BBC approved Doctor Who series 9 spoilers and trailers
by Craig
This is a blog where we can discuss official BBC production-team approved spoilers. It exists so that those who wish to be utterly unspoilered can avoid them.
Just to be clear, this is only for official info leaked by the BBC that will have been approved by Steven Moffat. Any other spoilers from any other source should be posted in the Spoilers thread found here: http://www.thedoctorwhoforum.com/forums/topic/spoilers-2/
As @Lisa and @fatmaninabox posted yesterday, the BBC has announced that Missy will be back!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/doctorwho/entries/6a78885d-e0b1-49a0-b7e8-cecba867a99f
@Lisa wondered if that is a vortex manipulator that Missy has on her wrist in the video.
NEW TRAILER PUBLISHED 9 JULY 2015
NEW TRAILER PUBLISHED 12 AUGUST 2015
AND A BRIEF TRAILER FOR EPISODE 1. ADDED 5 SEPTEMBER 2015
296 comments
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@purofilion Well all I can tell you about Capaldi’s quote is that he wasn’t
thinking it completely thru. When he saw Sarah Jane in ‘School Reunion’
he was surprised to see that she had become an investigator. I don’t really
think he wants to see what becomes of every companion cause it would probably
hurt. I hope that helps. I understand how it can get crazy making when you
over think stuff. (Maybe that’s why I cant write stories?)
@lisa
of course, SJS in School Reunion, he was surprised to see her and eventually realised that as a reporter she was following on from the life she’d had with the Doctor. But he was surprised! And yes, quite right, it would bring on serious ‘brain hurt’ for the Doctor.
Thank you!
@lisa @Ichabod :26 seconds there’s a person with ‘glasses’ on and wild hair? Could it be River??
Thing is, the nose (if that’s what it is) is possibly a bloke’s or a gin soaked nose, so maybe ‘no’ to Professor Song.
@purofilion Dang it, can’t find it, except for this much more cautious phrasing from an interview in “The Mary Sue”:
Reporter: In the past, [Clara and the Doctor’s] relationship has been a bit complicated. How has their relationship evolved from last season?
Capaldi: . . . I think the Doctor is deeply, deeply bonded with Clara, one of the things about the character of the Doctor is that he sees things and understands things that are beyond the perception of human beings, he’s not a human being. So he knows things about Clara’s future that she doesn’t know, so I think that’s informed his decision to stay with her.
@purofilion @lisa Yeah, :26 seconds is what I think might be Odin — except it’s not a leather eye patch, it’s a metal visor, I think, plus what sure looks like a middle-aged male type nose. I miss-saw an eye patch, and I think the visor (with the red light slash across it) is for both eyes — or is it only one? Damn. To cryptic to interpret.
@lisa @purofilion Yes, you’re right, Capaldi must have just not thought it through before speaking. Even the initial statement, “The Doctor knows everything” isn’t right — the Doctor *thinks* he knows everything, in the sense of answers to questions, puzzles, etc. (that quip about so rarely not knowing something, please let me enjoy the sensation for once) — which is *not* the same as knowing all of history, human or otherwise. Which is impossible anyway, even if your brain were the size of Jupiter, since all of history would include all of the history of every life form on every planet in the entire universe. Clearly, Capaldi miss-spoke.
In cruising around looking for that particular interview (it wasn’t the panel, was in interview clip with Jenna and someone else at SDCC), I note that it has vanished. Hmm. Well, let’s just say I can’t find it; or, perhaps, it’s been pulled.
I must say, though, that even the modified version from the Mary Sue is a jolt. It’s one thing to go galloping gaily off to adventure with a pal you’ve grown very close to. It’s another to do that *with that pal, knowing beforehand just where and when and how your partnership is going to end*. If that’s the case, Capaldi is perfectly capable of giving us hints, non-verbal ones, of the Doctor having that background knowledge but carrying on anyway as if he didn’t. I’ll be watching for hints of that shadowy subtext in S9.
