# Doctor Who s8e10 - "Dark Water" [spoilers]



## Morrus (Oct 29, 2014)

I've marked it [spoilers] because here's a clip from the episode.  Plus the trailer!

[video=youtube;OtIqFgZ0QfQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=OtIqFgZ0QfQ[/video]

[video=youtube;ETCGtZUn_tU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ETCGtZUn_tU[/video]

Cyberman-tastic.  Plus it looks like we find out who Missy is; she seems to be (from what I can make out from the above) collecting all the dead from Earth and turning them into a Cyberman army.  Or something like that, at least!


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## delericho (Oct 29, 2014)

Looks pretty good. I really hope the reveal of who Missy is is worth the build-up. I still have no good idea.


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## MarkB (Nov 1, 2014)

delericho said:


> Looks pretty good. I really hope the reveal of who Missy is is worth the build-up. I still have no good idea.




It was indeed, and I totally wasn't expecting it. But what's with the "left me for dead" revisionism? That's not how it happened.


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## Morrus (Nov 2, 2014)

I called it exactly 11 weeks ago during Deep Breath - Missy, Master.  It was always going to be the soft-intro (post Corsair) to Time Lord gender changes in the absence of an actual Doctor gender change (who will change ethnicity next, and then gender in 10 years).  I would have been surprised to find she wasn't the Master. I was kinda hoping for a twist, but it went with the obvious. That said, I strongly support the gender change vehicle, predictable though it was.  It should have been done, and it was. Good for Moffat!  



MarkB said:


> It was indeed, and I totally wasn't expecting it. But what's with the "left me for dead" revisionism? That's not how it happened.




The Master 'chose' to die but he/she is a demented villain. Of course that was the Doctor's fault. How cold it not be, from her point of view?  Everything is always somebody else's fault.


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## RangerWickett (Nov 2, 2014)

Clara and the Doctor need to read TimeWatch to learn better how to avoid paradox.


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## Staffan (Nov 2, 2014)

Morrus said:


> I called it exactly 11 weeks ago during Deep Breath - Missy, Master.  It was always going to be the soft-intro (post Corsair) to Time Lord gender changes in the absence of an actual Doctor gender change (who will change ethnicity next, and then gender in 10 years).  I would have been surprised to find she wasn't the Master. I was kinda hoping for a twist, but it went with the obvious. That said, I strongly support the gender change vehicle, predictable though it was.  It should have been done, and it was. Good for Moffat!
> 
> 
> 
> The Master 'chose' to die but he/she is a demented villain. Of course that was the Doctor's fault. How cold it not be, from her point of view?  Everything is always somebody else's fault.




Except that last time we saw the Master, he wasn't dead. He was blasting Rasillon back through the time lock to the last days of Gallifrey.

Or perhaps, the "cultists" who resurrected the Master in the End of Time didn't really bring him back from the dead as much as they created a (flawed), so Missy is the dead Master who took over the Afterlife.


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## delericho (Nov 2, 2014)

MarkB said:


> It was indeed, and I totally wasn't expecting it. But what's with the "left me for dead" revisionism? That's not how it happened.




There's an assumption there that this is the 18th incarnation of the Master (John Simm being the 17th). Given Moffat's love of timey-wimey stuff, this could very well be setting up for some future tragedy where the Doctor encounters the 'missing link' Master and does leave him for dead, thus effectively un-redeeming Missy.

Or it could be another plot by Rassilon - they captured the Master, tampered with his memory, forced a regeneration, and sent her back with another plan to free the council from their prison.

Or it could be simply what Morrus says: she's mad.


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## delericho (Nov 2, 2014)

I was deeply disappointed with this episode overall. I think it would have been fine had I gone in spoiler-free, but between the teaser at the end of last week's episode and the official trailer, one of the big reveals had no impact - we knew it was going to be Cybermen, so no surpise there. Because of that, my strongest response to the episode was "Get on with it!"

Then there's more nitpicky stuff: they had a demonstration that the water concealed anything that was non-organic, and there was a skeleton in a tank _right there_, and they didn't ask to see what the contents really looked like?

