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  • #51172
    tardigrade @replies

    @ichabod

    I mean, how did you feel about that throwaway line in Zygon Inversion, where the Doctor says, “I snogged a zygon once — ” WHAT?

    It refers I think to the events in The Day of the Doctor where the 10th Doctor kisses a Zygon disguised as Elizabath I. So not quite the same as deliberately kissing a Zygon in its natural form 🙂

    #51166
    tardigrade @replies

    @winston

    I can certainly see where you’re coming from. The Doctor needed distraction at this point in his life. The wounds of the Time War were too fresh. Plus he does seem to function better with a companion.

    I don’t know that I’d characterise the relationship as master / puppy though. Even at this point in the series, there have been a number of suggestions that there are some (unacknowledged) romantic feelings stirring, including the Doctor mirroring Rose’s father in how he puts his hand to her face in this episode, which seems uncharacteristically tender for the Doctor.

    I never found the romantic elements very believable though- it didn’t really seem an area where the writers were that much in their wheelhouse and weren’t willing to take it too far- I guess an interspecies relationship with a 900 year age difference had the potential to come off as somewhat creepy.

    #51157
    tardigrade @replies

    @winston

    I agree about them not fitting in to the “lore” of Doctor Who but overall the emotion of this story made me forget about the creature and concentrate on the family of Rose,Pete and Jackie.

    Agreed- the creatures were peripheral to the emotional centre of the story, so any quibbles with them didn’t really detract from the main impact of the episode.

    #51154
    tardigrade @replies

    Possibly the strongest episode of series 1. Emotionally it’s got a heart, with personal consequences for Rose and those she loves. And a time-travel paradox plot, without getting confusingly complex and losing those new to such concepts. Access to a time machine doesn’t allow free reign to change things however you choose. If you create paradoxes, they can come back to bite you, quite literally it seems.

    The 80’s setting was well created, without doing anything over the top- something the BBC can do well. Most places would need to source 80’s clothes, but I picture the props department there just digging out clothes they’ve had there since the 80’s 🙂

    The creatures coming to cleanse time are perhaps the weakest part. The CGI is reasonable, but they don’t blend with the scenes that well and as a consequence don’t have that much menace. And I don’t think that, as a concept, they sit that well with the overall lore, not having made an appearance earlier (or since).

    #51148
    tardigrade @replies

    I don’t have that much to say about this one. Reasonably solid story, even with the satire laid on with a trowel. It was perhaps the first time that I thought the Doctor’s character was falling into a pattern recognisable to long-time viewers, so while this wasn’t a stand-out episode by any means, it did feel like it was returning towards something I could feel was “my Dr Who”. Simon Pegg was brilliant, but I found myself wishing that Tamsin Greig had more to do.

    #51147
    tardigrade @replies

    I’ve got to agree with the comments saying that the episode shouldn’t be entitled “Dalek”, since that completely spoils what appeared to be set up as a big reveal during the episode. I guess the return of the daleks to the series was just too big a drawcard at the time to avoid having them in the title and shown in the promo. In the end, to those who were looking forward to the return of the daleks, having just the one left and finishing that one off wasn’t all that satisfying though.

    This episode establishes some lore pretty economically- i.e. that the Time War involved the daleks and that the Doctor somehow ended it. It also establishes that, contrary to possible appearances, particularly for those new to the series, the daleks are formidable enemies, not stoppable by bullets (or stairs 🙂 ). So it was an important one in setting up the daleks for the new series.

    The Von Statten character is pretty much a caricature, but the main characters (even the dalek!) get more to work with and we get much more of a look into what the Time War has done to the Doctor, leaving him with a level of hatefulness that even the dalek recognises with the very “un-dalek-like” statement that the Doctor would make a good dalek.

    #51117
    tardigrade @replies

    There were some good elements in the episode:
    * the core idea of aliens infiltrating the government and trapping the alien experts
    * the Number 10 setting
    * the impact Rose’s travels had on others
    * the Doctor’s inability to keep Rose 100% safe
    * Harriet Jones

    But in the end, the tone of the episode, in particular the juvenile fart jokes, mean that the more high-concept elements are somewhat lost in the silliness. I didn’t greatly like the creature design – the cutesy faces were out of place and the pig creature was pretty cliched and wasn’t well executed – in one close-up you can see the seam where the costume was molded.

    The contrivance of having the UN holding the nuclear codes was also rather naive. I quite like the idea at some level, since it would stop the weapons ever being used, as the security council would never unanimously agree to it, short of an alien invasion. But governments would know that made their arsenals basically worthless, so would never agree to handing over the codes. But as knowledge of a single seven-letter word seemingly allows you to launch a conventional strike remotely, it’s probably for the best.

    #51108
    tardigrade @replies

    Continuing my rewatch and finding details I’d forgotten – in that case that Eve Myles made an early appearance in this episode prior to her regular appearance on Torchwood. Good to see her here as Gwyneth, a distant relative of Torchwood’s Gwen.

    An enjoyable episode and the idea of including Charles Dickens was a nice one. He did actually travel around and do readings of his works, especially A Christmas Carol in his later life, so that’s more historically accurate that a modern viewer might appreciate, thinking that might have been something he would have felt was beneath him. A book tour seems to have been a different thing in those days.

    The CGI and the ghost story is fairly solid, although the denouement is pretty obvious before it arrives.

    A couple of niggles. Firstly seeing the Doctor again in the series seemingly resigned to dying, which seems a little out of character with how he’s always been in a crisis, although maybe you could argue he’s fairly fresh from the Time War and may not have the same determination as normal. And secondly what looks a lot like flirting from Rose towards the Doctor. Long time viewers would know that the Doctor’s relationships are platonic, but it’s not clear that Rose (or new viewers) would, and she does have a boyfriend, ineffectual as he may be, back home.

    #51077
    tardigrade @replies

    Until rewatching this, I’d forgotten how good some of the effects were this early in the run. Some really strong creature effects and CGI in places, although overall a pretty generic environment. I particularly appreciated the makeup for Jabe, which I though was convincing and not as derivative as some of the other creatures. The swinging blades I could have done without though- just too contrived and pretty much a cliche.

    The story is pretty simple, and realistically I don’t think was really intended as that much of a mystery.

    I found the attempts at humour in this episode much easier to bear than in “Rose” and appreciated that the Doctor showed a little of what was going on beneath the cocky mask. His choice of five billion years in the future, while initially just appearing to be showing off, is shown to have a meaning, even if perhaps he didn’t consciously intend it. The Doctor, whose own planet has been decimated, is showing Rose the end of her own planet.

    To those who said that it was an unnecessary to have Gallifrey destroyed, I’d suggest that it would have been a great opportunity lost not to have taken advantage of the significant gap in the Doctor’s timeline to introduce a back story for that period that had strongly affected the Doctor and that would play out over several seasons, and I think this worked out to be a strong story arc, which gave scope for some later episodes that are amongst the very best in the run.

    #51030
    tardigrade @replies

    The ABC in Australia is currently replaying series 1, and it’s been a while since I’ve seen them, so I’m taking the opportunity to watch them again, and offer some quick thoughts.

