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12 December 2015 at 11:41 #49321
Including all of their adventures etc.
No – he remembers the adventures. That was clearly stated in-text. The Ice Warrior on the sub and the Mummy on the Orient Express.
He thinks he knows her name (thanks to a song and a friendly local) and knows the shape of the hole she left. But he cannot connect it to a specific person, even when that specific person is standing right in front of him (despite his confidence that he could). Beautiful and sad.
Not so sure they cut it, as much as it just didn’t come out when shot. Which is fine by me. I don’t mind a bit of ambiguity, just not the sort that requires denial of the text 😉 .
It occurs to me that, not having had the link between River and Clara (as alluded to in Name of the Doctor) explained yet that:
a) From River’s PoV (at that time), it must have already happened (the tenses could get very complex here!);
b) She will be the agent who gets the Doctor to the acceptance stage, the last of the 5.
12 December 2015 at 01:11 #49294@mudlark @Mocho @puroandson et al
The script (pdf). Looks like the last writers draft (so just before it is given over to be turned into a shooting script).
Page 59 is very interesting. It would be fair to say that Jenna Coleman utterly nailed it. And the scene action pretty much settles the “did he pull a double switcheroo” debate. (tl;dr: no).
Which, to my mind, is as it should be. Beautiful and sad.
(As I said up thread to me it defied belief that there was any other interpretation: I now recognise it as the denial stage of grief 😉 )
@son of Puro
I hope I don’t say anything silly or too wrong. x)
Whereas we are hoping for it 😉 Silly and wrong is good!)
11 December 2015 at 13:55 #49273@mudlark @Morpho
As I said in comments on Heaven Sent, there are indications that Me may have had contact with Missy as early as the 17th century, if not before.
Well, there’s one way to be sure 🙂
10 December 2015 at 13:48 #49222@puroandson
Crikey, you can tell the hour that was posted at. Even by my standards the typos are comedy gold.
10 December 2015 at 12:54 #49218@puroandson
Do you have favourite season of X-Files? Or did you believe the whole thing was a flop?
First 5 seasons were OK (and occasionally very good indeed), then it went badly off the rails and they were too slow putting it out of our misery.
Sounds like Spawn has hit the same problem as me with Fringe. It is worth persevering but, IMHO, it is not half as clever as it thinks it is. I’m not a fan of comedy psychopaths.
Veronica Mars (that may have been me 10 times). American: Think Nancy Drew as imagined by Raymond Chandler. Years after it ended, a movie got made funded entirely by Kickstarter (well, WB matched funds).
Didn’t really like Love Actually (still in therapy, in fact 😉 ) but check out About Time. I think it is his best work (other than Vincent).
But I believe most questions are answered except perhaps the ‘thing on the bed’ in Listen?
Some questions are not meant to be answered, they are meant to be thought about.
Everything Puro and Spawn said.
I think, because it spoke to me at a very personal level relating to some family history and (then) current personal situations, Season 5 remains my Season Of Choice but, my goodness, Season 9 runs it close.
10 December 2015 at 02:13 #49191On the subject of amends (see the Hell Bent thread), I am starting my sort-of-annual, not-very-well-planned run-up-to-Xmas ritual rewatch of various Xmas episodes.
Started with West Wind, S1E10 – In Excelsis Deo
Next up: Buffy, S3 S10 – Amends (hence the post)
In the box: Veronica Mars S1E10 – An Echolls Family Christmas.
Any particular recommendations (DW obvious get dropped in as an when)?
10 December 2015 at 02:05 #49190@puroandson
mushrooms
Bah! Satan’s fungus!
(My all time worst morning wqs after a night quaffing Amaretto (very alcoholic liqueur, very sugary), and the ensuing brutal hangover, garnished with the stench of one flatmate frying mushrooms and the sound of another playing the Smiths very. If I ever meet Morrissey I will beat him to death for a shovel. Why did Ian Curtis top himself and that posing tosser didn’t?)
9 December 2015 at 22:38 #49179I wonder if Ashildr looked on with envy since she would never know what it feels like to be memorialized.
Interesting point, I wouldn’t bet on it. It’s worth noting that, when the Doctor was making his cruel/cowardly/amends speech, Clara was not the only other person in the room. I think Ashildr is written as genuinely mortified at what she had done and if they decide to continue her story, it could easily be one of amends.