I’m with @JimTheFish – that teaser line has the feel of something that’s either a Moffat loop, or it’s the stinger at the end of the episode. Maisie Williams is probably playing a character in-story; I think she’s too booked up with Game of Thrones to do anything else.
However, I’m going to throw out a bonkers theory just for fun: the episode titles are ‘The Girl Who Died’ and ‘The Woman Who Lived’.
That kind of harks back to Clara and her habit of turning up in one episode, dying, and then popping up in the next episode. Maisie Williams is clearly not Jenna Coleman, but if you look at them there is a kind of similarity…
… so what if Maisie Williams is playing a regenerated Clara?
[With compliments to Juniperfish, who I’m not going to tag in case she doesn’t want to read this blog, but who is firmly insistent that Clara the Doctor’s daughter/granddaughter.]
@Bluesqueakpip
you’re right about that insistence! I was reading back to the original posts when Clara arrived on scene and many people believed Clara was related to the Doctor -his granddaughter, as you and the J’fish have said. There were some wonderful theories and debates.
Had there been oral fixation stuff, the idea was “aw yuck, they’ve snogged but…well, he’s an alien anyway, and it aint going to continue to happen” -in other words, people would get over it!
A regenerated Clara -so, she can…er…regenerate? Mmm. Okay.
OK.
Good.
I have to work that around a bit :\)
@ichabod @purofilion The story of Odin pledging one of his eyes to Mimir is mentioned in both the Voluspo (the Sybil’s vision) in the Elder Edda and in Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda, but neither specifies which eye. Mimir presided over the spring which rose beneath one of the roots of Yggdrasil, the world tree, and was the source of wisdom and understanding. Mimir drank from it daily, but when Odin came to him requesting a single drink, the price was an eye. Thereafter, according to the Voluspo, Mimir used the eye as a cup from which he drank mead every day. On the eve of Ragnarok, when the enemies of the Aesir assemble on the plain of Vigrid, Odin will go again to Mimir for advice.
@bluesqueakpip — funny you should mention that because that’s exactly what I thought when I saw the clip — Maisie as some kind of Claricle or regenerated version.
To be honest, I just don’t see what point having Susan return in some form would serve after this time, other than a bit of long-term fan squee. Her story seems to me to be over. She got what is possibly the best send-off of any companion ever. I’m sure there are interesting stories that could be told about Susan but I do wonder if they should be. Same with Romana, which is a rumour I’ve heard in the last few days too. Sarah Jane is a different case because her departure was abrupt and ‘unfinished’ somehow and the trope of the ageing ‘abandoned’ human companion was one worth pursuing.
@Ichabod @purofilion I am doubtful of the relevance of any of the above to the forthcoming season but, writing it, I was reminded that the Gods of Ragnarok featured in The Greatest Show in the Galaxy. There were three of them in that story (Odin, Thor and Tyr ?) although, as far as I can recall none of them was missing an eye and Ragnarok was, in that instance, a place/planet, not an apocalyptic event. The use of the name may have been a sidelong reference to Scandinavian mythology, but I suspect that it was employed very loosely, rather as Alan Garner, in The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, lifted terms wholesale from the same myths, but with a somewhat cavalier regard for the original meaning.
@Bluesqueakpip I’m inclined to agree that ‘you?’ … ‘What took you so long, old man?’ is a cunning piece of misdirection (isn’t that what trailer teasers are for – to keep fans feverishly following false leads during the weeks until the season starts?), and that the unexpected/expected encounter relates to events earlier in the same two part story.