Or the old "ask him something only he could know", when Dr Exposition had just told them they'd been scanning Clara telepathically since she came in - if it's a trick, that same telepathic scan will provide them with the answers they need.

(Also, not a fan of Dr Exposition in general.)

That said, I did enjoy the MISI fakeout, and also the "ranting Scotsman in the street" line.


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## Janx (Nov 2, 2014)

I got no clue who Rassilon is, but I saw the Master die in Tenant's arms.  Moffat should have stayed dead, and they re-used one of those other female timelord villains old-timers mentioned in other threads.

I'm not quite sure of what the 3W operation is about.  Missy's making ghost cybermen, why?  She's making them from volunteers (given that it's obvious what will happen if Mickey, I mean Danny pushes the button).

Unless something double-weird is going on, if the dead really are tied to their body, this may be a hook to the last Torchwood series where people weren't dying, including if really horrible stuff happened to their bodies.  Thus, in similar (but different) fashion, Danny's link to his disemBody is continuation of that concept.


In other thoughts, it is strange that Danny can't think of anything else to say about Claire to prove he's really him, except the one thing he didn't get to say when Claire asked him in the beginning of the episode and he was hit by a car.


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## Morrus (Nov 2, 2014)

Interesting that the Cybermen aren't just brains now.

I agree; we'd known about them from trailers months ago. Otherwise those Cyberman eye/tear logos on the doors and stuff would have been a real cool "Oh!" moment.


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## Janx (Nov 2, 2014)

delericho said:


> There's an assumption there that this is the 18th incarnation of the Master (John Simm being the 17th). Given Moffat's love of timey-wimey stuff, this could very well be setting up for some future tragedy where the Doctor encounters the 'missing link' Master and does leave him for dead, thus effectively un-redeeming Missy.
> 
> Or it could be another plot by Rassilon - they captured the Master, tampered with his memory, forced a regeneration, and sent her back with another plan to free the council from their prison.
> 
> Or it could be simply what Morrus says: she's mad.




Here's a nugget of an idea.  You say the Master's on Regen 18 or so. And he's evil nuts mad.

Dr. Who is now on #13, and he's been a little "off"

What if the 12 regen limit isn't a limit, but a warning.  Timelords past their 12 regen shelf-life start to go sour.


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## delericho (Nov 2, 2014)

Janx said:


> Here's a nugget of an idea.  You say the Master's on Regen 18 or so. And he's evil nuts mad.
> 
> Dr. Who is now on #13, and he's been a little "off"
> 
> What if the 12 regen limit isn't a limit, but a warning.  Timelords past their 12 regen shelf-life start to go sour.




As an idea, I like it. But I can't see them going that route, because that means that the long-term future of the show would involve the main character becoming progressively more and more insane. Given the lukewarm response to Capaldi's "slightly off" Doctor, and the outright rejection of Colin Baker's unstable Sixth Doctor, I would be surprised if they wanted to follow that path.

I would expect the next incarnation to be back to being a much more friendly Doctor, probably a lot younger, and quite possibly something other than white male. Oh, and I don't expect to wait very much longer for it to happen - even a regen in the Christmas episode wouldn't shock me at this point.


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## Janx (Nov 2, 2014)

delericho said:


> As an idea, I like it. But I can't see them going that route, because that means that the long-term future of the show would involve the main character becoming progressively more and more insane. Given the lukewarm response to Capaldi's "slightly off" Doctor, and the outright rejection of Colin Baker's unstable Sixth Doctor, I would be surprised if they wanted to follow that path.
> 
> I would expect the next incarnation to be back to being a much more friendly Doctor, probably a lot younger, and quite possibly something other than white male. Oh, and I don't expect to wait very much longer for it to happen - even a regen in the Christmas episode wouldn't shock me at this point.




I agree, from a logistics standpoint, it would destroy the show if the doctors got worse...

The sad thing, is Capaldi really wanted to be The Doctor, and they've kind of put him into a corner in this season.  I'm not sure people are likely this season as much because of the way he's written to be an arse.


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## MarkB (Nov 2, 2014)

Janx said:


> I got no clue who Rassilon is, but I saw the Master die in Tenant's arms.