9 December 2015 at 18:13 #49169It’s a conspiracy!
9 December 2015 at 17:30 #49165Can’t get that link to go anywhere….
9 December 2015 at 16:58 #49157To be fair, we don’t know exactly when Ashildr broke the Tardis…. 😀
9 December 2015 at 16:47 #49155This is fun
9 December 2015 at 16:28 #49154I wonder where they filmed “Nevada”.
Fuertaventura, in the Canary Isles. I’ve been there. It is semi-arid(1) much like Nevada is.
Can one tardis be inside another?
Yep – and since the Clara tribute was still on it, we can deduce that it was carried to Nevada, rather then went under its own steam.
(1) Correct technical term. Trust a geographer.
9 December 2015 at 11:46 #49138@puroandson
how did the Tardis get to Colorado and how did he get a lift out in to the middle of that state? I
*cough*
9 December 2015 at 11:01 #491358 December 2015 at 23:56 #49104Random thought: the whole stand-off on Gallifrey cloaked Rassillon with a distinct Soviet vibe, willing to execute war heroes when they become a threat. Exiling him felt a little like dispensing with that past.
Perhaps a little Glasnost on Gallifrey will make it a more interesting place, with fewer daft costumes. It can only be a matter of time before they enter the Eurovision Song Contest…
@puroandson
Yup. Totally get the stream-of-consciousness thing (although it is a better way to detect amateur trolls)
What else? Oh yes, @ pedant, I believe you called it?!
Why thank you for noticing that I tota++++CONNECTION TERMINATED BY HOST++++
8 December 2015 at 12:25 #49062Not that I would ever have the cojones to take sides in a debate between that formidable pair, @bluesqueakpipand @pedant,
There are no sides, only perspectives.
but this: the title of the first episode in Series 9 is ‘The Magician’s Apprentice’ and then in the final episode of Series 9 we see Clara flying off in a Type 40 TARDIS (with dodgy chameleon circuit), on the run from the Time Lords, with a companion is really clever.
It is. Of course, the Sorcerer’s Apprentice came unstuck too. (tum ti tum ti tiddly tum ti tum – that’s stuck now, isn’t it?)
All of the times I thought the Doctor knew something, those sideways furrowed-brow glances (leading to the whole “Are the episodes in the right order?” debate) can now be more easily and more realistically interpreted as becoming increasingly concerned: the difference between “bad luck” and “an accident waiting to happen”.
That’s what drove the Doctor on his 4.5 billion year quest – rage at having having seen it coming, but having done nothing. Self-disgust, if you like. And the price he paid for that was forgetting.
Utterly brilliant storytelling.
The lesson of Icarus isn’t “don’t aspire” it’s “don’t be a cocky twat”, (or, if one wants to bend over backwards to be generous, “don’t get drunk on the excitement” – either way it is gender, species and race neutral). One can only wonder at the grief of Daedalus.
(In another topic, can’t recall where, but I’m sure at some point in AG Who the Doctor stated that he was lying re being half-human)
8 December 2015 at 11:39 #49060Paragraphs are your friend.
7 December 2015 at 22:10 #49017Ah. So the message you want Moffat to send to millions of small viewers is to not aspire?
That is a message that exists only in your imagination. There is a world of a difference between “bad luck” and “an accident waiting to happen”. Believing your are something you are not does not make it so and creates all-too-foreseeable dangers.
‘Be aware of your limitations, because that’s where real creativity starts’ is a much more pertinent and altogether more interesting lesson (and a very writerly one) – and now Clara has an ultra-limitation that could make her really creative. The raven will catch up with her eventually, but I suspect she will have a lot of fun dodging it.
And who nose… maybe the new admin on Gallifrey will be sufficiently impressed to work some Time Lord mojo… Who. Nose.
all the oblique and coded references in their conversation and their body language left me with a strong feeling, if not certainty, that the Doctor and Clara had reached a mutual, if unspoken understanding. When they parted he knew perfectly well who she was,
I find this baffling. Everything in the last few minutes shows Clara’s absolutely desolation and heartache as she gets confirmation that the plan had worked, if not as intended then as expected (the purpose of the diner scenario being to run that test). The close-up acting (sorry, don’t know the technical term) by Jenna was stunning and screamed this, and it was slammed home like a an express train hitting the buffers as she turned away, unable to face him lest he work it out.