And for those who have been discussing the timey-wimey implications of Peter Capaldi’s remarks. I haven’t watched the Q&A session with the cast members, but I hardly think that he could really have meant that he knew everything concerning his own and his companions’ future – other than that he will probably outlive the companions. To travel forward along one’s own timeline would surely be as dangerous and inadvisable as travelling back along it, except in the few special circumstances which have given rise to the multi-Doctor stories. He was aware that he would end up on Trensalore – perhaps because the prophecy concerning it and the Question had led him to investigate it, but he was initially insistent that his tomb there was one place he should never visit. If he knows something concerning Clara’s future, I would guess that it is in consequence of his earlier ‘stalking’ of her in an attempt to discover who and what she was. And of course, as he now knows, she has been in his timeline, and her presence there has been in influence throughout his whole life since he left Gallifrey – and indeed since his childhood, if we think back to the events in Listen.
I’m just wondering that if the episodes with mystery Maisie have Vikings in it and
she is the Ace character then I wonder if that means a return to Maiden point and new
Fenric story? Again, she would definitely IMHO speak to the Doctor in that tone
plus I think she is still a wolf of Fenric. I like the symmetry of all this. But if
she also graduated from Time school then that would be like an additional bonus with
more interesting implications.
I’m hoping that this is the case!
@purofilion I’m glad you liked my comment . The Doctor wearing shades is really funny . I just started laughing again just by thinking of it . The new trailer was so fun to watch and it has given us alot of clues about the new series . I’m sure this will be the best series ever .
I’m more than a little tired after this week, so this was just what the Doctor ordered.
At approx. 00:23 you get a shot of a bronze Dalek. It looks like a much older model behind it (seriously old – the shape of the lights on its head are a give away). Reminiscent of the Asylumn perhaps.
This looks pretty damn cool. Some emphasis on Capaldi not being so stand offish perhaps (Clara hug!?) and it’s nice to see a few shots of Missy looking calculating and almost pensive. One of my wishes was that they’d do a bit more with the character because Gomez is just so good.
Some of the new character\alien designs look intruiging. Consider my whistle wetted.
The Maisie Pond (oh come on people, a Williams has got to be a Pond) line about “old man” is interesting because the dual meaning we discussed at length in Day of the Moon when River uses it.
“I hope my old man didn’t see that…”
It can be used for husband, but also for father as in the immortal song “My old man said follow the van, and don’t forget the jellied eels on the apples and pears” (they don’t write em like that anymore. Thank god). As such, I consider it to exist solely for SM to immediately get the Susan/Jenny from Doctors Daughter speculation flowing, naughty showrunner that he undoubtably is.
@ichabod @purofilion
I’d be cautious about reading too much into what any actor says about the role. There was that kid a while ago who was adamant that Gomez saying she “wanted to shag the Doctor” made it officially true and part of the story.
SM wrote the Library two parter and had Ten and Donna goading/teasing each other about spoilers on each others life. Both declined. Eight seemed to have foreknowledge of Grace (in that she’d become notable for saving a lot of lives as a Doctor), but that seemed to be based on her being historically notable.
We know the Doctor took a long look at Clara growing up, trying to unravel her mystery. He may have darted forward and may think he knows something about her fate. BUT that view of the future becomes a Trenzilore for Clara. Every action they take afterwards can change the timeline he experienced, and Claras fate.
@Phaseshift – Capaldi could well be thinking of Last Christmas. In the dream state, the Doctor thinks that Clara dying of old age is her ‘real’ future. Plus, he’s not going ‘Oh, thank goodness you made it to old age, wow, I must have done some really hard work on the changing your future thing.’ 😉
That would suggest (to an actor) that he’s already checked it out before Last Christmas, probably because he spent the first part of his relationship with Clara trying desperately to change her ‘dying young’ future.
Equally, it would explain why he never saw Danny as the long haul guy. If he checked Clara’s future out, he’d know she didn’t marry Danny. Unfortunately, he didn’t bother to find out why …
@PhaseShift (re: the he-who-should-not-be-named blurbing about Missy a-shagging -actually that would make a good song but then I’m having both wine and coffee with lunch)
I hear ya!
“But that view of the future becomes a Trenzilore for Clara.” I like that. Spot on. Yes, the phrase “old man” has meanings in Oz as ‘yer dad’ but principally ‘yer old man indoors.’