I'm guessing you missed the "End of Time" episodes that led up to Tennant's regeneration, then.



> Moffat should have stayed dead, and they re-used one of those other female timelord villains old-timers mentioned in other threads.




There was only one Time Lady villain that I'm aware of. The Rani featured in two stories plus one ridiculous Children in Need fiasco, and never got much traction as a villain even amongst the serious fandom.



> I'm not quite sure of what the 3W operation is about.  Missy's making ghost cybermen, why?  She's making them from volunteers (given that it's obvious what will happen if Mickey, I mean Danny pushes the button).
> 
> Unless something double-weird is going on, if the dead really are tied to their body, this may be a hook to the last Torchwood series where people weren't dying, including if really horrible stuff happened to their bodies.  Thus, in similar (but different) fashion, Danny's link to his disemBody is continuation of that concept.




I think this is different - my guess is that Missy selected specific individuals to upload to the Nethersphere, and that the link to their bodies is part of the process. She's selecting people based upon how easy it would be to torment them into giving up their emotions.



> In other thoughts, it is strange that Danny can't think of anything else to say about Claire to prove he's really him, except the one thing he didn't get to say when Claire asked him in the beginning of the episode and he was hit by a car.




Danny didn't want to prove he was for real, because he didn't want Clara to get herself killed (literally) to come after him.


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## delericho (Nov 2, 2014)

MarkB said:


> There was only one Time Lady villain that I'm aware of. The Rani featured in two stories plus one ridiculous Children in Need fiasco, and never got much traction as a villain even amongst the serious fandom.




Yep. As I understand it, there was at least one more story planned that would have featured the Rani, but the show was cancelled before they got there. I'm inclined to agree with the comment about traction - the concept for the character was quite good, and it was nice to have a Time Lord villain other than the Master, but it never quite worked. Possibly because Colin Baker's Doctor never quite got traction, affecting her first appearance, while the second was during McCoy's 'regeneration' story.


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## Plane Sailing (Nov 2, 2014)

MarkB said:


> Danny didn't want to prove he was for real, because he didn't want Clara to get herself killed (literally) to come after him.




I thought this was a touching reflection of his character


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## Plane Sailing (Nov 2, 2014)

Janx said:


> Moffat should have stayed dead.




Oh, a bit harsh, don't you think ?


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## Jester David (Nov 2, 2014)

Because of the trailers, I knew Cybermen were involved. But the eye symbol thing was still a nice nod. I wasn't sure if they were going to be THE threat or just as a side villain, only semi-related to the main problem, like the dalek in _Big Bang 2_.

The Missy surprise was neat, in a Twist! kinda way. Honestly, while I was initially "whoa" from the Master revelation, I was much more excited about the possibilities prior to the revelation. There were so many female Time Lords it also could have been. I was rattling off the list: Romana, The Rani, Susan, the Doctor's daughter. When it was revealed to be a gender reversed Master it was almost a let down that it wasn't someone else. 

Which is interesting. There are three male Name timelords: the Doctor, the Master, the Meddling Monk. And then there are at least an equal number of Time Lady's we've seen.


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## Morrus (Nov 2, 2014)

delericho said:


> I would expect the next incarnation to be back to being a much more friendly Doctor, probably a lot younger, and quite possibly something other than white male. Oh, and I don't expect to wait very much longer for it to happen - even a regen in the Christmas episode wouldn't shock me at this point.




Paterson Joseph.  I've been waiting for that for years!


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## Morrus (Nov 2, 2014)

Janx said:


> Moffat should have stayed dead,




Damn, you're a harsh critic!


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## Jester David (Nov 2, 2014)

delericho said:


> As an idea, I like it. But I can't see them going that route, because that means that the long-term future of the show would involve the main character becoming progressively more and more insane. Given the lukewarm response to Capaldi's "slightly off" Doctor, and the outright rejection of Colin Baker's unstable Sixth Doctor, I would be surprised if they wanted to follow that path.
> 
> I would expect the next incarnation to be back to being a much more friendly Doctor, probably a lot younger, and quite possibly something other than white male. Oh, and I don't expect to wait very much longer for it to happen - even a regen in the Christmas episode wouldn't shock me at this point.