    This episode is played rather too much for comedy for my liking, with Micky in particular played basically entirely for comedic effect, Jackie heading that way, and the Doctor being played largely as a joker. Christopher Eccleston appears to be having fun in the role, but it doesn’t quite work and the Doctor’s complex character doesn’t really come out. Billie Piper is, of course, excellent as Rose, and with Rose being played essentially straight and as the main character in this initial episode it holds things together, but my overall reaction brought back to mind my thoughts after that initial watching years ago, in that I was hoping the comedy would be played down and a more serious SF direction taken. At the time, I was concerned that without doing that, the new series could have been almost as much of a misstep as the movie was.

    @nightfell

    The other was completely bewildered and stopped after one episode. I suggested for her try the show again starting with Ten.

    Having seen this episode again now, I think it’s actually a reasonable introduction to Dr Who. With Rose as a new companion, you get the explanation of the Tardis, the Doctor being an alien, mentions of time travel and so on, but without it being too overwhelming. If someone felt lost after watching this, I’d perhaps tell them that the references to the Time War aren’t something that’s part of the old series and are meant to be unexplained at this point and will be explained as the series progresses. You’d obviously get a little bit more out of it with knowledge of the history of Dr Who (like when he’s evaluating his relatively new face in a mirror), but there’s really nothing too crucial.

    So I’d be inclined to suggest to a new viewer to start with this, even though New Who really didn’t hit its stride until David Tennant came on board. Coming in later would only cause more questions / disorientation. Though if the tone of this first episode was the problem, then that might be worth a shot, as the tone has obviously evolved significantly by series 2.

    #50790
    tardigrade @replies

    @kharis

    Any other suggestions for Romana? It would be wonderful to have her back.

    In terms of actors, is Lalla Ward herself not a possibility? Bring her back as an older and wiser Time Lady. I don’t think it’s been established in canon that’s she regenerated post her appearances in the TV series, and even if she had, she might have chosen to revisit a previous face. As others have noted, it’s probably time for a break from young female human companions. Introducing someone towards whom the Doctor doesn’t feel a duty of care – an equal- would, I feel, also be a good direction to go, as that’s been a heavily-mined story line over a number of series, and seems to fit with what the Doctor may be seeking at this point.

    I wouldn’t necessarily see her as a long-term companion, but perhaps instead an ally in a clash with a vengeful Rassilon, or some other appropriate story arc.

    I’ll have to admit I was more than a little enamoured with Lalla Ward in Dr Who reruns in my teens, and the 64-year old Lalla still retains a fair part of that attraction :-). Would certainly make a lot of long term Dr Who fans very happy to see Romana return to the series.

    Lalla Ward

    #49758
    tardigrade @replies

    @toinfinityandbepond

    River asks how did he get another regeneration, and The Doctor says “a thing happened”
    Question, does he remember?

    I didn’t think there was a suggestion he’d forgotten- only that it would be complex to explain (and of no benefit in moving the story forward for him to do so).

    #49757
    tardigrade @replies

    @missy- no mentions of Clara- and it’s otherwise safe from a spoiler point of view if you missed other episodes in this series.

    #49752
    tardigrade @replies

    @pedant

    24 years. Just enough time to raise a perky young control freak, fabricate a history and plonk her in Missy’s path.

    I don’t know if there’s an incentive for the Doctor & River to want to do that or a suggestion that Clara could have been part TL, but even if not, you may well be onto something… 24 years is just about right to allow for the Doctor’s companion in the next series to be a daughter or son with River (doesn’t fit with the idea that the companion is not emotionally attached of course :-). That would be an interesting proposition – the Doctor hasn’t traveled with family in a long time.

    If the Doctor doesn’t start a new series with a companion, then I wouldn’t mind seeing him needing to work with Missy for a while (possibly to combat a mutual enemy in Rassilon?). Couldn’t be a long term thing, but given their love-hate relationship, it would be an attractive setup for a story arc over a few episodes.

    #49748
    tardigrade @replies

    @cpgolfer

    Killing off River would be a huge mistake she’s one of the most unique characters of the franchise with the right actress playing her. They left her mind trapped in a planet sized library I think someone as clever as she is would use all that knowledge and a teleporter that converts matter to energy and vise versa talk about the ultimate 3d printer lol  to restore her body and even possibly build a tardis

    She is an expert at escapes and has some knowledge of TL tech (though not it would seem enough to build a tardis), and presumably has access to the knowledge of the library, so it doesn’t seem unreasonable that she could find a way to be restored from the library computer, so there’s room for the character to be reintroduced in that way.

    For that matter, their last night together in Darillium apparently can last 24 years, so there would seem to be room for them to head off together and complete a fair few adventures following on from this episode. The Doctor is without a regular companion at this point and might welcome a companion who is more an equal, and less someone to whom he feels a “duty of care” at this stage, even without considering his feelings for River.

    I don’t think that’s all that likely to happen though, since I think the writers (and especially a new show runner) are more likely to want to have the freedom of a new companion, and regardless of how you and I feel, the River character hasn’t been universally popular.

    @arbutus

    Oh, and- Stephen Fry?

    Paired with River though… paired with the Doctor, or perhaps both, at least tangentially, might have been a more interesting reference 🙂

    #49684
    tardigrade @replies

    Just watched the episode and really enjoyed it as a mostly light-hearted romp, but also with a proper swan song for River for me – I was happy to see her show up one last time.

    Matt Lucas’s character was great, I’ve always like Alex Kingston as River (I know that’s not the case for everyone) and I loved the autonomous mechanised suit (shades of Warhammer). I couldn’t help of thinking when watching that Rik Mayall would have been ideal as Hydroflax (no criticism of the actual actor).

    River did seem more than a little slow on the uptake in working out who the Doctor was- plenty of clues there for her, but the Doctor’s rant on how the Tardis was bigger on the inside was just so OTT / cheesy it was hard to see how she could not realise what was going on by that point – again no criticism of Capaldi btw- he was playing the Doctor as hamming it up badly :-). She seemed fixated on him having one of twelve faces though.

    Some great one-liners and exchanges too, as you expect from a Xmas special. Can’t resist quoting a few:

    River: Does sarcasm help?
    The Doctor: Wouldn’t it be a great universe if it did?

    The Doctor: You probably want to press that button.
    River: Why?! That evacuates the waste tank on deck seven.
    The Doctor: Does it?
    River: What is wrong with you?
    The Doctor: Better avoid deck seven then.

    The Doctor: My entire understanding of physical space has been transformed! Three-dimensional Euclidean geometry has been torn up, thrown in the air and snogged to death! My grasp of the universal constants of physical reality has been changed… forever. Sorry. I’ve always wanted to see that done properly.

    The Doctor: It’s my back.
    River: Your back?
    The Doctor: Yeah, my back’s playing up. It simply refuses to carry the weight of an entirely pointless stratum of society who contribute nothing of worth to the world and crush the hopes and dreams of working people.
    (expectant of support from the gathered crowds and getting nothing)

    Scratch: Silence! This is not our way.
    The Doctor: It doesn’t say much for your king if you can’t put a price on his head.

    #49535
    tardigrade @replies

    @puroandson

    Good thing I brought up the Big Bang then too! I really loved that 2 parter. I remember people complaining when they heard there would be daleks and cybermen and sontarans and there were only a few of each species underground near the pandorica.