@Bluesqueakpip
so the Doctor having left a bicycle for Rose, checking out Grace (possibly) didn’t know where Amy and Rory would necessarily end up. I expect each Doctor, equipped with their own individual quirks and personalities would find searching out the history/future of certain companions, anathema.
In other cases, with Clara (who may be a relative), the Doctor might do some ‘investigative research’? Definitely this could be sensible with Missy -beyond following her dastardly coordinates.
But then ‘sensible’ isn’t his middle name! Although, if any Doctor seems sensible, it appears 13 would be the one (although I’d attempt to advise him on the hair-do).
Interesting point with Danny. I recall Dr Tennant calling Mickey ‘Ricky’ (which in the parallel world was his name) and so I suppose he sensed Rose wasn’t going to be hanging with Mickey for very long. Mind you, Rose wouldn’t need a TL to tell her that.
Springing back and forth into the future would totally exhaust him emotionally? He’d be on tenterhooks.
Toime for another glarz of whoite woin.
Cheers, Puro
purofilion
It is wonderful reflections like that that make me wonder why I allowed myself to be dragged off this site for six months.
I raise a glass of shiraz to you, my friend.
@purofilion
Damn. The Edit function is not there (attention @Craig)…or is is it that I am so blind drunk that I cannot see it?
@Blenkinsopthebrave
And a glass raised to you, also. As you can see in your six months absence, I’ve not improved one whit in my knowledge of Who or in my ability to watch fast teasers without an accompaniment of strong drink.
I have, however, at the urging of many people, including our glorious mods, watched entire seasons of Buffy and Angel and also Farscape (memory lane for you, perhaps?). There were also some brief flame wars – or an attempt to create a few, as Phase remembers:
“I’d be cautious about reading too much into what any actor says about the role. There was that kid a while ago who was adamant that Gomez saying she “wanted to shag the Doctor” made it officially true and part of the story.”
A shiraz would go down rarther well now. Except reading @Bluesqueakpip‘s comment about “batshit crazy priestesses” caused me to nearly lose a dessert wine over the keyboard: I’m not generally a fan of either “crazy priestesses” or sweet wine. Lately, in Brisbane, the Saturday and Sunday markets have been overtaken by religious troupes banging drums and handing out business cards inviting people to a free vegan lunch “no alcohol permitted.”
These troupes would not like Doctor Who, I fear.
The Blogs on Buffy, Angel and Firefly have been magnificently written by @JimTheFish and we also have a few from Den-V on fan fiction -something at which I sneered for many years. I’ve changed my mind since.
Are you a fan of Game of Thrones?
I haven’t seen the recent season but have completed marathon watches of earlier seasons and been thoroughly baffled by violence and scanty clothing. I’ve recognised young Maisie Williams and think that her appearance in Who would be brief due to her commitment to GoT.
This is why I think Maisie wouldn’t be Susan. I suspect also that once Moffat hangs up his hat for good, it would be like him to introduce Susan….and then leave…allowing his successor the right to
baffle the viewercontinue the ‘mystery’ surrounding her. All accompanied by strong drink.(I think @Craig has gone to sleep -it must be about 4.30 am on a hot Summers’ night).
@mudlark
thank you for your response! It was obviously you I was ‘not tagging’ -as the “Viking expert and ancient historian” and am appreciative of your efforts to coordinate that discussion. The names alone are staggeringly confusing. I recall two modules on early ‘English’ at a college in the States and a few mates found this harder to interpret than their own medical tomes! After less than a year, I ‘slid’ out, announcing it was all too difficult: “Mimir is mentioned in both the Voluspo (the Sybil’s vision) in the Elder Edda and in Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda….”
But I do recall Mimir’s trade or entreaty with Odin.
These are lovely things to discuss even if they fail to be featured in episodes. I recall a discussion last year about the Gretchen story. It came to nought….. but still engages us in these fabulous tales and shakes up the cobwebs in my ol’ head.