Janx said:


> I agree, from a logistics standpoint, it would destroy the show if the doctors got worse...
> 
> The sad thing, is Capaldi really wanted to be The Doctor, and they've kind of put him into a corner in this season.  I'm not sure people are likely this season as much because of the way he's written to be an arse.




Ironically, both Colin Baker and Capaldi's Doctor's were meant to have the same arc: begin as dark, unstable characters with a familiar companion and then soften over time. It didn't work for Baker at the time, likely because that kind of character growth was hard for television at the time and the show was struggling. I think it'll be easier for Capaldi to manage; we're already seeing a softening of Capaldi as he tries to go to the afterlife to help Clara. 

Personally, I rather like the darker more pragmatic Doctor. It reminds me more of the early Doctors. There's less whimsy, less wibbly wobbly. It's showing you can present an erratic, funny Doctor without making him overly childish.


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## Bedrockgames (Nov 2, 2014)

delericho said:


> Given the lukewarm response to Capaldi's "slightly off" Doctor, and the outright rejection of Colin Baker's unstable Sixth Doctor, I would be surprised if they wanted to follow that path.





Most of the reviews and reactions to Capaldi I have seen are quite positive.


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## Bedrockgames (Nov 2, 2014)

Morrus said:


> Interesting that the Cybermen aren't just brains now.
> 
> I agree; we'd known about them from trailers months ago. Otherwise those Cyberman eye/tear logos on the doors and stuff would have been a real cool "Oh!" moment.




Yeah, I think this episode wasn't so much about reveals. Even the Missy=Master was quite obvious from the start but so many of us were just overthinking it because that is how we watch television now (10% viewing, 90% talking online). 

I have to say I really liked this episode. I didn't very much care for the forest episode last week so this was a nice return and I really, really enjoyed them doing a two-parter again. Everything has felt so fast paced over the last couple of seasons (except the 50th special and the christmas episodes). I realize they are doing that for a reason, and that double episodes like this will be a rarity, but I quite like them being able to stretch and take their time with scenes.


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## Richards (Nov 2, 2014)

One possibility I'll throw out there: if Missy is actually "collecting" the souls (for lack of a better word - perhaps she's merely copying their minds and memories somehow?) of the recent dead, maybe the Master had this whole Necropolis set-up up and running when he allowed himself to "die" (not regenerate) in Tennant's arms?  It would make sense, if he already knew he would be "mind/soul-collected" and have his consciousness stored for insertion into a Missy-body.  (I doubt his escape plan would have involved himself becoming a Cyberman.)  But then that would mean that "Missy" is indeed a robot of some sort, or at least an artificial (or mind-wiped?) body that had the Master's mind dumped into it.

Here's where I'm still confused, though: in "Deep Breath," the first entity we saw Missy "collect" and take to the Afterlife was that mechanical construct, the "rubbish robot from the dawn of time."  Her reason for taking him couldn't likely have been to convert him into a Cyberman, could it?  Cybermen are living beings with augmented mechanical parts; this guy was, if anything, the exact opposite.

Johnathan


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## MarkB (Nov 2, 2014)

Richards said:


> One possibility I'll throw out there: if Missy is actually "collecting" the souls (for lack of a better word - perhaps she's merely copying their minds and memories somehow?) of the recent dead, maybe the Master had this whole Necropolis set-up up and running when he allowed himself to "die" (not regenerate) in Tennant's arms?  It would make sense, if he already knew he would be "mind/soul-collected" and have his consciousness stored for insertion into a Missy-body.  (I doubt his escape plan would have involved himself becoming a Cyberman.)  But then that would mean that "Missy" is indeed a robot of some sort, or at least an artificial (or mind-wiped?) body that had the Master's mind dumped into it.




An interesting concept, which would mean this Master is a copy, rather than the one we saw in End of Time.



> Here's where I'm still confused, though: in "Deep Breath," the first entity we saw Missy "collect" and take to the Afterlife was that mechanical construct, the "rubbish robot from the dawn of time."  Her reason for taking him couldn't likely have been to convert him into a Cyberman, could it?  Cybermen are living beings with augmented mechanical parts; this guy was, if anything, the exact opposite.




