (ha, pun intended) one little thing some posters have been worried about; that Clara is immortal now, but susceptible to death, injury etc. unlike ‘Me’. – I don’t think she is. CapDoc said the processes of her body have been time-looped (but she still moves around like normal due to Time Lord cleverness). So, any injury to her would not need to heal, she would just immediately loop back to that same body state one heart beat from death, as her body functions are constantly in that time-loop….   she is, essentially, a perfect immortal now. Unless, I suppose, she unravels the fabric of space and time by her avoidance to finally Face the Raven.

(Edit: similar to Capt. Jack I think, as he always returns to being alive due to the Bad Wolf regen juice glitch he absorbed)

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Cheers all, I appreciate the kind words.

W.R.T the skulls, my instinct is as @puroandson says that it simply makes for better television to have a complete skull, but perhaps we can theorize that the process of burning his body to fuel the teleport machine fused the skull into one piece? … it is interesting that all the bones and flesh disintegrate but not the skull – which makes little sense other than for poetic purposes. I am just going to roll with this being a storytelling/television device and not fuss myself too much with the physics of it.

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Firstly, it’s good to be back commenting on here. It’s been a while as I have been completely out of action with a number of illnesses (minor enough) that cost me over a month out of my life. Tomorrow starts a concert tour for me (ozi-tenoring) so hoping that this absolutely mindbogglingly brilliant episode gives me the ju-ju to finally feel healthy again.

Here are my unsolicited and possibly otiose (and certainly verbose) thoughts:

1. After CapDoc first teleports into the dial, his first information is the teleport machine and the dust on the floor which he lets fall through his fingers. We know/assume the Doctor is brilliant and always many steps ahead in how he solves problems/puzzles and arrives at correct conclusions. So very importantly I think the first thing he learns is what the machine is capable of, both with respect to teleporting him in the first place and possibly being energized to download him again back to his point of first entry. I really think when he feels the dust in that first scene he can tell what it is – that it is residue from somebody being used as an energy source for the teleport. I know he doesn’t expose this out aloud, but I am convinced he must have worked this out either in that moment or after his first time being killed and crawling back to the room;

2. We have been explained in this episode (and I think a few times over the course of Who) that if a TL body is so severely damaged it is unable to regenerate. We now have the new information that it takes 10 days to 2 weeks for the body to completely perish (and why Time Lord’s hate to die outside of Gallifrey and risk being buried half-alive). We know the Veil perishes after it achieves it purpose of killing CapDoc. So, it seems to me that the first time through the castle CapDoc probably died in that first corridor. He has a couple of weeks to crawl back into the teleport room and assess the information of the dust and the machine and calculate that he can use the vast energy left in his TL body to power a reboot of the teleport.

3. Each time through the castle, he gets a little bit further, dies, and has 2 weeks to crawl back; and of course comes to the same conclusions about how to reboot. A causal determinism notion of free will applies here – that given the exact same conditions and mind, CapDoc will do the exact same thing each time, but each time he leaves for himself a clue that provides slightly new conditions allowing him to progress just that bit further along.

4. Room resets: My understanding was that the rooms reset only when the clockwork mechanics of the castle shift to a new position. It doesn’t reset when he reboots himself. Why is this important? — because he can leave himself clues for his next run-through so long as he does this after the last time the castle has shifted. My impression was that after a couple of castle shifts (and confessions) he has determined the routes through the castle to avoid the Veil and avoid further castle shifts and room resets. It is in this time frame that he leaves the clues for his next iteration. That is why the spade is there in the first corridor, the arrows on the floor, the clothes by the fire etc…

5. Grave: I was trying to think why CapDoc leaves the most important clue 10 feet underground. I think it is because he discovers the only way to keep the clue in existence following a reset is to dig below the level of the reset of the garden. It must be that only a certain depth of topsoil resets.

6. Clothes: Why the extra clothes? – because one of his failed attempts through the castle ended just after he hung his clothes by the fire to dry. Presumably he died in his undergarments and then crawled back to the teleport room in that state. After a reboot, there are now 2 outfits for him.

7. The sountrack! Wow!

8. Why does a confession in one instance stop the Veil completely frozen, and other times just slow him down and hesitate? – I think the first confession was entirely honest, and therefore froze him, and the other confessions were almost but not entirely true, and therefore were slightly less effective, although still enabled him to escape.