<*|*>
@Mudlark Thanks for the Edda-fication (ah — kill me now?). Do I understand correctly that somewhere earlier in DW there was an episode about Vikings that included Odin as a character?
@BlueSqeaukPip Yes, I think it would be a terrible trap — mooching around in the futures of people you care for, let alone your own future, except by mistake or under terrible duress. l’m more than willing to conclude that the remark under discussion was just a fluke of the moment. Well, nothing else makes any damn sense, so . . . and I like the idea that he’s thinking of Old Clara when he says of S9 “he knows what befalls her”, but it sort of doesn’t really work, because that whole Old-Clara life is obliterated, isn’t it, by the “second chance” of the two of them taking off together in the Tardis instead, end of Last Xmas?
@Purofilion Next cat is definitely going to have to be called “Snorri”. Well, they sleep all the time, don’t they? And my oldest cat snores like a buzz saw.
@purofilion
The S9 trailer: So, you don’t think it’s necessarily dark? I feel a tension, a grey quality which isn’t necessarily ‘noir’ or attributed to chiaroscuro. I’m sure there’ll be a lot to see come September….
I think it’s going to be lively and funny and scary throughout, but Steven M. has as good as *promised* “tears before bed-time”; and Capaldi is quoted too as saying there’s a price to pay (or maybe that was Coleman?) for the fast and furious good times, the Glory years; plus references to stuff from the past that comes back to chew your head off in the end, to S9 being “about consequences”, suggests dark indeed. The trailer gives us a glimpse of that, IMO, in that close-up of Capaldi (just before the sign-off and the Maisie Williams teaser at the end). His voice over is something like, “I’m the Doctor, and I save people” — but the face Capaldi gives us (don’t freeze it til the dust clears and it’s a full-strength color shot) — well, that looks to me like the face of a man truly bereft, perhaps over some one he couldn’t not save. The promised ending of S9 — consequences, paying a price — looks like a good fit, to me.
@ichabod
If you mean the story I referred to – The Greatest Show in the Galaxy – then no, no Vikings were involved, nor was there a specific reference to Odin. This is one of McCoy Doctor’s adventures with Ace featuring a highly sinister circus, and the Gods of Ragnarok are the decidedly alien monster baddies; old enemies of the Doctor – or so he says; they hadn’t featured in any earlier story. The Gods who appear are not named at all individually – at least not so far as I can recall, but there are three of them which, as I suggested above in passing, might be seen as corresponding to the three chief gods among the Aesir: Odin the all-father, Thor and Tyr.
And yes, now that you mention it, Snorri would be an excellent name for a cat 🙂
@purofilion @ichabod and anyone else who may be interested in the subject. I have just been browsing to see if I could find any further links between the Scandinavian Gods and the Doctor and came across this which struck me as a very perceptive insight – not only the overt and not-so-overt nods to the mythology relating to Odin, but the Doctor himself as an Odin figure: a wander and seeker of knowledge, who has suffered and, on occasion, undergone a kind of voluntary self-sacrifice to gain knowledge and understanding.
@mudlark @purofilion @ichabod
Back on the Guardian Blogs which predate this site during series 6, the comparisons with Norse Mythology were a favorite of mine.
The comments boil down to a comparison with some of the Ragnarok myths, and a comparison of Amy and Rory as Odin’s Ravens:
——–
The Ravens of Odin, Huginn and Muninn (Thought and Memory). Rory’s defining characteristic is one of thoughtfulness, of empathy with others. Amy’s memory drives her motivations with the Doctor, that childhood encounter, and her ability to remember the Doctor once he had left the Universe.
I especially like the notion that Odin (as described in the Poetic Edda) sent them into the world always fearing that they would never return. Similar to the Doctors expressed concerns at the end of the God Complex. In fact the relationship was explored further. One translation (Benhamin Thorpe) sees:
Which could be read as:
an allegory for the relationship between the three main characters. Rory always the more reluctant traveller, and the real relationship between the Doctor and Amy; or events already seen (the erasure of Rory and the Doctors “mother-hen” of Amy before his return); or events not seen.