And then she gave what comfort she could. Because, basically, Clara rocks.
the timeline at the very end, when the TARDIS was moved, why the café, etc
While the Doc was conked out:
– nip to London, materialise around the Tardis (we know it was carried to Nevada, ‘cos Rigsy’s graffiti tribute);
– pop in and write on the blackboard;
– nip to Nevada, leave him in the care of a kindly local and arrange for him to be dropped off at the diner;
– Run the diner scenario to confirm that the plan has worked;
– Dematerialise, leaving Old Bluey behind (if the Doc did work it out, it was then and no earlier);
– Fly away to live out the rest of her remaining heartbeat.wiggle
I’m fairly sure the proper word is “wriggle”, but…yeah.
7 December 2015 at 14:59 #48980‘hang on. Since when has acting like the hero been a fatal flaw?’
That would be hubris.
Clara dies by sheer bad luck
Nope. Hubris.
But it’s never the end of the Impossible Girl.
Except when she realises it is. In fact, she realised it was the first time, but the Doctor wouldn’t let it happen. And when you’ve been pushed out of the way of death a few times, that might just make you think you are as invulnerable as your protector.
I rather liked the up-thread (or possibly the Graun) characterisation of Clara and Me as Thelma And Louise in Space. That ended in a way that was both beautiful and sad….
7 December 2015 at 14:14 #48978Lindalee has spoken, so now we all know what to think:
7 December 2015 at 13:57 #489767 December 2015 at 13:19 #48971“How can he remember she existed if she was completely wiped from his memory?” Well, obviously, she wasn’t completely wiped from his memory. Where did it say she was? I know it was suggested that she might be, but it clearly didn’t happen.
I think this was addressed in-text: he recognises that she existed because of the hole left by her. There is a person-shaped void in his memory. He recognises the absence, but cannot recall the exact person who filled. All he has is a song, as Clara hinted at the end – she is a song call Clara, so she is still a story, in the end. And I’m pretty sure that’s the idea she seeded in the Matrix. They had become a gestalt entity. Both knew what was coming, even if the details weren’t yet clear, and she made sure he wasn’t left totally bereft, a last act of devotion.
7 December 2015 at 01:38 #48898@puroandson
TLs should have found something better to do than listen to prophecies
You got distracted by the terminology. What was described was not a prophecy, drawn from rune casting or tarot, but a forecast made by technology and algorithms.
They weren’t being superstitious. They were scared.
Fortunately, while the Master may be a lover of chaos, The Doctor is an adherent to Chaos Theory. He will always try to change the initial conditions.
7 December 2015 at 01:29 #48895@Morpho
Correct – but you are not allowing for the passage of time. There is no house there anymore (probably due to the War). So they keep the barn ready.
7 December 2015 at 01:11 #48891@Morpho
Sorry if someone has already mentioned this, but the housekeeper (or should it be the Housekeeper?) said the bedroom in the barn is “for the boys. If any of them want to come back…” Boys, plural.
If you recall, that is entirely consistent with what happened in Listen (although the house seems to have disappeared, possible along with the fertility of the region thanks to the Time War).
Ohila also calls the Doctor “boy”. Might we suspect she’s actually Gallifreyan? Perhaps a relative or teacher?
I think Karn fancy themselves as a cut above mere Time Lords.
6 December 2015 at 23:54 #48884No. He wanted the truth, without the filter of politics, without the spin-doctoring.
6 December 2015 at 23:43 #48881@puroandson
I am also bemused by some who claim Moffat hasn’t tidied up the ends, as it were. No? Moffat! Surely not! I think he pretty much has but there were a few things that I need to plot back and reconfigure and it is TV. But I truly loved it.
I think people forget what an economical writer Moffat is. He doesn’t waste time on cruft: you get one line of explanation and if you miss, well you will get it on the re-watch or not at all (think when the explanation of Amy’s kidnap happen: “Dunno. Probaly be we went to America”. And that’s in. That’s canon).