As I understand it (though I'm prepared for that to change next week), she was only collecting the minds, not the bodies, and that makes the robot a perfect candidate - he had developed true sentience over the millennia, but had only rudimentary emotions at best, and considered them to be a fault. An easy mind to divest of emotion, ready to download to a cyber body.


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## Morrus (Nov 2, 2014)

Spoilers, but the trailer clearly had the line about building an army and there being far more dead people than alive people in Earth's history.


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## Plane Sailing (Nov 2, 2014)

[MENTION=508]Richards[/MENTION], also confusing is the soldier that was disintegrated within the Dalek but turned up with missy. How does that work if creation is a bad thing?


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## Bedrockgames (Nov 2, 2014)

Plane Sailing said:


> [MENTION=508]Richards[/MENTION], also confusing is the soldier that was disintegrated within the Dalek but turned up with missy. How does that work if creation is a bad thing?




I think she only needs the bodies for later. I don't believe anything so far suggests she couldn't download the mind if the body were destroyed (though I think it implies she will have an extra mind). Maybe they will address those cases though in the finale.


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## Morrus (Nov 2, 2014)

Plane Sailing said:


> [MENTION=508]Richards[/MENTION], also confusing is the soldier that was disintegrated within the Dalek but turned up with missy. How does that work if creation is a bad thing?




Seb said it was a new body with the mind downloaded from the Nethersphere, which is a Time Lord hard drive.  Then they have to - voluntarily, apparently - agree to delete their emotions. Not sure why they have to agree to it.


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## MarkB (Nov 3, 2014)

Plane Sailing said:


> [MENTION=508]Richards[/MENTION], also confusing is the soldier that was disintegrated within the Dalek but turned up with missy. How does that work if creation is a bad thing?




I think the point was that they feel everything that happens to their bodies. Being disintegrated at the moment of death is irrelevant, because it's over by the time they 'wake up' in the nethersphere, but being cremated later on is something they'll feel in full force.

Then again, I'm not sure how much of that "connected to the body" stuff to take seriously. It could all be a tailored illusion within the Nethersphere - simply a case of using whatever it takes to convince the uploaded minds to voluntarily give up their feelings.

EDIT: Also, since when do cybermen need human skeletons inside them? The Cybus Industries version only kept the nervous system, distributed through the robotic body as a control mechanism.


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## Janx (Nov 3, 2014)

Plane Sailing said:


> Oh, a bit harsh, don't you think ?




I suppose it's funny now, but that was a typo.  meant to say "Master should have stayed dead"


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## Ryujin (Nov 3, 2014)

MarkB said:


> I think the point was that they feel everything that happens to their bodies. Being disintegrated at the moment of death is irrelevant, because it's over by the time they 'wake up' in the nethersphere, but being cremated later on is something they'll feel in full force.
> 
> Then again, I'm not sure how much of that "connected to the body" stuff to take seriously. It could all be a tailored illusion within the Nethersphere - simply a case of using whatever it takes to convince the uploaded minds to voluntarily give up their feelings.
> 
> EDIT: Also, since when do cybermen need human skeletons inside them? The Cybus Industries version only kept the nervous system, distributed through the robotic body as a control mechanism.




Kidnapped my Missy and swapped out for meat puppets, as was the case with Stormageddon? That would explain the 'connection to the body', at least somewhat. 

Without the skeletons you wouldn't have much to show, so it's purely for effect.


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## Hand of Evil (Nov 3, 2014)

Something, Misty "Master" said: "Cybermen in Cyber space" makes me think, this is all happening in a virtual reality.


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## Janx (Nov 3, 2014)

Hand of Evil said:


> Something, Misty "Master" said: "Cybermen in Cyber space" makes me think, this is all happening in a virtual reality.




and that would support the Ghosts/souls thing going on.

Since the Doctor is freaking out in London about all the cybermen, nobody else is seeing them marching about.  They're clearly not "in our plane of reality."  Though that's also a similar pattern from season 1 eccleston.  the "ghosts" were really projections from another reality of cybermen.