——————-
The eye patch made me think of Odin, rather than Fenrir (the Wolf) of legend.
However, in the spirit of the “death” of the God-Doctor discussion:
Interesting that Odin supposedly sacrificed that eye to gain knowledge of the future and past at Mimir’s Well (watery metaphor/portal alert). If the eyepatch was some sort of artefact that gave that ability, it would certainly be useful for Kovarian to keep track of a certain madman in a box.
Odin gained foreknowledge (always dangerous) of Ragnarok, the “Twilight of the Gods” (you really do have to like any mythology that recognises that Gods should have an expiry date). Odin therefore began to claim the spirits of great warriors in Valhalla to prepare for the final battle. Obviously, to the people of the Forest, “Great Warrior” is what “The Doctor” means…..and he did have a kind of Viking funeral in TIA.
Signs of Ragnarok included “man losing kinship with his son”, which is certainly a recurring motif in the two series. I can remember speculation that the re-boot was necessary to “bring something forth”. Fenrir freed himself from his bonds by eating the sun and the moon – and the stars faded from the sky. Which is a little like the starless universe in The Big Bang.
Fenrir consumed Odin in the final battle, before Vidor destroyed him in turn. That’s Vidor the God of Revenge and Silence.
The Earth would be subsumed by water (perhaps time if we buy the watery metaphors) which would recede and the world created anew. Vidor was the most powerful god to survive into the next world. He dwelt in the place where Asgard once stood.
As River asked in Silence of the Library: “Have we done the Picnic at Asgard yet”?
—————–
Juniperfish did some great work on Series 7 with comparisons to the Egyptian Osiris mythology as well, which are on this forum (using the search function for Osiris will lead you to them all.
@mudlark @Phaseshift
Thank you for that link, Lark, and also for the information, Phase. Interesting, as On The Sofa, I was mentioning to a new member The God Complex itself (forgetting its title as always) and discussing the nature of the Doctor’s religious beliefs or faith: hence Amy as the girl who waits…Rory, encapsulated in and of himself who is “[Rory] always the more reluctant traveller…”
The allegories are everywhere and that’s exciting to me. Whether it’s Mephistopheles, Gretchen or the Pond/river/water metaphors which, as you say, we should just ‘fall into’ and buy!
There was always a mania to the Odin in the stories re-translated into the Czech folk tales which reminded me of Smith’s doctor.
On the whole ‘old man’ controversy (which I’m increasingly convinced is just archetypal Moffatt mischief-making), as well as meaning ‘father’ and ‘husband’, it can also just mean ‘person of elderly age or appearance’. I think it might be a sly dig at those who are (incredibly) still complaining about Capaldi being ‘too old’….
@PhaseShift
Yes, wonderful, isn’t it! It was the concept of Ragnarok in particular which rang in my imagination when I first encountered the Scandinavian myths as a child, and I still get goosebumps when I read the Voluspo (in translation: sad to say I do not read Old Norse).
And speaking of watery portals and the spring/well of Mimir; in The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, the dimension in which the Gods lurk is accessed by means of an eye amulet in a well – as the blog I linked to pointed out.
Rory and Amy as Hugin and Munin hadn’t occurred to me, but it certainly fits.
@Phaseshift and @Mudlark Thanks for all the information on Viking references.
The 7th Doctor story ‘Curse of Fenric’ that I was thinking about with Ace
was not of course a Viking story but had the release of the flask imprisoning Fenric
and it was the Vikings that had buried it there.
I re-watched it last night and it was very good.
@lisa @PhaseShift @ichabod @purofilion Clearly Fenric in The Curse of Fenric derived from Fenrir, the monster wolf chained up by the gods, though Tyr lost his right hand in the process. The thought popped into my head that Fenrir was the original Bad Wolf, but I quickly suppressed it: sometimes one can go too far in making connections 🙂
@Mudlark That is very interesting! It strikes a cord in me. Must think on that.