    I thought the concept of the Pandorica was a strong one, and the visual design of the Pandorica was well resolved and believable. With the time travel in the episode, the script was tight enough to keep that understandable. Plus an epic scope. So pushing a few buttons there for me and that was certainly a 2-parter I enjoyed also. I wasn’t fussed that there weren’t a squillion enemies in evidence, as the point was more that they’d acted together and there were representatives from the different parties there, rather than there needing to be a massed army. The Big Bang solution was a little extreme, and realistically could have raised the DEM flags (no real reason to think that a prison is just the ticket for recreating the universe), but I was OK with that – extreme problems call for extreme measures and I guess I was rooting for the universe to survive – I’m a bit biased that way 🙂

    I think that some people thought the music in Hell Bent and Heaven Sent was over-done or maybe they just couldn’t hear the voices properly? Still, I loved the rich fabric of the music.

    I barely noticed the music the first time through on each, which generally means that it was tonally appropriate for me, since it didn’t intrude on my consciousness. Admittedly though that may also mean that the sound setup I was using for viewing (a tablet) wasn’t ideal, and I’m also much more visually focused than auditory. I listened more on the rewatch, since people had made comment on the music, and enjoyed what it added. Generally I find that the music in the show doesn’t become too noticeable for me, unless there’s a particularly emotional moment and the melodrama slider has been pushed too far to the right, which thankfully isn’t too often.

    #49532
    tardigrade @replies

    @puroandson (son)

    Hallo there. I am 14 so I don’t know what you were talking about with labels? As we seem to argue or repeat ourselves I really tried to talk about autons or other things to get a different conversation going? Mentioning Amy wasn’t about that you see. Anyway, that didn’t work so I won’t be doing that anymore. I apologise for saying “miss” I was doing this out of politeness as mum taught

    No problem there as I said, and np either on trying to take a tangent to distract from another tangent that had gone on too long. I actually appreciated the reminder of Big Bang 2 and learnt something there. My offhand comment on labels was simply to say that if you were in a species where there are no males/females, then labels like Mr/Miss would be pretty meaningless. You’ll find other labels may get applied as you get older too – “nerd” is one for example – I’d suggest you ignore those also, and do your own thing.

    #49531
    tardigrade @replies

    @bluesqueakpip

    It may be metaphorical – before Big Bang 2 we have RTD’s Whoniverse, post Big Bang 2 we are definitely in Moffat’s Whoniverse.

    Love the idea that the reboot was as much metaphorical as anything. The show itself didn’t get a reboot, but by rebooting the universe, continuity before Big Bang 2 can be adjusted as desired.

    For example, that the end of the universe can be terrifying and ultimately meaningless (RTD) or it can be something that is sad – and beautiful (Moffat).

    I was one who commented that the end of the universe was different and on completely different timescales in the two- I suppose Big Bang 2, and the inherent wilful decision to ignore the continuity from earlier explains that.

    ‘Most people’ being either from the West or from one of the Abrahamic religions? Even there, I think you’d need to distinguish between ‘cheating death’ and ‘defeating death’. And the Buddhists and the Hindus would definitely disagree with you about ‘immortality for the consciousness’.

    By “most people” I was implicitly thinking of those in the Dr Who target audience and on forum, so yes primarily I was talking about Abrahamic religions, and those non-religious people who look forward to the ‘singularity’- or as Cory Doctorow wonderfully entitled it “The Rapture of the Nerds”.

    I’m mostly thinking of “cheating” death, in the sense of getting a second chance, rather than “defeating” it entirely, since there don’t seem to be any true immortals in the series. So those that “cheat death” die in the end (barring some bootstrap paradox that somehow keeps them looping or the like). My understanding is that some strands of Buddhism have as an aspiration the ascent of the consciousness, free from the body, after many cycles of reincarnation. I don’t know enough about Hinduism to comment meaningfully (though I recognise reincarnation features in the beliefs).

    they have time travel, which (in our current understanding) would need faster than light travel. And in our current understanding, faster than light travel is impossible at a basic theoretical level.

    There are theoretical ways that time travel could be accomplished without FTL travel, e.g. wormholes. Regardless I don’t hold Dr Who to be constrained to real-world physics- it’s not hard SF. And just to be clear, I don’t have a problem with people coming back from the dead and/or having a technological afterlife in some form or other- I just noted that it happened a lot, i.e. to every recurring character that dies – it wasn’t my intention to have an extended discussion (albeit a polite one) on what I thought was a fairly uncontroversial statement. Regardless, I think I’ve now said all I have to on that topic, possibly twice over, so I’m going to leave that alone now 🙂

    #49509
    tardigrade @replies

    @bluesqueakpip

    Having an active SF afterlife is not ‘cheating death’.

    For most people, I think an afterlife is the ultimate form of cheating death, as it’s a form of immortality for the consciousness. Those who look forward to “the singularity” certainly seem to view it as a form of immortality, not death.

    If you go back to BG Who, the only dead regular characters who stay dead are Katarina, Sarah Kingdom (both really one story characters), Adric and the robot Kamelion. That’s over seventeen years.

    Adric was the only one I could think of. Kamelion I guess counts, though I think they were forced to kill the character off because it was too difficult to film with, if I recall correctly.

    Whereas Steven Moffat has killed off River (before we knew she was going to be a regular companion), Amy, Rory, Clara – well, that’s everyone.

    Amy & Rory we’re killed off by natural causes. If you allow that, then everyone in the universe bar 3 were killed off when the Doctor travelled to the end of time. Not everyone is immortal, just hard to finish off. Clearly that doesn’t bother many though.

    I really hate to tell you this, but if God is introduced in the beginning of your play cycle, uh, creating the world or something, then please do not be surprised if he turns up near the end of the play cycle to raise everyone from the dead. 🙂

    Never liked that book much- inconsistent characterisation of the main character, plot inconsistencies and holes, and a “preachy” tone. The movie adaptation (Star Wars) did the whole “I am your father” thing much better than the original book 🙂

    I only watched Heaven Sent once, and have no intention of watching it again, so all I can say is that I had the very distinct impression that his original body was destroyed each time to provide the teleport with a power supply. It’s a Matrix joke; he uses his original body as a battery. Doing that burns it up each time.

    It seemed it was used as a very basic power source- matter to energy conversion, so looked like a barrel full of bananas would have been just as effective. Wasn’t really established that it was a “one Doctor in, one Doctor out” proposition.

    @puroandson

    Miss @tardigrade

    Mr @tardigrade actually. It seems some tardigrades are parthenogenic though, so labels could be confusing…

    On the big bang- the intent seems to have been to put things back the way they were (except for where it didn’t). Can’t say I have a good grasp on what was meant to have happened here. It doesn’t appear to have any great effect on overall continuity.

    And you’ve reminded me that I should have had:
    Amy (Pandorica)
    in the list above of returns from the dead.

    #49501
    tardigrade @replies

    @jphamlore

    Not that Doctor Who can get Cumberbatch…

    Cumberbatch as Rassilon- now there’s a great prospect- the role could certainly do with that sort of boost when it returns. But if he is available (in this fantasy world), then why not as the Doctor? Much as I like Capaldi in the role, if Cumberbatch was available, regenerate away 🙂

    @bluesqueakpip

    The Doctor hints at the reason this would be the case: he dryly remarks that the victim is the only really essential person in a torture chamber.

    I took that much more metaphorically :-). I don’t think that the TLs intended that the Doctor goes through what he does by killing himself to feed the teleporter repeatedly. Hence if the Doctor does intend that meaning, it seems he’s tacitly acknowledging that it is him torturing himself. Which of course really would make him the only essential person 🙂

    Unfortunately I think you’re forced to add some justification of why his original body needs to be destroyed each time that isn’t really supported (though not necessarily excluded) by the script, to avoid the teleport being too overpowered.