In this case, cyberspace IS the other reality.  I'm assuming that the Doctor is operating in this cyber-reality representation overlayed on actual London, hence why he sees them, and nobody else does.  I'm not quite sure if anybody reacted to the Doctor, I blinked during that scene.

so one AI theory I've long pondered, is that a human's soul is effectively the entire state/pattern of that person's neural network.  thus what makes you unique or have a soul is that no 2 humans will develop the exact same neural network.

So what Missy could be chasing down is that when somebody dies, she's slurping up the neural pattern of a human.  Presumably, this neural pattern is useful for forming the AI of a cyberman, sans emotions.


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## Erekose (Nov 3, 2014)

Enjoyed the episode - particularly how the Doctor stated in no uncertain terms his feelings about Clara. The reveal about Missy was a bit anticlimactic but only because I'd convinced myself it was Romana and was expecting some additional back story of a disagreement between the two during the Time War. After all didn't Missy refer to herself as the Doctor's wife (or girlfriend?) in an earlier episode?


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## Richards (Nov 3, 2014)

Erekose said:


> After all didn't Missy refer to herself as the Doctor's wife (or girlfriend?) in an earlier episode?



I think she asked the clockwork robot in "Deep Breath" if "her boyfriend" had been mean to him.

The various suggestions that this is happening in virtual reality are interesting, especially considering the episode started out in a "virtual reality" of sorts with Clara throwing TARDIS keys into magma.

Johnathan


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## Plane Sailing (Nov 4, 2014)

On the question of whether the dead actually do keep feeling or it is just a story which is being told... the only way that Missy's statement about the dead outnumbering the living only makes sense if there is a consciousness after death. If she can only capture people into the nethersphere at the moment of death, then she could only start doing that once she starts the process up - the masses of previously dead are not available.

Mind you, once you got the cybermen to start killing people, capturing their souls as they died and use them to create new cybermen to go out and kill people - that could snowball quite quickly.


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## Bedrockgames (Nov 4, 2014)

Plane Sailing said:


> On the question of whether the dead actually do keep feeling or it is just a story which is being told... the only way that Missy's statement about the dead outnumbering the living only makes sense if there is a consciousness after death. If she can only capture people into the nethersphere at the moment of death, then she could only start doing that once she starts the process up - the masses of previously dead are not available.
> 
> Mind you, once you got the cybermen to start killing people, capturing their souls as they died and use them to create new cybermen to go out and kill people - that could snowball quite quickly.




But she is a Time Lady. Couldn't she just be traveling through time to collect the dead at the moment of death?


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## Plane Sailing (Nov 4, 2014)

She would be very, very busy doing that!


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## Morrus (Nov 4, 2014)

Plane Sailing said:


> If she can only capture people into the nethersphere at the moment of death, then she could only start doing that once she starts the process up - the masses of previously dead are not available.




So she goes back in time to 3 million years ago, sets it going, and then pops back to 2014 to see what she's netted. She can start it at any time (assuming she has a TARDIS available).  She seems perfectly able to watch the Doctor wherever in time and space he is.


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## Bedrockgames (Nov 4, 2014)

Plane Sailing said:


> She would be very, very busy doing that!




what Morrus said. I don't think she has to micromanage every single mind she harvests.


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## MarkB (Nov 4, 2014)

Plane Sailing said:


> She would be very, very busy doing that!




She already is doing it. The first person we saw harvested was from 19th-century England, and the second was from a Dalek war in the far future.


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## Nellisir (Nov 4, 2014)

Jester Canuck said:


> The Missy surprise was neat, in a Twist! kinda way. Honestly, while I was initially "whoa" from the Master revelation, I was much more excited about the possibilities prior to the revelation. There were so many female Time Lords it also could have been. I was rattling off the list: Romana, The Rani, Susan, the Doctor's daughter. When it was revealed to be a gender reversed Master it was almost a let down that it wasn't someone else.




This.


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## Nellisir (Nov 4, 2014)

OK, I liked this episode. The Missy/Master revelation was a bit of a letdown for the reasons Jester noted; I'd like to see them make a bit of something new rather than reusing the same characters over and over.