9. Souls: There has been some discussion about this, and recent seasons have heavily delved into this topic, as well as topics of afterlife etc. I think it is fair to conclude that whatever the nature of a soul is in the Whoniverse, it is not a supernatural thing (i.e. non material). I think this universe is one of materialism, and whatever a soul is, it has physical properties. We literally see TL regeneration energy flowing in and out of TLs. So, I think the notion of a soul in the Whoniverse is that it has physical properties that are measurable and that interact with the real world. In this way, any issue with teleportation, regeneration etc. and what happens to the soul is answered – it is part of the physical information that is copied, downloaded, generated etc. This reminds me of a wonderful quote which I forget who first said: That when god(s) reach their hand into our universe they pull it out dripping with physics.

10. I am a little confused as to why CapDoc says “of course, the final piece of the puzzle has to be the TARDIS” (paraphrasing) after he sees the diamond wall and the word “home”. Because there is no TARDIS nor any image of the TARDIS. All I can see (and presumably CapDoc can see) is a white light and a rectangular doorway on the other side of the diamond (I know it’s not diamond, but for the same of simplicity, I will just call it diamond). Did he misinterpret the word ‘home’? .. I think probably he recognizes the white light as being the same core element of the TARDIS (eye of harmony?/Heart of TARDIS?) and assumed it was a TARDIS gateway of sorts, maybe not *his* TARDIS but TARDIS technology of sorts. And I think the end of episode bears this out.

I have lots of other thoughts and observations but this post is WAY too long already. So I will stop here. Maybe I will put them in another post later on. I can’t wait till next week. This season has been phenomenal and this episode truly was a masterpiece of writing, acting, storytelling, directing and cinematography. It challenges us to think, it challenges us emotionally, it is both horrifying and redeeming. Final thought, one for “the feels”: my oldest son (who is 7) adores the show. We watch religiously (even old episodes, mostly of 4) and during the great sequence at the end when CapDoc dies over and over again pecking away at the diamond, although my son said nothing nor made a whimper, I turned to look at his face and a single furtive tear was falling from his eye. Seeing this kind of empathy from my boys fulfill me more than I imagined it ever could. Una furtiva lagrima.

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This is a season of two-parters, no?

confuso io son.

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Two things:

1. (OT) it would be cool if in the login box for this forum instead of the checkbox “remember me” it read “run you clever boy and remember me”

2. Further to the theory that Clara has not really been existing (or similar) since being in the Dalek back in episode 2, I do think the evidence points to the Doctor having 3 Mire immortality chips (especially since we now have seen another helmet in the archive), and it is fairly obvious given much of the dialogue this series that the Doctor would give one to Clara if he could (how many times has he said he could not bare to lose her) but he has not and does not because he can’t; because the Clara he has been traveling with the past long month is not her.

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Truly magnificent performances and writing. That speech. Breathtaking, poignant … and perhaps the very best in a long tradition of fabulous monologues over the past 50 years. Who can forget, however much stumbled through, Hartnell’s incredible speech that kicked off this tradition.

Now to Bonkerising:

I have a bonkers theory about Osgood and which is which. I have been stuck on the inhalers for a weeks now, and I think it crystallized for me tonight. Osgood has an interesting way she uses it. She cups it in her hand, palm holding the bottom, fingers on top to press the button. It’s something I notice in people who use inhalers that are a little awkward about it or embarrassed. They cup their hands as if to hide it. Osgood does this. And in the final scene tonight, as the two Osgoods walk away and each take a puff, only one cups the inhaler this way, while the other holds the inhaler thumb on bottom, fingers on top – the more conventional way. To me, this signals that “broken glasses” Osgood is the original one. It’s her under the desk in the prologue to Zygon Invasion cupping the inhaler the same way as she uses it, and it’s her at the end, dressed the same, using the inhaler the same way. The new Osgood (Zygella Osgood!) doesn’t copy this idiosyncrasy.

Now, I totally admit the possibility that Human Osgood may have been killed by Missy and these are both Zygons using the new method of cloning, and I am reading WAY too much into the slightest of details. But, I like my bonkers theory and I am sticking with it!