    #49490
    tardigrade @replies

    @puroandson

    I think River is dead? -just because we see her doesn’t mean she isn’t dead. It’s time travel man!

    Yes- she can still crop up- will be interesting where in her timeline the Xmas special has her placed. But regardless, within her own timeline, she dies and is uploaded to the Library computer, cheating death. She “faded out” last we saw her- not 100% sure that she’s altogether dead even then though.

    Point: “how’s Danny, still dead, Clara?”
    Clara: “yes, Missy, he’s still dead”.
    Therefore he’s dead?

    Yes- dead now, but that’s second time around. When he was hit by a car and killed, he had secretly been uploaded to Missy’s Nethersphere, so cheated death and could even have returned to life had he not sacrificed that chance.

    And so is Rory. These people didn’t cheat death. They died. It wasn’t “blech, blood and slump” but a far more sinister thing: we saw gravestones and the implication of that is inherent.

    Rory eventually died, presumably of natural causes. By again not his 1st time… he was dead, replaced by an auton and still ends up fully alive again.

    Not everyone is immortal- they do die eventually, but it can take a couple of goes to finish them off.

    #49487
    tardigrade @replies

    @bluesqueakpip

    You may not like it, but that’s what that type of teleport does. If it works by information transfer, it can clone you. Or reconstruct you after death. Letting an information transfer teleport into your fictional universe (rather than dissassembly and reassembly after a short and possibly rather exciting trip through a wormhole) implies all those things.

    I recognise that this is at least consistent with the use of teleports earlier in the show (in fact it seemed that Missy allowed her “source” body to be destroyed by a dalek weapon while successfully teleporting out early in the season). And yes, it is an uncomfortable thought that the device will literally kill you when you step into it, and (with luck) reconstruct a version of you at the other end. My discomfort with that type of teleport being in the narrative though is that it gives a means of cloning / bringing back the dead, seemingly without limit and available to any moderately technological society (teleport tech seems widespread), not just the TLs. If it really is that simple, then (1) it does make cheating death way too simple for my liking and (2) it should have had an impact in earlier storylines with clone armies being cheap to make, and leaders being unkillable. In short, if that was possible, everyone with the means would have a copy of themselves stored in case of misadventure / peasant uprising. I’d have preferred that the Who explanation of teleportation was more like a physical transport of components, since that avoids such issues.

    Time Lords doing Time Lord-ey things like Time Lords do is never a deus ex machina. DEM is not shorthand for ‘plot device I don’t like’, or ‘method I think is overused’.

    Agreed on the second part- but I can’t give the Time Lords a completely free pass to perform “magic” and accept that was part of their established capacities as a technologically highly advanced species. To do so would be awfully close to having a writer paint themself in a corner and finish the story with “then God fixed it and they all lived happily ever after” and denying that’s a DEM, by virtue of God being a character that had previously been mentioned and established to have unlimited power, hence that action being consistent with known capacities of known characters. I will however extend the TLs a good deal of slack 🙂

    #49486
    tardigrade @replies

    @puroandson (son)

    Hmm, quite a few people have died -all the people in the Under the Lake episode or several anyway died. Danny died, the zygons eps had ‘real’ people killed. Then last year in Into the Dalek and also Deep Breath? Cass died with Dr 8 in the minisode so I think lots have died and not all ‘red shirts’.
    On principal we know River is dead the Doctor regenerates and Amy and Rory were teleported back to early NY and never saw the doctor again so in a show where the companion hardly ever dies, where the doctor doesn’t either then you’re going to have a show where not many people die .

    Danny died, but didn’t quite, since he was still alive in the matrix slice and could have returned to life, except for his sacrifice. So he had in fact cheated death. River died, except she didn’t because she ended up in the library computer, so cheated death at least to some degree. The others you mention I’d regard as red shirts (introduced for one story and killed).

    I’m not suggesting more need to die- a mounting body count isn’t essential to good drama, and I actually liked seeing different solutions to “losing” companions (Rose, Amy & Rory, Donna)- I’ve just noted that death has consistently not been final. FWIW, the total death count in AG Who is significantly negative- with the destruction of Gallifrey at the end of the Time War being undone, so even red shirts have done OK 🙂

    Just out of interest I pulled from the BBC website a list of all the recurring characters I could find over the last 5 seasons who have died – every one has cheated death, at least temporarily:

    Doctor (regen, new regen cycle, teleport)
    Master/Missy (regen – multiple cycles , ressurrection, teleport, etc)
    Davros (resurrected by Daleks)
    Clara (extraction chamber)
    Ashildr (Mire tech- immortal)
    Rassilon (resurrection, regen)
    General (regen)
    Osgood (Zygon clone)
    Danny (matrix slice)
    River (library computer)
    Rory (auton with his consciousness, restored to human)
    Brigadier (matrix slice)

    I think I could have extended that back to the start of AG Who, picking up more methods, like Captain Jack’s immortality, resurrection gloves in Torchwood, parallel universes (Rose’s father, Micky/Ricky), and struggled to find a dead recurring character who stayed definitely dead.

    #49471
    tardigrade @replies

    @puroandson

    I didn’t mean to suggest that the extraction chamber itself had been overused- more that the number of ways to cheat death was mounting up over the last two seasons, and as a theme that had been used more than I’m comfortable with. I wouldn’t want to see a descent into comic book logic, where anyone regardless of how thoroughly dead can be brought back to life with impunity. If you pull out a new way to cheat death each time, then it risks looking like a deus ex machina solution. In the context of Doctor Who, where the tech is supposedly sufficiently advanced to invoke Clarke’s law, a certain amount of handwaving is acceptable, but it can easily be taken too far. It’s also why I railed a bit against “reversing the polarity” as that’s also a DEM device.

    I’ll need to review better how Rassilon was “resurrected”, since I’m not at all sure how that went down if that’s really ever been explained – admittedly as you note that term is Rassilon’s, since that suits the narrative he prefers to spin of himself as a semi-mythical figure. I thought The End of Time is post Time War though, so can’t relate to Rassilon’s or the Master’s “resurrection” during the Time War, can it?

    #49465
    tardigrade @replies

    @thebrainofmoffat

    The extraction chamber is an overpowered plot device unless it has limits, and we’re given no indication that there are any.

    Agreed. I also had much the same issue with the teleporter spitting out an infinite sequence of Doctors in Heaven Sent. The explanation given there likened it to a copy being 3D-printed from a template on the hard drive. That left it far too open for my liking for a modified teleporter to be used to clone / restore to life anyone. And teleporters are a much more widely distributed tech than TL extraction chambers. You could argue that the confession dial was in some way a subjective experience, but the Doctor was using the teleporter as known real-world tech. So I’d have appreciated clearer limits being placed on that also.

    @bluesqueakpip

    It’s not even a previously unknown character ability. The Time Lords have brought people back from the dead before – Rassilon even reminds us he’s been ‘resurrected’ in the episode. (They seem to have brought people back from the dead in job lots during the Time War). And they’ve certainly extracted people from their time streams before – the Five Doctors.