I love Capaldi's doctor.  He's an arse, but he's an arse because he's so...intense. His inner reality is so strong he has trouble relating to the rest of the world. He forces it to confirm to his expectations rather than vice versa. His line to Clara was a perfect reflection of this: he cares about her so much that it's irrelevant what she does.

The doctor is best when he can go over the top; when he's so intense and driven he tears down reality and rewrites it. Capaldi sells it better than any of the other recent doctors, Tennant possibly excepted.


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## Mallus (Nov 4, 2014)

Hand of Evil said:


> Something, Misty "Master" said: "Cybermen in Cyber space" makes me think, this is all happening in a virtual reality.



I thought that too, at first, especially given the whole "Clara tries to blackmail the Doctor, wait no it's not really real" scene at the beginning of the episode. It's totally Moffat-esque to foreshadow like that. 

But I _think_ what's going on is a bit more complicated. The Nethersphere scenes all take place in a virtual reality created by the Time Lord hard drive. The watery mausoleum scenes take place inside the Master's TARDIS, which is parked in St. Paul's Cathedral, sometime around present day. 

My guess at the plot: the Master has been essentially stalking Capaldi's Doctor through time and space, ever since his regeneration, collecting (or just copying) the souls of people killed around him, ie people he couldn't save, storing them in a fake virtual afterlife. 

He's also running a scam, ie the 3W Institute, on or around present day Earth, collecting bodies for a new Cyberman army. He's going to put the souls the Doctor couldn't save in them (I guess after getting them to voluntarily erase their selves -- which is what Danny Pinks about to do, or not).

It's macabre, and a tad too complex (but also, weirdly, kinda direct), but hey, that's the Master for you. He lives to eff with the Doctor. 

Meaning most of what Dr Exposition, I mean Chang, says is rubbish -- but the Doctor says as much during their scene.

I'm pretty sure that all works out. Of course, Moffat may prove me wrong. If I am right, or right-ish, this season's metaplot would be the most coherent and well-done of his tenure as showrunner.


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## Morrus (Nov 4, 2014)

Mallus said:


> But I _think_ what's going on is a bit more complicated. The Nethersphere scenes all take place in a virtual reality created by the Time Lord hard drive. The watery mausoleum scenes take place inside the Master's TARDIS, which is parked in St. Paul's Cathedral, sometime around present day.




The dead minds are uploaded to the Nethersphere-  a Time Lord hard drive - and then downloaded into new bodies.



> My guess at the plot: the Master has been essentially stalking Capaldi's Doctor through time and space, ever since his regeneration, collecting (or just copying) the souls of people killed around him, ie people he couldn't save, storing them in a fake virtual afterlife.




She's taking all dead people.  Danny, Steve Jobs, everybody.  As she says, the dead outnumber the living, which makes for a great army.



> He's also running a scam, ie the 3W Institute, on or around present day Earth, collecting bodies for a new Cyberman army. He's going to put the souls the Doctor couldn't save in them (I guess after getting them to voluntarily erase their selves -- which is what Danny Pinks about to do, or not).




Y'know, Michelle Gomez is most definitely a woman. Referring to her as "he" is a bit off.


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## Mallus (Nov 4, 2014)

Morrus said:


> The dead minds are uploaded to the Nethersphere-  a Time Lord hard drive - and then downloaded into new bodies.



Yep. 



> She's taking all dead people.  Danny, Steve Jobs, everybody.  As she says, the dead outnumber the living, which makes for a great army.



Ah, forgot that line. I think I willfully forgot it, because taking all dead people makes less sense, but this is a Moffat plot, so sense is kinda optional. 



> Y'know, Michelle Gomez is most definitely a woman. Referring to her as "he" is a bit off.



You're absolutely right - my bad!


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## Nellisir (Nov 4, 2014)

Morrus said:


> Y'know, Michelle Gomez is most definitely a woman. Referring to her as "he" is a bit off.



Score one for makeup and costuming. I wouldn't have guessed she was younger than my wife.   :/


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## MarkB (Nov 4, 2014)

Morrus said:


> She's taking all dead people.  Danny, Steve Jobs, everybody.  As she says, the dead outnumber the living, which makes for a great army.