And such economy can be used to devastatingly efficient impact: “They’ll kill you.” Not an exclamation – a recognition.
6 December 2015 at 23:36 #48880During the episode the Doctor kept correcting people when they said it was a myth plus he corrected them when they got information wrong so I think the hybrid is real.
I think you have misread that a little. He was correcting them when they were being vague, when they were prevaricating. He was making them be concrete, making them take the political spin off.
6 December 2015 at 20:44 #48862Which would imply that the Doctor goes to them.
Sorry – wasn’t clear. My assumption was that they summoned him.
I think a Pan Galactic Gargleblaster is indicated!
That should shut me up.
6 December 2015 at 18:51 #48849@puroandson
And also:
I don’t like it when tv patronises me all the time. I can think for myself and I like to. So, maybe that is what the writer was suggesting? That we need to conclude for ourselves and also to listen really carefully.
What Spawn of Puro said! ^^^
6 December 2015 at 18:47 #48846@doctordalek17 @blenkinsopthebrave
In DotD 11 declared that he was still running, but now running home (having improvised a way to make Gallifrey safe – I suspect it went awry and they ended up hidden at the end of time).
In TotD 11 found that bringing the Time Lords back would restart the Time War. But he also discovered where they were (behind the crack). Clara demonstrated that they could be communicated with;
12 was still minded to look for Gallifrey in space-time until Missy gave him false co-ordinates. He came close to despair then;
But then the Matrix came up with its forecasts (lets be scientific and not call them prophecies). It was well enough known that even the Daleks had heard of the Hybrid. The Time Lords wanted to know what the Doctor knew (and before the Daleks found out), but being led by an embittered and megalomaniacal Rassillon, they hatched a plan to intimidate him into giving up the knowledge, rather than just politely asking. It is quite obvious to me that, somewhere inside, The Doctor knew Clara was the crux, but was in denial and Magical Heal-Chipping Ashildr gave him a nice displacement object;
And then it (to use a term from the philosophy of science) went totally tits up. Because the Time Lords killed Clara. They were wholly unaware that they had killed the hybrid and carried on with their plan.
I believe it was Jeff Goldblum himself who put it best when he said: “oops”.
And I am pretty sure the Karn Sisters came to The Doctor, rather then him asking them, in the teaser – because I am pretty sure they hold him in the highest esteem (even if they would die rather than admit it) and didn’t fancy him going to his (likely, from their PoV) death on Gallifrey. They have their own agenda so, when the Doctor got to Gallifrey, butted in to keep an eye on things (and, interestingly, Rassillon was powerless to stop them).
By the way, I may not have mentioned this, but totally called it!
6 December 2015 at 12:20 #48810@puroandson
(but I’m 14 and may have missed a lot)
More like 14 and not weighed down by a load of historical cruft.
6 December 2015 at 02:27 #48769@craig – this thread is bumping up against the limit. Seems an apposite time for a spin-off.
6 December 2015 at 02:22 #48767Right. Bed time
Final thought: We still do not know the link between River and Clara, which she teased in Name of the Doctor.
There’s a little thread dangled for Yule.
By the way, did I mention that I totally called it?
6 December 2015 at 02:14 #48765@supernumerary
Gallifrey has returned. That’s surely the biggest event of AG Who
Not really. Gallifrey is still cowering in the shadows at the end of time, hated by everyone for the carnage it wrought.
On the other hand, a mightily pissed-off Rassillon is now in exile. That is far more interesting.
Because Doctor Who soars when it is about people. Not Gallifrey, not UNIT, not the in and outs and ups and downs of Dalek society, but about people. Gallifreyan people, Terran people, Sontaran people. A loan, isolated Dalek is a much more fascinating beast than a sky full of them. The not-so-high-born of Gallifrey knew in an instant who their hero was, not the big hat wearers; they knew it was the runaway, the person, the Time Lord not the Time Lords.
The Doctor found his way home and found the meaning of the old adage: You can’t go home again. But your friends will still give you soup.
And that’s Inverse Donna, thank you 😉 Not that I’m going to milk this or anything.
The only thing bad was about the Hybrid there was still no suitable explanation
There was a perfectly clear (not sure what suitable means in this context) explanation: the gestalt entity that is Doctor+Clara.