    The term “resurrected” suggested to me that Rassilon was actually “dead” and restored to life, rather than cheating death. Given the episode revived the concept of TL consciousnesses going into the Matrix after death, it seemed more likely to me that it was that consciousness being restored to a cloned body with a big dose of regeneration energy (or something along those lines) that was used to resurrect Rassilon & the Master. If that’s the case, there’s no time paradox involved, even if it is yet another deus ex machina. That’s three ways to bring people back from the dead in one two-parter (not counting Me’s implant, or normal TL regeneration). So it’s definitely been an overused plot device. Characters need to stay dead sometimes, especially when you have time travel as a major premise of the series, which used without limits can “fix” anything.

    “Five Doctors” type-scenarios have never been entirely satisfactory either for me. But there were limits set on those- it seems it wasn’t something that could be maintained forever, and those regenerations pulled forward couldn’t remember it afterwards, so the paradox is at least unwound in those cases. “The Day of the Doctor” is actually a much worse example because historically established highly important and hence presumably “fixed” events (the end of the Time War) are changed, though since that required the Moment’s influence, that’s not (easily) repeatable.

    #49458
    tardigrade @replies

    @janetteb

    When the Doctor says he ran away with the President’s daughter I assumed he meant as in “eloped with” not abducted and took gallivanting through time and space with, (ie Susan because that has dubious connotations). Missy we know had a daughter. Maybe at some time he/she was President of Gallifrey and it was her daughter the Doctor eloped with.

    Early in the series Missy referred to the Doctor running off with “the president’s wife”. Seems an odd mistake for her to have made in any case, but more so if it was her own daughter, and she’d also have been referring to her past regneration as “the president”, i.e. referring to herself in the 3rd person, in that case. Plus I don’t know that the Master/Missy was ever president material, though I guess could have gained the position by subterfuge :-). So I don’t think that’s a likely explanation. Perhaps it is Susan referred to, in which case neither an abduction or elopement (in a romantic sense) sit very well.

    #49439
    tardigrade @replies

    @ichabod

    That’s the point, IMO: the Doctor didn’t *need* to kill him, although I think what he was calculating was how far the General would go to enforce what he saw as his military duty to take charge of Clara and send her back to the Raven, and how quick the soldiers would be to continue that enforcement if the General died (and regenerated); not very, as it turned out

    If he was truly calculating, then the Doctor would have used one of the neural blocks available in that room to cause all the TLs to black out and wipe the last half hour from their memories. He could then have strolled out, requested a tardis using his authority as president, and be long gone before anyone knew anything was up. Instead he shoots the General, meaning undoubtedly one of the others in the room would be onto the military in around three seconds of him leaving the room. It’s not just the cold-bloodedness of it that bothers me- it’s also the lack of foresight it shows.

    Also, we’ve seen the regeneration process used as a weapon (Time of the Doctor), so I’m not sure that by shooting the general he isn’t potentially giving him a weapon.

    Seemed more like Missy than the Doctor in some ways though- she’d ask the general’s regeneration number for the same reason Rassilon did of the Doctor- so she’d know how many times she’d need to shoot to finish the job. There’s true calculation at work 🙂

    #49433
    tardigrade @replies

    @soundworld

    Would the neural block have worked on Clara without a pulse?  In her time-looped state she might have just reset, or it may not have had time to work – it seemed to take several seconds for the Doctor to succumb to it.  It depends on how much of Clara’s system is reset in her timeloop (she is her own personal traveling Ourobouros).

    Maybe thats another reason the Dr was so panicked about the plan.

    Interesting idea- my take is that it stands a good chance of working. The time loop doesn’t seem to be stopping her laying down new memories, so it would seem her perception / memory isn’t “looped”. But without knowing how the TLs “cleverness” works, who can say? The extraction chamber wasn’t something that was intended to be used for any extended period, so maybe long term memories are “looped” and can’t be changed? Perhaps the Doctor himself doesn’t know if it would work- that could add to his agitation, as you posit.

    #49417
    tardigrade @replies

    @ichabod

    On the other hand — he demanded a neural block “compatible with humans” back in the extraction room, didn’t he? What for, if he didn’t have *some* plan to use it — on a human? And Clara is the only human at hand except for Ashildr (does Ashildr count as fully human any more?), and he doesn’t seem to have any cause to use it on Ashildr.

    I’d doubt it would even work on Ashildr (I’d suspect it would work initially, but her Mire implant might well reverse its effects, like any other “damage” to her), and can’t see why he would have planned to use in on her in any case. I think he’s being honest about his plans to use it on Clara (so presumably plan A was to return Clara to Earth, memory wiped, but with a pulse).

    #49410
    tardigrade @replies

    @puroandson
    when people are say, doing magic, they are misdirecting people: not sure they’re needing empathy to do this?

    In the sense of understanding how they will react, a magician does. Oddly, so does the observer of the magic- the autistic spectrum person who doesn’t follow the normal cues, and say follow the magician’s gaze as she mimes taking an object from one hand into another, is less likely to be fooled.

    In a novel situation, you need to be able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, and the Doctor’s cue cards are an indication that it can be something he struggles with, so perhaps it’s actually fairer to characterise the Doctor as sympathetic rather than empathetic much of the time (look up the comparative definition if you’re not sure what I mean). I don’t mean to imply a lack of caring – it’s perhaps more an indication of his alien nature, even after so much time amongst humans, that he can’t always put himself altogether into human shoes.

    #49409
    tardigrade @replies

    @lisa

    I can’t equate that with a lack of empathy. Seems to me he has buckets of empathy. It drives his choices but its not always critical to success. He’s still the alpha leader. He still manipulates the action and he’s positively confident and clever. Yes, he’s definitely agitated because Clara isn’t getting a pulse and Clara had in a previous episodes opportunities to learn her way around the sonics so she may have been able to ‘reverse’ the neural blocker? Also think that he has in every episode surprised us with his strategies. To me that implies great misdirecting. But that’s just my way of seeing it.

    No- a lack of empathy isn’t something I’d ascribe to the Doctor, so I shouldn’t have used that word, though a lack of tact perhaps, e.g., looking at his actions of Gallifrey in Hell Bent- they may have been strategically reasonably sound, but tactful – not so much – I wouldn’t expect a manipulator to take on Rassilon head on, but only when he’d sown the seeds and knew his victory was a fait accompli (so the Doctor is no politician, which I’m sure we can agree on). He definitely directs the action where he can, not sure that’s often through misdirection though. So it’s not empathy that’s lacking, more an understanding of people at times, that manifests as lapses in tactfulness.

    Missy however, has a strong grasp on how people will react and does employ misdirection heavily- with the lack of empathy of a sociopath though, of course.

    When it’s clear that Clara’s pulse isn’t returning, the Doctor is agitated in a way that we’ve rarely seen. He certainly seems to be doubting himself at that point, so I have difficulty in seeing him putting in place a plan at that moment. That’s admittedly a difference in interpretation though- he can certainly think quickly when he feels cornered.

    #49399
    tardigrade @replies

    @morpho

    Interesting. I didn’t see the dalek, cyberman or weeping angels as being in the Matrix but rather like external memory.

    Probably correct- they don’t seem to be integrated like the TLs in the matrix, or arguably the sliders. Perhaps the cloisters rather than the Matrix proper would qualify as the hybrid. I was thinking that the experience of those inside the Matrix proper would be of a virtual environment (so they wouldn’t be directly aware of the cloisters). We saw an example in Missy’s “Heaven” which was described as a Gallifrey Matrix Data Slice, so presumably similar tech. Though the behaviour of the sliders may suggest it may not be a pleasant experience, at least for them, so maybe more like hell than heaven.

