[thommck @replies]

I was feeling brave and admitted to my wife that I was back on the Doctor Who forums after swearing of them a few series ago. She was very supportive and just reminded me that it should be a pool I have a dip in rather than becoming a fish in the sea 😉

Anyway, she isn’t the biggest fan of Doctor Who but always watches with me and my 3 sons (13, 11 & 8). She had a rather splendid theory about Clara that I had to share…

Clara reminds me a lot of a young Carol Vorderman. Perhaps Carol did a particularly difficult maths equation and caused herself to be scattered through space and time at a younger stage in her life?

What do you think? Could add credence to all those number pattern theories out there, or at least be a reason why Carol seems to age so slowly  😛

[thommck @replies]

@Shazzbot The Doctor’s disappearance was very odd, to leave Clara alone in the strange world, although I think I can remember previous Doctor’s vanishing for no apparent reason just to give companions a bit of room to breath (or be tested).

Was he in the TARDIS during that time so it was him not letting her enter? We’ve seen before the TARDIS opening at will or the Doctor’s finger-snapping so a key is neither here nor there.

What puzzled me more was why he was eating one of those blue cakes/fruit when Clara had already said they weren’t very nice.

[thommck @replies]

Hi all, found this forum after googling @bluesqueakpip after seeing you mentioned on the Guardian blog. Can’t believe how balanced and free of trolls this forum seems to be, I didn’t think that was possible in today’s internet age!

Anyway, about this episode, I was really disappointed by it. I wrote a very negative comment on another blog but after reading through all of this maybe some of my original dislikes where actually intended as clues for later on!

It started off with so much promise, great looking Indiana Jones style poster, original (for DW) monsters the steampunk “Vigil” (if that’s what they are called?), begins with reminiscence of Disney’s “Up”, definite Star Wars Cantina vibe but then halfway through becomes dull, confused and loses all pace, despite some great acting.

So below are some points I picked up on from the episode, most of which I thought was bad scripting but maybe it was just my lack of knowledge of Old Who

• The TARDIS not translating all the aliens’ language for Clara – maybe it did but we, as an audience, heard the barking alien in it’s natural tongue. Otherwise it’s quite rude of Clara to do some random barking, who knows what she might have said!
• They make out all these aliens, barely one alike, are all from the same system!? It seemed more of an intergalactic marketplace than a closely linked system. Also, would have been nice to see some classic aliens in there
• The market set looked the same as the one that blue-skinned fat bloke was always in but apparently this is someplace new?
• Sonic Screwdriver holding back The Vigil was completely over-the-top. I can get it being able to hold up the door but creating a force-field seemed ludicrous
• The pyramid had a slight look of Dalek origin but turned out to have no connection, so far anyway.
• Complete waste of The Vigil. What was there point? The girl was going to sing anyway. They were just thrown in as bait to make the episode look interesting. If they could be defeated so easily then they weren’t really a threat? Reminded me of those puppet men in “The Beast Below”
• The tree-like alarm clock looked familiar but in the end turned out to be another unnecessary red herring
• The Doctor looked like he was regenerating in the trailer but that was another trick to garner interest for this ep
• The Doctor’s memories were sucked away which would have made an interesting if not complicated plot twist but 5 minutes later he seems unaffected
• The “God’s” appearance was underwhelming and surely losing an object like the from space would have catastrophic gravitational consequences
• Even though I understand that the leaf was the most important leaf to Clara, hence why so powerful, it already felt like a “villain-defeated-by-words” trope seen so many times before so it lacked impact
• Maybe it was just that I know watch in HD but Clara seemed caked in makeup! What is she trying to cover up!

After reading through the crazy speculation on this forum I’ve changed my mind on a few things and even have some crazy speculation of my own! Would love to hear your ideas on them 🙂

The family connection

• I don’t like the idea of Clara being anything to do with the Ponds. I know that River is likely to be seen in more adventures but I feel that whole family element has been done.
• More appealing is that Clara is the Doctor’s granddaughter. Perhaps when the Doctor said he visited with his granddaughter he was actually referencing this exact trip in a weird deja-vu way. We’ve seen a lot of stuff about memories so maybe that is all part of the mix-up. Also, what if the evil planet God in this ep was a future representation of the Doctor (think Face of Boe), hence why the Doctor’s memories didn’t have any effect on it!
• Another Clara theory is that she is his Mum. Is it generally accepted that the female timelord seen in Tennant’s finale ep (the woman who had her eyes covered behind the other timelords) was the Doctor’s mother? Remember how the Doctor was a clever boy and ran away from looking into the eye of the time vortex. Seems like a motherly bit of advice to me. We’ve also seen her be a guardian to other children who lost their parents. Maybe she isn’t his actual mum but just his guardian?
• I didn’t think Clara’s mum would be important but it was odd how she blatantly spelled out she would always be there to protect her. I now believe it was Clara’s mum that caused her to be spread out through time & space, possibly the result of some paradox. We are bound to have Clara at least asking about visiting her mum. She may even steal the TARDIS to do so as I’m sure the Doctor wouldn’t take her voluntarily.
• Probably my craziest theory is that Clara is a TARDIS. We’ve seen the TARDIS in human form so why not as a companion? Whether Clara would be a new TARDIS or related to the Doctor’s one I don’t know. I’m not sure how that links in to the TARDIS not letting Clara in. I wouldn’t have expected the doors to just open for her even though Clara did. Does that tell us Clara has some displaced memory about it happening before? Does she know the TARDIS is sentient or was it just regular human personification?

Wider speculation

• Although I doubt the Doctor is a parallel to the whole Egyptian God mythology (that would be unoriginal and cheating in my book) the Phoenix symbology could be something to do with him reaching the limit of his regenerations?
• The Doctor seems to be testing Clara a lot. Especially making her give something precious up as currency. What is he trying to prove? Why doesn’t the Doctor just tell Clara about the other versions of herself instead of being sly about it?
• Do we know when the Clara mystery will be solved? Before the 50th anniversary special, during, after or never?!?
• Clara’s father is still about so surely the Doctor will try and interrogate him in a future ep?
• Was the Doctor enjoying the Beano a clue? Dennis the Menace is a cheeky/naughty rebel and always has his companion, Gnasher the dog, around 😉

Apologies if this was too long for people to bother reading. I’m glad I’ve found a fun place to discuss the episodes. Hopefully we won’t spoil it for ourselves by being too clever/random!

[Author]

Posts