@BadWulf Does anyone else have a problem with novels written in the Present Tense?

For me it really depends on the novel. I agree with @thommck – If the atmosphere an author intends to create is that in which anything can happen, and that events are not following some “already happened” pre-known narrative, then present tense works very w…[Read more]

I really enyoed it. it had me on the edge of my sofa, simply because I can’t wait to fu**ing know everything ALREADY! which I probably…[Read more]

If anyone is interested, at @Craig ‘s and @thommck ‘s recommendations, I have put up an editable version of my Doctor Who ratings calculations spreadsheet onto Google Docs:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OMlaYpWrBclrz3YddmTFjanxaK02tzmr_lXKaZwxiJs/edit?usp=sharing

This is the first time I’ve used Google Docs, so let me know if…[Read more]

@lisa   There…[Read more]

Your post in Fan Creativity was very funny.  The Master/Missy kissed the Doctor, but it was very clearly not reciprocated – the Doctor is traumatised after 😉 I thought it was funny at the time and more so in retrospect, there are traditionally many layers to the Master’s motivations – could as easily be him being ironically…[Read more]

The clicky fingers occurred to me too – especially since there was such a point made of it (in the Caretaker?) when they both do it. More than once.

(Jimbo – recent discussion you initiated re when the Doctor will rewrite time/go back on his own timeline and impossible decisions seem to be bang on topic)

@Spider – that could well be the case. There’s got to be some explanation for Orson’s existence, and that makes most sense…[Read more]

@thommck – I agree there is some similarity between Maebh and Amelia (I’m assuming you mean the eight-year old). She also reminds me of a young Clara in terms of appearance.

cheers

Also, just had a thought that many have mentioned that we may get an 11/11 remembrance day link but have we missed that this Saturday is the post-Halloween All Saints day? IIRC that is when the saints […]

@Rob Really interesting,  take it you’re a River fan too, or did that surprise you too.

I do rather like River, but, yes, I was also surprised that the episodes with her in were ones that I consistently appreciated much more highly than average.

@blenkinsopthebrave @DrBen @thommck In other news – I have now emailed the spreadsheet to @Craig, so…[Read more]

I have nothing half as good to add to the fabulous theories on here, I just enjoy reading them and I cannot wait to discover if […]

Okay, to go into the mythology. There are a number of versions of ‘afterlife’. One thing that is pretty certain is that ‘nether’ usually means ‘below’. It doesn’t […]

A huge part of me hopes that Steven […]

This is established in Day of the Doctor (which I re-watched recently) when she meets WarDoc and TennantDoc in the cell.  To…[Read more]

I agree with you, I think we’re done with Claricles.

I think they were “single-use” only. GI jumped into the Doctor’s timescar and changed whatever, hotly followed by Clara to rectify. Both split into “a million echoes” (paraphrasing) of the original. Then they’re done, and gone. They may not even go thro a whole lifespan – maybe they…[Read more]

As @thommck said Clara suffers memory loss after coming back out of the Doctors time stream so she doesn’t actually remember meeting any of the other Doctors? Although I can’t remember if this is established as a fact in the episode or just an assumption on our part…[Read more]

That don’t explain how she didn’t know the war doctor, nor how she forgot Tom Baker’s doctor
in the museum. Someone is collecting intel on the Doctor, and Cla…[Read more]

Like the theory that Missy is following Clara thru her phone since the woman in the shop thing occurred  [except that Clara isn’t always on the phone ] but if she is following her and if River is still connected to her and Danny is following her and the Doctor is mentoring he…[Read more]

My favourite theory is that the Doctor established (or will establish) the ‘nethersphere’, and Missy is managing it on his behalf.

The evidence, such as it […]

Great blog, well done for pulling it together.

I agree with @Blenkinsopthebrave that it’s not a Moffaty thing to pick up characters/stories from RTD era (except his own – so I wouldn’t rule out Mme […]

Great stuff. The Mystery of Missy!

Agree entirely about the iPad. It was very disconcerting, as Mrs Blenkinsop noted when we watched the episode. I am not sure how to interpret it–is she on 21st […]

This blog is me putting forward my bit of bonkers on answering some of those questions. I’ll try to support it with only facts from within the episodes we have seen. It definitely does not contain any spoilers and is purely my speculation. I’ll be really interested on your thoughts and urge you to put forward your own theories on Missy.