    @lisa

    If I may push back gently and suggest that perhaps when the Doctor realized that Clara’s heart would not beat again we saw he became agitated and plan B kicked in. Why?   I believe its because he felt in that moment “his duty of care” to Clara could continue with out end  and would leave him in a very compromised state .  So he felt compelled at this point to revise his plan. Also, he  knew he needed to make the 2 devices available to Clara because they would still be pivotal tools in his plan.  But he had to do it in such a way that looked irrelevant to her. So he tossed them away but still easily accessible and I think he managed to do that expertly.  I think that’s his style.  Misdirection is a superpower of his (and Missy’s too)

    The Doctor is genuinely agitated when he throws down the glasses, so I find it difficult to believe that it was part of a plan, though with his speed of thinking, maybe I’m being too dismissive. He’d have to assume though what Clara would do is to attempt to reverse the effects of the neural block- I would have thought it more likely that she would disable or destroy it, since I don’t think that the reversal was a particularly thought out thing. While there’s no doubt the Doctor lies, I have difficulty in crediting him as a master of misdirection, since he is someone who apparently needs cue cards to show appropriate empathy, and effective misdirection requires a good understanding of how people will act and feel.

    #49360
    tardigrade @replies

    Been offline for a couple of days, so only catching up properly now. Thanks to those who responded to my concerns- a few follow-ups:

    @mudlark

    What fuelled his determination to hold out against the interrogation, even to the extent of enduring repeated torment over billions of subjective years, was above all his hatred of and rage against the Time Lords, or at least Rassilon and the others of the High Council.

    That seems much more likely to me than the reason the Doctor gives, though I’m not sure that he really fully recognises the motivations himself. He seemed very reluctant to talk about it with Clara, perhaps embarrassed in realising how stubborn it makes him look, and not wanting to face his real motivations. Ohila in particular seems contemptuous of his decision to do what he did in the dial.

    @morpho

    I think I agree with your first criticism: Heaven Sent/Hell Bent seemed a bit muddled over the significance of the hybrid. But then, perhaps, the story isn’t over…

    “Criticism” is perhaps a bit strong… but there have been two secrets the Doctor can “never tell” over the past few seasons – the previous one (his name) was not revealed and this latest one turns out to be a non-starter unless the Doctor’s old memory returns. So I’ll be wary the next time a reveal of a significant secret is teased.

    Arguably it would be a dangerous secret if the Doctor could remember – though it seems that fear of the prophecy is possibly more of a problem than the prophecy itself. If only Rassilon had access to some other method of finding out about the future, apart from vague prophecies – say a time machine… 🙂

    The thread could be revived, say if the Doctor’s memory returns, but honestly I think I’d be happier to see it die at this point and settle for the given resolution, incomplete though that is.

    @jphamlore

    I believe the Matrix captured the Doctor as a student, tortured him for 4 days, brainwashed him, and implanted post-hypnotic suggestions and memories that would be activated only on certain triggers.

    If you believe that the Matrix has an agenda, then there’s no reason to put any stock in the prophecy- it could simply have made it up to get rid of Rassilon. In that case, it’s unsurprising that the Doctor can’t remember who the hybrid is.

    If it’s more recent years that these prophecies have occurred, then I’ll note that the Master was dead, and quite possibly in the Matrix, prior to being resurrected during the Time War. So there’s one possible source of misinformation.

    And if you ascribe a hidden agenda to the Matrix, then perhaps you could hypothesise that it is the Matrix that is the hybrid – it certainly qualifies as a hybrid – many TL’s plus a few others thrown in, including at least one dalek. The cloisters stand among the ruins of Gallifrey, seemingly until the end of time. Would explain why the Matrix prophecies are vague- “I will stand in the ruins of Gallifrey and destroy a billion-billion hearts… bwahhh-hah-hah, bwahhh-hah-hah…” probably wouldn’t have gone down so well with the TLs 🙂

    @morpho

    On your second point, I think we’ve seen what happens when either the Doctor or Clara choose to call it quits. It never, ever pans out. Even after a memory wipe, he’s still looking for her. The other thing of course is that what Clara chooses to do at the end was not what he had in mind: his plan was for her to live a peaceful life out of the way on Earth.

    I think you hit a core issue for me- if you wipe the Doctor’s memory, then you know he’s going to go trying to fill in the gaps, so I’m not that sure what that achieves- apart from making it easier for him to let go. Certainly he seems to think he can deal with it, if his original plan pans out – it really seems to me that losing Clara personally isn’t what bothers him so much as I read it, it’s his failure in his duty of care – so if he knew she was safe, he’d be OK without her. It’s not say Rose we’re talking, where his loss was much more personal.

    @winston

    and I hope Me goes back to calling herself Ashildr again as she is not “just me ” anymore.

    Or something else if she wants- seems she might be ready for a less self-centred name again. It grates to read a sentence starting “Me said to Clara…”

    #49256
    tardigrade @replies

    I decided a rewatch was in order to clear up a few things in my mind, and I found I enjoyed it rather more the second time- freed from the expectation of what it could have been, I was free to appreciate it better for what it was. Plus I knew a few of the things that would rankle me, so didn’t get the internal cries of “What?” drowning out what was going on.

    However there were a couple of things that bothered me on first watching that I didn’t feel were cleared up for me on the repeat watching and I haven’t seen much discussion on:

    I didn’t care for the Doctor’s time in the confession dial ending up being for so little. The crucial information that he was protecting turns out to be that he doesn’t know anything (or at least nothing he can remember at present). And he was hanging on to that as a potential bargaining chip he claims, but gives that information away basically as soon as he’s in the citadel anyway. And then it proves advantageous for him not to know, since it gives him an excuse to need to use an extraction chamber. Just doesn’t seem this bargaining chip was worth much, so it seems it was more sheer stubbornness and/or an exercise in self-flagellation that stopped him giving what little information he had away, rather than any significant consequences if he did, as we were led to believe.

    And in the end I’m just not sure why the random memory wipe could be any sort of logical solution. The Doctor was prepared to live his with memory intact but to let go of Clara and return her to Earth, memory wiped for her protection (doesn’t seem like that would offer much protection, since it wouldn’t be that hard to find her by conventional means – I assume it would take Missy about 10 minutes – but I’ll accept that for the moment). And Clara definitely preferred letting go of the Doctor and carrying on with her memory intact. So each of them seems to be able to soldier on, memory intact. So is it really essential for someone’s memory to go? Plus, as the Doctor said, the neural block would do “something to one of us”, so results could potentially have been worse (e.g. total memory wipe for one of them). I’m inclined to agree with them though- if this is their standard of collective decision-making on issues that potentially affect the fate of the universe, this does seem to be another fairly rash one, so maybe it is better they go their separate ways.

    #49107
    tardigrade @replies

    It’s occurred to me that Rassilon’s resurrection was never explained (to my knowledge). Had assumed it was a ‘timey-wimey’ thing, but following this episode, it seems more likely that he was restored from the matrix somehow. In the episode, the General does chide his soldier for using the term “sliders” within hearing of Rassilon. He’s not a particularly delicate flower, so perhaps that indicates Rassilon might have a sensitivity to that particular term, having spent some time as a “slider” himself.

    Also, it seems that the wraiths told the young Doctor more about the hybrid than they let on to the wider TL audience. Which would suggest that the vagueness of the prophecy may have been deliberate.