All the wolf references 🙂
@Mudlark How about Rose became Bad Wolf by looking into a time vortex
and Fenric manipulates time thru time storms? They both can influence
destinies -Fenric did so with Ace and Bad wolf did this as the Moment?
The more i watch the trailer (which is getting on for approximately a million times now) the more the Doctor’s look and shrug to camera make me love Capaldi EVEN more (and i didn’t think that was possible). Still not sure on the ‘kiss it to death’ line though, that doesn’t make sense.
(\(\;;/)/)
@JimtheFish
Just re-watching the trailer, and I think you are right about misdirect with the “what took you so long, old man” line. It most likely has nothing to do with the history of Who and probably works in the context of that one Maisie Williams story; something like: “what took you so long to work it out?”
I sadly feel I have betrayed the bonkers-theorising remit of this site to admit that though…
@blenkinsopthebrave
Yes, I’m afraid you’ve pulled the ‘blue boringers’ handle. 😉
@Mudlark and all – It occurs to me that Rose/Bad Wolf also said goodbye to #10
at Bad Wolf Bay in Norway! Love connections like this!
@lisa @mudlark Yep, I love all the connections too — even when it’s a reach too far (how can there be such a thing on a bonkerizing page?).
Thanks for the “Norse” background, all. Re Doctor/Odin to some extent or other, does the Doctor sacrifice himself a lot? Seems to me he tends to sacrifice others to save a lot more others, causing a lot of grief and blame throughout, but are there that many instances where he sacrifices himself, maybe in the sense of deliberately pressing ahead with actions that he *knows* will lead to regeneration — where “some other bloke walks off” in his regenerated body? Though it’s still him, bascially — what gets sacrificed is the personality and appearance of Doctor A, to make way for the personality/appearance of Doctor B etc. etc. And he’s not really doing it to acquire knowledge, is he?
Speaking of knowledge, in that SDCC panel discussion somebody said that we don’t really know what the Doctor looks like, since he’s just maintaining a (changing) human form for the purposes of interacting with humans so much(?). Like the Tardis taking an appearance according to its surroundings, until the chameleon circuit broke down and left it stuck in police box form. But wait, he looked human back at the start (Hartnell, stealing the Tardis), and like a human among other humans when on Gallifrey as well as when on Earth — ? Budgetary reasons, sure; but is this an extreme form of Schroedinger’s Cat — Gallifreyans (and Time Lords) look like us, as long as *we* are looking at them? No, no, c’mon . . .
On Maisie Williams — If she were playing CapDoc’s granddaughter, I’d expect something like that swing-around-hug for Clara seen in the S9 trailer.
@Ichabod
Time Lords don’t look human. Humans look Time Lord. 😉
There’s clearly rather more of a relationship than the Doctor’s admitting to, since exposure to the Time Vortex turns a human embryo into a part-Time-Lord (River). But he’s always very clear on ‘We came first’. Humans resemble Time Lords; it is not the other way round.
I think some of the New Adventures hinted that Gallifreyans Did Stuff to human DNA, influencing our evolution.
@Ichabod It is my belief that all Galifreyans are not Time lords but also not all Time Lords
are Galifreyans either. Ace (a human) apparently went to Time School so I think this means she
is a Time Lady and can regenerate. Could be there are Time Lords that look like other species
but we have not seen them? Not sure. But I don’t think so.
I’m speculating they haven’t completed filming all the episodes so this trailer must only cover
maybe the first half of the next season? So then I re-watched (again!) the trailer to try and piece
together which bits go together within possibly 6 or so episodes which many are 2 parts.
There is an underwater place, a place that looks like Skaro some people that look like
Davros and maybe Mutos on Skaro some Sisters of Karn and mystery Maisies episodes.
Thanks SM ! If anyone thinks they can piece together what goes with what I’d be very interested!
@bluesqueakpip
‘We came first’. Humans resemble Time Lords; it is not the other way round.