The Facts
We actually don’t know a lot about Missy. All we’ve seen so far is as follows – a female dressed like she is from Victorian England despite a more modern spiky bracelet.

• Deep Breath – The clockwork cyborg, Half-Face Man, was impaled and died in London in the Victorian times. Missy welcomed Half-Face Man into the Promised Land/Heaven, looking out on a lush garden. She claimed the Doctor is her boyfriend and that she’d “keep his accent”
• Into The Dalek – Gretchen Carlisle was killed while miniaturised inside a Dalek. She then appeared at a table in what looks like an early 20th Century tea room, where Missy offered her some tea.
• Robots of Sherwood – Alien robots in the Middle Ages were trying to reach a planet called the Promised Land, although this may be different place to where Missy is.
• The Caretaker – In a white room, we met Missy’s assistant (companion?) Seb, who took care of the recently deceased PCSO, Matthew. Missy appeared but was “too busy” to see him.
• Flatline – Missy was watching Clara remotely, with what looked like a 21st Century iPad

Top 10 Theories
I tried to make a list of all the current popular theories but I’ve heard so many it became almost infinite! Here is a rough top 10 amalgamation (in no particular order)

1. The Master
2. Another Timelord/Timelady (in or out of Gallifrey, Romana, Rani, Scintilla)
3. A computer/data bank/imagination (CAL, e-Space)
4. Wife/girlfriend/descendant/ancestor to the Doctor (Susan, River Song, Jenny)
5. A previous companion (Clara, Adric)
6. A future Doctor/Valeyard
7. Robot/clone/doppelganger/replicant/shapeshifter/zygon
8. An old “villain” (e.g. Miss Mercy Hartigan, Tasha Lem, Madame Kovarian)
9. A dinosaur 😉
10. Something new!

“The Woman In The Shop”, who gave Clara the TARDIS telephone number (Bells of St John), is also a popular theory but that could be any of the people above (well except maybe number 9!)
My Speculation
I am putting my money on number 2, a Timelady trapped in another universe.

We have seen/visited other universes and dimensions before in Doctor Who and they have just recently been highlighted in the episode, Flatline, which contained creatures beyond human perception. I think this is enough evidence to point to Missy being in a parallel/pocket/bubble universe/etc. rather than a digital memory bank (i.e CAL).

I had a quick look in to the history of parallel universes in the show as it gets a bit confusing trying to just remember it!

The Tenth Doctor said that there were “billions of parallel universes all stacked up against each other.The Void is the space in between, containing absolutely nothing.” (TV:Army of Ghosts) … At one point, travel between parallels was made relatively simple by the Time Lords, but, according to the Tenth Doctor, travel to parallel universes became almost completely impossible after the Last Great Time War, and could only happen under extraordinary circumstances. (TV: Rise of the Cybermen) … tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Parallel_universe

The iPad Missy was seen using felt really odd to me. It is such an object of this time, right down to the protective cover it had. This makes me think Missy is now on 21st Century Earth but perhaps has the ability to time travel/dimension hop/phase. This can explain how she got Half-Faced Man from the Victorian era in Deep Breath as well as Gretchen from our future. Miniaturisation may well play a part as that has also been heavily referenced this year. Perhaps the ability to travel between universes is easier if you’re small!

This leads me to believe that Missy has to be a Timelady, one we haven’t seen on screen before. She has a “companion”, Seb, and “Heaven” could possibly be her TARDIS. She was made Guardian of the Nethersphere (a.k.a. Heaven, The Promised Land) by the Time Council as a punishment for a crime. She is on her last regeneration and would interrogate the dead to try and discover the secrets of immortality.

Since The Day of The Doctor we know that Gallifrey is still out there, vanished from our universe but still reachable through a crack. I’m not sure if Missy is on Gallifrey. I’m more inclined to believe she is in Void space or a parallel universe.

Her motive for pushing Clara and the Doctor together isn’t very clear to me at the moment. The easy option is that it was the Doctor who condemned her to her position as Guardian and so she is looking for revenge. The more bonkers version is that the Doctor is her boyfriend so she wants to kill him to bring him to Heaven. She is nudging Clara into a Doctor-type role so someone can relieve the Doctor of his duty, permanently!

@thommck   Loved your Missy post… I’m looking forward to the blog!