As for Clara, it is becoming more and more evident that the day she was trapped in the Dalek by Missy (perhaps only a calendar month prior in the Whoniverse) and the day that the Doctor said to her “I am so sorry” with that great sense of finality, is the last time the Doctor really was with “Clara” as he knows and loves her. Just like Flesh Amy, these past story arcs have continually had the Doctor looking at Clara with that sense of “you are not actually *my* Clara and I am trying to figure out how I am going to fix this”. 2 weeks ago it was “I am not going anywhere” and the Doctor’s long ominous stare; this week it was “you thought I was dead for a moment … it’s been a month from hell … it’s only been 5 minutes … I’ll be the judge of time” (forgive my sloppy paraphrase).  Obviously something is not right, and it is more and more certain that this Clara is not really Clara. Conveniently, the current Zygon technology only needs the memory of Clara to make Zygella/Bonnie and not the original.

Friends/Enemies/Hybrids … There is one gigantic crash course of storylines about to happen and I can’t wait!

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A few very random thoughts:

1. I wonder if a Zygon has ever transformed into a Dalek. Indeed, can they copy just the living thing or can they also copy the technological shell surrounding them? … I admit I only wonder this as my mind thinks back to Clara in the Dalek… I also admit it is a terrifying notion to think that a Zygon could now, using it’s new capabilities, become a Dalek simply by seeing one (or even reading the mind of someone who has seen one? .. gulp!)

2. When a Zygon duplicates a target, does it take on the exact medical nuances of the person, or is it simply a superficial duplication? — specifically I am wondering if Zygon Osgood has actual asthma or just takes the inhaler to keep up appearances. If we assume a Zygon doesn’t duplicate the internal diseases etc. of a target, then perhaps the very specific shot in this episode of Osgood hiding under the table actually needing to puff on her inhaler is a signal that she is in fact Human Osgood.

3. If a Zygon duplicates a Time Lord, obviously the Zygon would not also have the regeneration capabilities. Or would they? Would they be for all effective purposes actually a Time Lord? or is the process really just “skin deep”. This random thought makes me again think about Osgood and her asthma.

On second thoughts, I probably shouldn’t think too much about this, lest I get all brain explodey-wodey

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@nerys – I literally said “squeeeeee” out aloud and started clapping.

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That forlorn stare from the Doctor after Clara says she is not going anywhere…  Chills.

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Reading through the commentary, it seems there is a notion that Time Lords may not be able to choose their appearance when regenerating. I am sure i will be corrected if I am wrong here, but when Romana regenerated into her Lalla Ward persona, she chose a number of iterations first (that annoyed the Doctor!) before deciding on “Lalla Ward”. So, that Time Lord certainly had the ability to choose faces, and Doctor 4 didnt seem at all surprised by this.

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@lisa – at the end, when confronting the Mire captain, the Doctor snatches his sonic glasses back from the chain around his neck and activates them as he says “i hacked your teleport” and you hear the sonic sound effect as the Mire is teleported back to his ship. So yes. The Doctor has them back. Broken in half, but back in his possession.

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Bonkers theory alert:

on a rewatch, as the Doctor is putting the helmet on Ashildr, she says “I am scared” and the Doctor responds: “you were born for this”. And we have Clara, the girl who “was born to save the Doctor”. Earlier, the Doctor has said to Clara something similar to “all we can hope for is a good death, unless you’re immortal” and he looks at Clara with some sort of hidden meaning in his eyes. I dont think he means himself. Regenerations are not immortality, they are finite. Sort of. And by the end of this episode, we Ashildr the immortal, the hybrid. Clara the hybrid, perhaps immortal too. I cant wrap my head around how they can be the same person, but I am starting to think they very well might be, in a weird causal loop timey wimey kind of way.

On a side note, i find the Doctor looking at Clara a lot like 11 would look at Amy when she was the flesh clone. That kind of deep analytical observation, carefully choosing his language.

Oh, and when the Doctor yells for the second switch, we see two helmets fly up to the electromagnet, but the next shot shows 3 Mire helmetless, and as he deactivates the magnet we see three helmets drop along with some weaponry… So assuming 1 immortality chip per helmet, there is a third one unaccounted for. Just sayin’ !