6 December 2015 at 00:36 #48758Oh and big props to Jenna’s acting as Clara realises that the Doctor really, *really*, *truly* can’t remember her. Every emotion covered with just the subtlest of twitches.
6 December 2015 at 00:31 #48755He called me “younger”!
*Preens*
*Looks at C90 cassettes of the off-air recordings of the original broadcast of HHGTTG, complete with the Pink Floyd music*
6 December 2015 at 00:28 #48754Also (also) what do we think the odds are of a certain diner turning up somewhere in the vicinity of Coal Hill School in the new spin-off?
6 December 2015 at 00:10 #48752@puroandson
STOP POSTING AND WATCH THE BLOODY EPISODE!!!!
Sheesh. No wonder you’re confused! 😉
And yes. As I may have mentioned upthread : Called it!
=(^•^)=
5 December 2015 at 21:39 #48728Als0, did I mishear, or has the Tardis that Me and Clara nicked got a broken chameleon circuit and is now stuck as a diner?
5 December 2015 at 21:31 #48725Maisie Williams
She utterly blossomed in this, freed of the Ashildr/ Me/ Night Mayor corsets.
More of her please.
5 December 2015 at 21:22 #48721Oh, and the simple line “They’ll kill you” added more the Gallifreyan back story in four words than almost anything else ever written int he show.
5 December 2015 at 21:20 #48719Oh, and I totally want a Clara/Ashildr spin-off series. You know you want to, Moff.
5 December 2015 at 21:06 #48715Couple of things:
1. That was more kinds of astounding than I can count;
2. @bluesqueakpip – you really need a rethink (don’t click the following link)
5 December 2015 at 00:59 #48653So anyway. Season 2 of Les Revenants. Catch up with it. Thank me later.
4 December 2015 at 01:58 #48609Ah, right. Gotcha. I suspect that even the uncrossed i’s and t’s are carefully considered….
That a few don’t get picked up on (most notable, I guess, Jenny-Wife-of-Tennant) is I think just a function of how TV gets made. Sometimes you just never get around to it.
(At the end to West Wing season 1 the character Mandy left the show – effectively mid-cliffhanger. They meant to go back and explain it, but never got around to it)
4 December 2015 at 01:48 #48607Whoa! Have we ever been seen together?
4 December 2015 at 01:47 #48606And now, imagine that one of the Paris attacker, the brain of the group escapes, changes his mind and says: From now on I’ll be a peaceful and loving person. And people say to him: We forgive you. Go and enjoy your life
But that is precisely what happened in South Africa, and in doing so probably averted a civil war that would almost certainly not have been contained to South Africa. Nobody would have thought that possible after Sharpville (or countless other atrocities).
It is, pretty much, what happened in Northern Ireland. Nobody would have thought that possible after Enniskillen (or countless other atrocities).
Daesh’s only genuine card is that its opponents are too busy fighting among themselves to deal with them (ask any ex-Khymer Rouge if they think Daesh are especially brutal, or ex-Mau Mau or anyone of any number of savage terrorist organisations down the years). Its leadership may be death cultists, but its soldiers are pretty much the disaffected youth of the Middle East. ’twas ever thus.
And the overwhelming majority of Germans soldiers got to go home and rebuild their country with a bucket load of cash from the Marshall Plan. That didn’t stop the war criminals being executed.
You are committing he cardinal sin of artistic analysis: applying a metaphor literally. But the whole point of a metaphor is that it gets to the essence of a matter, not the banality of it. It goes to what it will take to change, not to what is happening right now.
That is why it is neither shallow, nor naive, nor silly.
3 December 2015 at 23:58 #48600After “the Paris tantrum” the conclusion of the Zygon Inversion looks to me shallow, naive and silly.
Well, no.
All conflict in the modern era ends at the negotiating table, even if only to agree the terms of surrender (and let’s be clear, Bonnie surrendered. The only thing she got was forgiveness.)
And like it or not, what is happening in the Middle East will be sorted out around the negotiating table. I do not expect to see it in my lifetime, since we live at a time when the Speaker allows the Prime Minister to call the Leader of The Opposition a terrorist sympathiser for having perfectly rational doubts about the value of bombing.
But it will be resolved around the table.
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