And Puro, I can only say Eww. With stuff lik…[Read more]

Perhaps she has been miniaturised into a cyberman (just like the Doctor in Into the Dalek)

M-m-m ..  I like that.  And perhaps she is using miniaturised devices – nanobots (or nanodrones, if you like) – to stalk or ‘bug’ the Doctor and Clara, which would account for his sense of being watched, of being not alone in Listen.  I was neve…[Read more]

I’ll echo others and say there were some great links there. Mathiesons blog is very entertaining, and I love a couple of the stories – his joy about Janet being his first “Doctor Who kill”, because he loved her work in The Singing Detective, for example.

@mudlark @blenkinsopthebrave

On the TARDIS weight, the only time I can remembe…[Read more]

Great posts, great links!

(love the VFX blog one, and the caterpillars. (Can only imagine what the slug mat was like @Purofilion. Sounds like the stuff of nightmares!))

Re the background in the Missy screengrab from the end of Flatline – that looks very like a cyberman style eye to me (on the right). Does that rule her out for being a…[Read more]

In the Doctor Who Extra, Moff clearly points out that Clara is addicted

Yeah, he does. However, he’s always said that he will lie to protect a plot twist. So – yeah, it could be that the plot is one of addiction. Or it could be that ‘addiction’ is the red herring.

@DrBen – I think he could manage a slow crawl. 🙂

PerhapsI am imagining things, but in that last scene with Missy does the window/opening/symbol or whatever it is on the right resemble the shape of a cyberman’s eyehole.  Furthermore, in the circular opening to the left there is a slightly fuzzy small circular glowing thing – sun? planet? moon?

On another topic, the reference to the w…[Read more]

(I forgot which thread I was on)

😳 😳 😳

Maybe a passing Time Lord (@Phaseshift, @JimtheFish, @FatManinaBox ? ) could mod the offending last paragraph (post #33925) out of existence, for future readers.

<goes and sits on the naughty step>

Is anybody watching Peaky Blinders…? ANYONE?? @Fatmaninabox??

Would love to discuss what the hell’s going on!

I hope you enjoy it. I remember you were a child of Seven and Ace, and you may find things you remember from other serials being referenced in it. It has a big reveal concerning Ace.

It’s really unusual to find a version that’s spliced together on the DVDs (some of the earliest VHS releases you won’t remember – but they tried to make…[Read more]

I read an interview with the author who said his initial draft was far more ambitious and included stops at the seven wonders of the universe.  Had to trim it down to keep it at 45 minutes.

Pity. Those would been fun stops!

@Juniperfish @Jimthefish

Sorry fishy friends but I have to disagree. Tennant on his day was magnificent! <stamps foot> Then again, so was Smithy,…[Read more]

Perkins is suspicious.  He has a set of documents at hand very quickly, and he says ‘Yes Sir, I must be the mummy… or, perhaps, I was already looking into t…[Read more]

I think Amy is peculiar one, and the scene you’ve selected from Beast Below is…[Read more]

Ahh, I knew that I would miss something like that, thanks for bringing it up, if it’s so, then from which doctor (all over in time and space) are we watching?

@thommck

I don’t know what happen to the series, but I think they found some invention called Slow-Motion and starts abusing it over and over again 😀 I mean the timing…[Read more]

It might be strange, given my predilection for bonkers theories, to say this, but:

I think we might be reading too much into this episode. Clearly, Clara’s angry confrontation with the Doctor is crucial, but how are we to read that scene? I would argue that the Doctor is not…[Read more]

@thommck Thanks for the link to the Trolley problem, a great head-scratcher. Although, it doesn’t seem to include an altruistic suicide option?

The way that the problem is framed is designed to exclude a self-sacrificial option, as that would test a different psychological phenomenon – the willingness to self sacrifice.

The fatman thought ex…[Read more]

Well done in tracking down the dialogues from the BG episodes. Definitely not a new thing that companions threaten to leave and forcefully call the Doctor out on things. I seem to remember it wasn’t unusual for Ian or Barbara to do it either. I see lots of echoes of Hartnell in particular in Twelve.

@pedant – Stop doing that!!…[Read more]

 it could lay an extremely dense egg which then inflated to moon size.

 

Who’s to say the “Dragon” didn’t lay a small egg to which it instantly expanded due to the space vacuum environment

Two minds …. (well, more or less) 🙂

@Bluesqueakpip   Well, that’s a possibility if we assume that the egg itself consisted originally…[Read more]

(LOL at the thought from @pedant of waiting to see the creature that comes to fertilise it!).

Thats not a meteor shower, it’s Moon Sperm!