Assuming we can take those statements at face value - which is never a good bet when the Master is involved.

We haven't actually seen any great army of people inside the Nethersphere - nobody at all who's unconnected to the Doctor, aside from the boy Danny shot, and that could have been faked as part of the "make Danny reject his emotions" ploy. We haven't really seen a Cyberman army, either, beyond a few dozen.


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## Morrus (Nov 4, 2014)

MarkB said:


> Assuming we can take those statements at face value - which is never a good bet when the Master is involved.
> 
> We haven't actually seen any great army of people inside the Nethersphere - nobody at all who's unconnected to the Doctor, aside from the boy Danny shot, and that could have been faked as part of the "make Danny reject his emotions" ploy. We haven't really seen a Cyberman army, either, beyond a few dozen.




Sure. But we can only go on what the script says. Sure, she might be lying, and it might be a Dalek plot or a mass hallucination or a billion other things. Maybe the Doctor is the Master. But for now, I'm going with what was said. If there's another twist and none of it's true, then, hey, Moffat successfully fooled me.


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## Rabulias (Nov 5, 2014)

Morrus said:


> ...it might be a Dalek plot...



I did note the doctor who founded 3W was a Dr. Skarosa... the name could just be coincidence?


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## Morrus (Nov 5, 2014)

Interesting:



> The BBC has defended the dark themes of its most recent Doctor Who storyline after complaints from some viewers.
> 
> Saturday night’s edition of the show – the first of a two-part climax to the series – saw the Doctor and sidekick Clara Oswald caught up a plot dealing with the afterlife, which then led into an invasion of earth by the Cybermen.
> 
> ...


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## MarkB (Nov 5, 2014)

Interesting yes, but also rather revealing of next week's episode. Perhaps a link or sblock with an appropriate warning would have been more appropriate.


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## Morrus (Nov 5, 2014)

MarkB said:


> Interesting yes, but also rather revealing of next week's episode. Perhaps a link or sblock with an appropriate warning would have been more appropriate.




They were only taking about last week. There are no references to next week.


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## MarkB (Nov 5, 2014)

Morrus said:


> They were only taking about last week. There are no references to next week.






			
				BBC Article said:
			
		

> “When the Doctor does hear these claims, he immediately pours scorn on them, dismissing them out of hand as a ‘con’ and a ‘racket’. It transpires that he is correct, and the entire concept is revealed to be a scam perpetrated by Missy.”




As of the end of last Saturday's episode, it was still very unclear how much of the concept was a scam, to the extent that we have spent the majority of this thread speculating upon that very subject.


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## Morrus (Nov 5, 2014)

MarkB said:


> As of the end of last Saturday's episode, it was still very unclear how much of the concept was a scam, to the extent that we have spent the majority of this thread speculating upon that very subject.




The BBC feels it was clear from the episode it was a scam.  I agree that wasn't as obvious as maybe they think it is, but that's a clarification of the episode, not a spoiler for next week's.  Just highlights a bit of poor editing or scripting, I guess.  The BBC isn't in the habit of giving major spoilers to major newspapers.


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## MarkB (Nov 5, 2014)

Morrus said:


> The BBC feels it was clear from the episode it was a scam.  I agree that wasn't as obvious as maybe they think it is, but that's a clarification of the episode, not a spoiler for next week's.  Just highlights a bit of poor editing or scripting, I guess.  The BBC isn't in the habit of giving major spoilers to major newspapers.




The way I read it, they were intent upon reassuring viewers that the "dead are still conscious" concept wasn't true, even within the fiction of the series, and they put that ahead of concern over spoilers.


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## Morrus (Nov 5, 2014)

MarkB said:


> The way I read it, they were intent upon reassuring viewers that the "dead are still conscious" concept wasn't true, even within the fiction of the series, and they put that ahead of concern over spoilers.




The episode was explicitly clear that it wasn't the afterlife but Missy uploading minds into a Time Lord hard drive (called the Nethersphere) and then downloading them to new Cyberman bodies.

It's not a spoiler.

Now, let's get back to discussing the episode!


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