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So many thoughts. Bah!!!

i loved this episode. All sorts of callbacks. I second the comment above about being reminded of Douglas Adams’ Pirate Planet episode. It was the first thing my mind went to when I saw the Odin projection in the sky. I let out an audible squeeee!

and i feel like the last 10 minutes is going to need a half dozen rewatches by me to figure this all out (if that is even possible). I feel like we are on the verge of some huge reveal about Clara: something the Doctor has been clued into for a while now. I feel like Ashildr is tied up in Clara’s story, and perhaps River too, and almost certainly Missy. I cant wrap my brain around a bonkers theory just yet, but I actually feel like the Doctor in the midst of figuring something out: I know there is something I am missing, there is something I am not seeing… Missy chooses Clara; River guides Clara to become the Claricles; Clara convinces the Time Lords to give the Doctor new regenerations; Clara is now, i presume, some kind of hybrid having been in the Dalek shell when the regeneration energy entered all the daleks; Ashildr is a hybrid, immortal, a storyteller … I just cant wrap my brain around this yet…

as for immortals, we have had Capt Jack become immortal via Ms Bad Wolf shenanigans; but is Ashildr truly immortal? Not in the same way. She has tech that constantly heals her, but a disintegration blast from a Dalek (for example) would kill her, as it would disintegrate the healing mechanism too. I presume any sufficiently destructive explosion would kill her. There must be a limit to what the healing tech can do.

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Just watched Blink again with my son, because it’s so deliciously perfectly written and acted, and we looked at each other and said “bootstrap paradox” ! … The viewer gets to think through the paradox along with Sally Sparrow a lot more organically than a breaking of the 4th wall explanation… Which makes me agree with others here that this paradox will surely have increasing significance this season to the larger narrative arc. In any event, great episode; great season so far; and, as always, great commentary on this forum.

Favorite quote from this episode: “I somehow doubt that Rose or Martha or Amy lost their breakfast on their first trip” … Dont know why I love these callbacks: perhaps because it hits me in the feels seeing the Doctor hear those names.

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My sincerest apologies. Nonetheless, there are recreations made of “lost” episodes that use the audio over on-set photography taken during production. Again, I have no idea if these efforts are some breach of copyright or not, I suspect they may be, trying to think like a lawyer, but nonetheless I don’t think they are available for purchase anywhere. Additionally, there is the wonderful Shada episode that was not televised. These are worth seeking out – but yes, I agree, not if it involves overt piracy: such a thing should not be condoned.

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I am not sure if this is a breach of the rules of the forum, so I will be deliberately vague, but if you visit a certain very famous torrent downloading website (one that’s name resembles a great Douglas Adams written Doctor Who episode with Tom Baker and Romana 1.0) , and search for “classic doctor who” – you can download the entire BG series – every single episode. It is large, and may take a few hours to download, and it will take up a huge chunk of your hard drive, but when combined with a product like Apple TV whereby you send the movie files straight to your television, you can watch any BG episode whenever you like on the comfort of your couch, bed etc…

Hope this helps.

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Hello all. Introducing myself….

I began watching Doctor Who when I was very young … my earliest memories are watching Pertwee on the couch with my mother (who, incidentally, has no recollection of this when I asked her recently about it!). I remember being scared of the opening credits and music more than the actual show itself! … but I would just love to watch the show almost like a test to myself – I knew I would get scared but wanted to see if I could make it through — I always did. Now, when I watch the old episodes I wonder what was so scary, and I watch with my 6 year old son (who loves Tom Baker, of course!) and he doesn’t get scared at all and I feel like Cyber-Danny dropping his head in sadness that my 6 year old is braver than I am!

I watched classic Who right through Colin Baker but I don’t have memories of watching again until the reboot. In recent years (thanks to filesharing websites which shall remain nameless) I have been able to download and watch every episode of the classic show, including reconstructions of the missing episodes using pictures and audio. It has been a wonderful experience. To have my 6 year old love both Tom Baker and Matt Smith is simply delicious to me!

I work in the arts world as a musician, singer, writer, and creature of the stage, so I have a sympathetic eye and ear for great writing and acting and the synergy between characters on the screen and the fabric of the narrative. So, naturally, I adore this universe and especially the recent seasons which I think are much-maligned by some but it truth are simply fabulous storytelling, acting, and directing. I care less about little discrepancies in the universe or the internal science – and more for the general overall narratives and cleverness of the writing. I forgive a lot, and I am happier for it!

So that is me. I have read this forum for a few months now, and happily I jump in now to share my thoughts. This is a wonderful community and has given me much pleasure in reading the erudite and insightful commentary.

– Ben.

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Hi all, new here. I will introduce myself fully on the sofa.

I hope this point has not already been made, if so, apologies for the redundancy, but I thought it very clever that when Danny cries (and quite a big deal of time is spent talking about that crying) in the opening of the season, it is a fabulous portent for his later becoming a cyberman (whose eyes have “built-in” teardrops) in the series finale.

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