Hmm. So Time Lords and/or Gallifreyans, and Homo Sapiens, could both be descendants of some older species but with the TL’s senior to us as sprouts from the main family tree (froggy HP Lovecraft croaky noises in background); or we could be a sort of cadet branch of early TL/G evolution, plunked down here with Earth as our “appanage” (our manor); or we could descend from some independently-evolved simian Earthlings whom the TLs discovered long ago and whose DNA/history/etc. they may have fiddled with so that we became more “like” them than we would otherwise have become?
@lisa They flew home to yesterday or today to start filming the final episode tomorrow, so all but that — and, after that I guess, a special for Xmas 2015 — is in the can. So probably most of S9 was available to be clipped from for the S9 trailer. Do we know whether the finale is 2-part, like DW/DiH?
@lisa Although Fenrir and his progeny (one of whom swallows the sun, causing a terrible, years’ long winter) are, as I said, obviously the inspiration for Fenric and the Wolves of Fenric, my suggestion of a connection between Fenrir and Rose’s Bad Wolf was more of a joke than a serious suggestion, because that’s the way my mind works sometimes, when it isn’t being boringly logical. I suspect that what RTD had in mind is more likely to have been the Big Bad Wolf in the fable than anything in Norse mythology. But Who nose; it is possible to see the unlikeliest of connections if one looks closely and lets one’s imagination roam and, as @ichabod says, why not, on a site which is, among other things, the home of bonkerdom 🙂
@ichabod Perhaps it is pushing it a bit far to say that the Doctor has ever sacrificed himself in order to gain knowledge rather than for nobler reasons but, on the other hand, his insatiable curiosity has led him on occasion to put himself at serious risk, where common sense and prudence would have dictated a speedy exit from the scene and where there was, on the face of it, no other reason than curiosity to stay. His very first encounter with the Daleks was the result of just such an impulse, and in that case his wish to investigate the mysterious structure in the irradiated wasteland on Skaro led him to practice a deliberate deception on his companions.
And that is another Odin-like characteristic that some incarnations of the Doctor display – a tendency to conceal or disguise his motives, and to meddle and manipulate for ends of which only he has full knowledge.
Of course, if he had been risk averse and had not possessed that driving curiosity, he would never have left Gallifrey and there would have been no stories to tell, and the universe would probably have been destroyed, to boot!
@Mudlark Yep, no Whoniverse would have happened for us to play in, anyway. I love it that he started out as a cranky, huffy old grampa with some kidnapped kid-companions, not some cute young James Dean-style Rebel Without A Cause roaring around on a motorbike/Tardis hoping to upset people. Difference between an “old” country with a sly sense of humor, and a very young one loaded with adolescent self-importance? Well, feels that way to me today, anyway . . .
Hello all!
The countdown clock is back on the wall! And it has somehow released me from a Who-less void.
(Well, not entirely Who-less as I am able to get Retro TV which has been airing the BG episodes in the U.S.)
Ah but it does feel good to be back and reading such clever theorizing. I really missed this.
Obviously I have a lot of catching up to do here, most notably with discussion about the trailer.
But I would like to kick off my release from the Void with an initial Bonkers Salvo:
Who is Maisie Williams’ character?
First of all, the dialog at the end of the trailer is indeed a misdirection. The Doctor only meets her early in the story, on a battlefield where he tries to save her. He fails. Or thinks he does. And is astounded to find out later that she did indeed survive.
She is a survivor. A scientist before she got drafted. Working on new body armor to protect soldiers.
But something terrible happened with her near death experience. Something twisted in her mind. She thinks herself more than a survivor but invincible. She plunges headfirst back into battle in her new armor where she winds up terribly mutilated.
Oh, you see: the voice synthesizer, the apple doll head. You always ASSUMED that Davros was a man. But how could you really tell?
And now the Doctor is there to witness her become the creator of the Daleks.
@Brewski Well, that’s bonkers enough to suit *any*body!