    #49105
    tardigrade @replies

    @lisa

    It seems to me Missy gets something out of this more than just a tortured Doctor. She wouldn’t just hand the Dial over without compensation. The regeneration was part of some other ‘trade deal’ so I wonder what she asked for?

    I speculated that her freedom might have been part of it, plus maybe getting rid of the drum. Plus she might have agreed to it, since she could see that it would backfire on Rassilon and she’d get her revenge on him that way. I can see Missy being pretty happy with the way things turned out whether she had a hand it in or not.

    #49099
    tardigrade @replies

    @bluesqueakpip

    Missy’s perfectly happy to torture the Doctor, but she prefers it to be more hands on and/or on video stream. And it’s for fun.

    I think she might well be on video stream watching what’s happening in the dial. On getting out, the Doctor does address the dial, speaking to someone presumed to be listening in, then separately sends word to the TLs that he’s arrived. Maybe he thinks he sees Missy’s fingerprints on this business.

    But, as you say, Rassilon is capable of this all by himself- he was willing to burn the universe to save his own skin. And Missy can escape certain death 3 times before breakfast all by herself, so the connection isn’t essential.

    Loved the Curse of Fatal Death reference btw. Well worth a look for anyone who missed Rowan Atkinson’s turn as the Doctor. Yes- could simply have been an in-joke.

    #49094
    tardigrade @replies

    @bluesqueakpip

    I suppose in that theory, she used the time she had the confession disc in her possession to adjust it as torture chamber, thus ensuring that the Doctor would not be a happy little Time Lord when he finally got back to Gallifrey.

    Yes, it’s a bit hard for me to see how Missy could not be involved, since she was the one with the confession disc. So it really does seem she’s working with the TLs, hence the idea of a deal. Missy would certainly cut a deal to save her own skin (with plans to exact revenge later of course), and could have used Rassilon’s fear of the hybrid to get him to unwisely agree. Missy got her revenge quickly enough, simply by giving Rassilon what he wanted – she most likely realised that in any encounter with the Doctor that Rassilon would come off second best. Plus she gets to torture the Doctor in the process- a real red letter day.

    I actually don’t think the Doctor needed additional reason to hate Rassilon- he blames him for the excesses of the Time War and specifically for forcing him into a corner where he had to use the Moment and be responsible for the genocide of his own people, something that haunted him for two generations.

    The whole of Trap Street appears to be a set up to have the Doctor put on a teleport bracelet and hand the confession disc over. We see Missy trick Clara into a Vortex bracelet, so why didn’t she do the same with the Doctor? Then all she’d have to do is send the confession disc over, abandon Clara in the 11th Century and skip off singing merrily.

    It could be as simple as Missy enjoying it playing out as it did, with the Doctor standing helplessly by as Clara died. Perhaps this was even Missy’s “brilliant idea” from ep 2? Sure she had daleks looking to exterminate her at the time, but hardly for the first time, so in Missy’s terms, that perhaps was a threat barely worth acknowledging.

    #49065
    tardigrade @replies

    @morpho

    Having watched both Day of the Moon and Let’s Kill Hitler again recently, sorry to contradict but that’s incorrect. Both of Melody’s regenerations were of the standard reboot format a la Eccelston-to-Tennant.

    Took a look to see what you mean- and yes, River’s regenerations appeared basically as refined versions of the Eccleston-Tennant one. We come in on the general’s regeneration completing, so I wouldn’t be confident in saying that the effect was much different, particularly with the head down position used to allow for the gender-change reveal confusing matters.

    I think the original comment was more referring to the Tennant-Smith and Smith-Capaldi regenerations which were much ramped-up versions. River and the general were on the “Cover your eyes- this will be bright” scale, not the “Run for your life- he’s gonna blow!” scale.

    @pedant

    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.

    Interesting take- he certainly took to what the observers on Gallifrey clearly thought to be an obtusely tortuous task that he set himself with gusto- what Rassilon did to him in the dial hardly compares to what he did to himself. I certainly don’t buy the reason he gives of not confessing in the dial and keeping what turns out to be a pretty mundane secret, i.e. that he doesn’t have a secret. Didn’t seem that his potential knowledge of the identity of the hybrid is really that valuable as a bargaining chip, since he basically gives away that he doesn’t know that as soon as he’s in the citadel anyway. And it’s in point of fact advantageous for his plan to save Clara for him not to know, since it gives him an excuse to need to use an extraction chamber.

    @bluesqueakpip

    I think we can bonkerise that Missy knew where Gallifrey was because that’s where she’d escaped from.

    The scenario I had in mind was that the tussle between the Master and Rassilon left them both regenerating, and Missy locked up post-regeneration. Missy then re-entered the universe at large when Gallifrey did and cut some sort of deal with Rassilon to help entrap the Doctor in return for her freedom. Seems to connect the dots, but no real evidence for that of course.

    #49047
    tardigrade @replies

    @countscarlioni

    Would it matter if he’d not taken the hints? Once the Doctor, assuming he truly did not remember Clara in the diner scene, got back into his own Tardis, would he not immediately search the Tardis’s data banks for “Clara” and recover at least some of the lost memories? For him, it’s surely only a temporary loss of some memories. Have I missed something? Is there something extra clever about the neural block?

    “Me” had access to a key to the Doctor’s tardis last time we saw it on Trap Street and it seems like his obsolete tardis wasn’t wanted by the TLs. So Me/Clara could possibly have gone in there and wiped the tardis’ records of Clara. He’d surely have enough clues to find out a lot more though if he wanted to. For me, it’s the emotional connection that was the more important thing that’s been weakened by the wipe, more than the actual memories of what happened, which do seem to be there, even if not in their original form, so even if he does fill in the gaps over time, it seems he’ll be able to live with those memories now. Donna’s wipe was much more complete- not just the memories of the Doctor, but whole swathes of her autobiographical memory too- a much more complete job. Possibly that’s what would have awaited Clara too if she was the one wiped?

    #49042
    tardigrade @replies

    @janetteb

    Personally I though it about time we saw some powerful women in Gallifrey. I understand that it is a deeply sexist as well as elitist society, which I find rather hard to equate with their great power and supposed “superiority”.

    Definitely- I have a feeling the newly regenerated general will be president when we next see the TL’s. It’s a bit hard to see how sexism could persist in a society where anyone could find themselves changing gender. A misogynist who regenerated as a woman would be in for a rude awakening. Can’t say I’m comfortable about the apparent class structure on Gallifrey either- something the Doctor could perhaps do something about. Those outside the citadel were described as “no-one who matters” by Rassilon. Of course Rassilon’s list of people who do matter might well consist of only his own name.

    #49041
    tardigrade @replies

    @lisa

    Don’t forget that the coordinates Missy gave the Doctor were correct in space. Just not in time.
    She didn’t lie to the Doctor about where Galifrey was except for timeframe. So how did she know?
    To me this implies collusion with the TL’s and Rassilon too.

    Missed that, so that’s another connection. And of course the Doctor sent Missy his confession dial, and she apparently brings it back tampered with at Rassilon’s behest, so it’s hard to avoid a connection IMO.

    #49038
    tardigrade @replies

    @rob

    Also during Rasillon’s visit to the barn he stated…..

    How many regenerations did we give you, I’ve got all day

    Strongly suggesting a more than just another full set

    Or possibly less. The terminology used at the time was giving him a new cycle of regenerations, from which you’d initially think 12. But if you remember the circumstances of his regeneration he had so much regeneration energy to spare he destroyed an attacking armada, so who knows- he could be effectively immortal (like just about everyone else now 🙂 ). He has used some energy since without regenerating, e.g. with the daleks early in the series – perhaps enough to cost him regenerations. So my considered opinion, taking all that into account, is that we can narrow down his remaining regenerations to somewhere between 1 and infinity :-).

    @morpho

    The regeneration process since the reboot has been a bit over-the-top, none more so than in Time of the Doctor. That said, in that same episode the actual physical regeneration part was pretty much instant (i liked it) and, correct me if I’m wrong, the General is the first regeneration we’ve seen since? I suspect the promise to set the regeneration effect in stone may have been broken…

    I’m not to concerned about the atypical Time of the Doctor regeneration (see previous paragraph). Ten’s was still wild- he seemed to be fighting that one (“I don’t want to go”) which might not have helped. We’ve seen River regenerate since then, which was more on the scale of the general’s, so it does seem it’s the Doctor who is unusual. The after-effects of regeneration also seem stronger on the Doctor- he can get rather confused and erratic, whereas mostly it seems the regenerated TL can get right on with things (general, River, Master, Romana back in the day).

    @ozitenor

    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.

    I’m fine with that explanation- a psychic interface for the glasses. Just hate the “reverse the polarity” phrase and had to have a dig. I could just about tolerate it from the Doctor, where it would be shorthand for “I’ve done something very complicated that you wouldn’t understand that reverses the effect that this device will have”. From Clara, it’s just nonsense and a simple “I’ve changed this doodad to reverse its effects” would be more straightforward. And yes, I know it’s an old Who reference that some may see as a nod to old fans, but it’s just such twaddle I can do without it- some things are best left unexplained, rather than getting a silly one – the word “metachlorians” is coming to mind…

    @lisa

    This was collusion between Missy and Rassilon!

    They weren’t exactly on the best of terms the last time we saw them together you may recall. But both would probably do anything if it’s expedient, so that doesn’t mean they can’t have come to some arrangement.

    @arbutus

    I don’t think that Gallifrey has experienced 4 billion years. I think that it has somehow been moved along the time continuum, in much the same way that the Doctor has previously travelled to the end of time in the TARDIS, and is now hidden there. Post Time War, but not that far post. 🙂

    No- some time has past but nothing like that- Rassilon has certainly aged, or at least started off looking atypically old after regenerating.

    @whisht

    But please. I do not want to read “wiggle” and “Clara” in the same sentence again.

    Its… erm… distracting.

    There’s plenty of space in the new tardis- she could perhaps dedicate a room specifically for the purpose of wiggling. I assume that’s what those calling for her to have some wiggle room are referring to. It’s probably best you don’t think about that though @whisht … sorry, you already have, haven’t you? 🙂

    #48965
    tardigrade @replies

    @ichabod

    I need to re-watch to see if there are signs that the Doctor does indeed set things up deliberately to destroy his memories of her rather than vice versa, releasing both of them. He’s that clever, all right, but is he that perceptive?

    He does look at the neural block, and might have known what it would actually do, but rather than making an openly unilateral decision, involves Clara and makes it seem random. After the wipe, he might not even know himself if that was the case.

    It occurred to me that if he’s being less than completely honest, it could be that he’s faking memory loss. 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 :-).

    #48963
    tardigrade @replies

    @puroandson

    Ah Son here (mum is resting again). Yes, I love zombies. I will be seeing some Walking Dead soon -I don’t know it at all well.

    Off topic, so I’ll keep it brief, but I much prefer the WD graphic novels over the TV series- the TV series was too drawn out and I gave up on it quickly. They diverge quickly in terms of significant plot elements (like who lives and dies), so I wasn’t going to try to keep two parallel stories straight. Many love the TV series though.

    I suppose we are all born near clocks.

    Yes, one of those Barnum statements (look it up), that could apply to anyone, so the writers may not have had anything specific in mind. I doubt we’ll see any more resolution of anything on the Clara front now. Would be tricky to use her character in future series in any meaningful way, with the Doctor not knowing her.

    #48956
    tardigrade @replies

    @puroandson

    No, no I was joking! I was smiley facing an’ all! I’m totally with you and get your point of view 100 %

    It’s all OK- I thought you’d pick up from me calling her a zombie that my response wasn’t terribly serious either 🙂

    This is Son speaking: if the pulse isn’t working then her heart’s not working then how does anything happen. For instance if she meets Danny and you know…..how does Orson….eerm happen? I don’t understand how, if something happened, she could even grow cells with no heart beating away. In fact, where’s her brain in all of this?

    It’s certainly tricky- without bodily processes, how can she lay down memories for one thing? Children would seem to be out of the question. This wasn’t a process that the TLs intended to be used long-term. So far from being immortal, perhaps through accumulation of damage that’s shes unable to heal, her body might fail her fairly quickly. Time for a last hurrah though.

    Who knows- maybe Orson was one of the Claricles doing? I don’t think that’s a thread that’s going to be picked up again.

    #48953
    tardigrade @replies

    @geoffers

    upon reviewing this scene, i did find it odd that ashildr/me remembers the events of “face the raven” so well, given her terrible retention. perhaps the time lords brought her forward in time, as well, and those events aren’t all that long ago to her, now?

    The point of her being at the end of time was that she was the last of the immortals- so if she time-travelled there, that’s lost completely. I did notice that her memory seemed a lot better than previously though. Perhaps she found some way of augmenting it, or organising it to hang onto key events- learnt a few tricks from the TLs?

    @puroandson

    Still, I gotta say, you really want Clara to die right away don’t you?

    I’m not a Clara-hater- it was the story that I felt required her to die- not me :-). I’m over that now- as far as I’m concerned Clara can roam around as long as she feels the need, even if she is in practical terms a zombie- no bodily processes but still walking around.

    #48945
    tardigrade @replies

    @ozitenor

    3. This is what REALLY confuses me…

    I’ll have a shot at explaining what could have happened…

    Perhaps Clara dropped the Doctor’s tardis off somewhere remote, so that it’s out of the way and to stop UNIT finding it and dragging it off the dark archives or something daft, and left the Doctor somewhere near it in the US. The Doctor can remotely track the tardis, so he knows it’s not where he left it. Still piecing together his memories, he hasn’t been in a hurry to find it and felt a greater need to find a guitar instead to help him put what he can of his memories together. When he’s does go looking for the tardis, Clara nips back, materialising around it to have a last encounter with him. As to why its placement didn’t seem odd to him and he doesn’t seem to recognise it, perhaps that could just be attributed to his distraction.

    The Doctor should remember to change the locks on the tardis- he lost a key back in Trap Street and who knows who ended up with that. (He carries spare keys, so can get in OK.)

    #48942
    tardigrade @replies

    @countscarlioni

    I don’t have even any wildly desperate hand-waving, speculative tries to answer that. Though based on a second watch, when the Doctor travels to meet Me, he does not say how much farther forward in time he’s travelled (or did I miss it?).

    No- it’s not clear, but the TL general said “Gallifrey is currently positioned at the extreme end of the time continuum, for its own protection. We’re at the end of the universe, give or take a star system.” So I don’t think he could have travelled on a whole lot further.

    My only thought as to what happened (other than a glaring continuity snafu) I gave above somewhere (i.e. the Doc/Clara did actually manage to screw up the universe).

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