# The official 2015 Doctor Who (with spoilers for aired episodes only) thread



## Morrus (Sep 20, 2015)

Spoilers for aired episode only.

I've watched yesterday's new episode twice now.  Here are my initial thoughts:

- deaths just have zero impact now. The Doctor was "due to die soon" not that long ago with the whole tomb on Trenzalore arc with Matt Smith.  Missy died then just came back and pretty much told us to camera that we aren't getting it explained, and that death is just for "other people".  Isn't Davros dead? Clara and Missy getting exterminated... ? Just no impact. There's not one tiny part of me that felt anything there.  

- on that note, WHY (this time) is the Doctor convinced he's going to die tomorrow, so that he needs to write his will?  And why did he not do that last time we had the "Doctor dies soon" plot?

- Daleks can just shoot the TARDIS now?  Since when?  Clara's pretty much right on its indestructibility.  And didn't we previously establish that an exploding TARDIS ends the universe?

- I liked the "we're looking for a tiny anachronism" joke; the tank and guitar scene was silly, but fun.

- Hand mines.  Cool concept. Me likey.

- Two parters.  Good. I like two-parters, even if the cliffhanger in this is impactless.

Trailer for next week:
[video=youtube;SiglsrgZxbs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiglsrgZxbs[/video]​


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## delericho (Sep 20, 2015)

Morrus said:


> - deaths just have zero impact now.




Yep. There's just no way they're going to stick, so why care?



> - Daleks can just shoot the TARDIS now?




The assumption there being that that is the TARDIS, of course.


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## Morrus (Sep 20, 2015)

delericho said:


> The assumption there being that that is the TARDIS, of course.




I noticed you didn't see it destroyed - the screen just went white.


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## MarkB (Sep 20, 2015)

Morrus said:


> - Daleks can just shoot the TARDIS now?  Since when?




Since Journey's End. That episode established that the Daleks, in their full power as veterans of the Time War, are expert and capable TARDIS-fighters. The Doctor confirmed that, against them, the TARDIS's walls were effectively just wood, and they would have destroyed the TARDIS in that episode if not for the whole Doctor-Donna thing.

Admittedly, that was by dropping the TARDIS into an active power core, but still, the combined firepower of a roomful of Daleks, including a Special Weapons Dalek, against a TARDIS stripped of its defenses is not going to be healthy.

On that note - I liked the variety of different-era Daleks shown, and that the episode contained a couple of references to Remembrance of the Daleks, my favourite classic-era story.


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## Morrus (Sep 20, 2015)

Hmm, yeah.  That's very true.

I always figured the TARDIS' defenses should basically be that it exists a nanosecond out of step with the environment.  A temporal shield, as it were -- the reason it's invulnerable is because when you attack it, it's not actually there. It can appear to be there, it can choose to let people in, but for all intents and purposes it's out of step with the actual time.

I guess the BBC just prefers "shields".


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## HobbitFan (Sep 20, 2015)

I thought it was a pretty good episode;  I pretty much agree with all of Morrus' points above...

A few of my own observations.  Why does the snake henchman have eyes, nose and mouth like that if its a collection of smaller snakes twisted together?  If it were that means the smaller snakes would have to have a human nose, etc, on their sides.  That makes no sense.  And that's not what they showed anyway when its seperated.  

In the medieval scene the doctor makes a joke that he says the audience would appreciate in a couple centuries.  Sorry no.  Neither the middle ages, high middle ages nor renaissance are " a couple centuries" from modern times.  I have a hard time an experienced, knowledagable time traveller like the doctor would make that kind of error, even as part of a joke.  

And why other than Moffat wanting to is the Doctor in Medieval times?  If he wanted to go someplace remote just to meditate he could have gone anywhere in space and time.  

And the Skaro being invisible reveal doesn't quite make sense the way its portrayed.  The Doctor and Missy clueing in on not being on station due to gravity was good but making the building masquerade as a station was not.  If we, somehow could cloak the Earth I don't think we'd then try to impersonate a space sation by keeping just part of the top floors of a building visible..right?  That makes no sense.


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## sabrinathecat (Sep 20, 2015)

When did throwing a Tardis key in an active volcano destroy it?
Big Finish has Tardis Keys surviving lava streams to be recovered centuries later.
Sorry, that's a last season question, but one that bugged me, since I don't remember anyone saying it before Clara did as part of a plot device.


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## MarkB (Sep 20, 2015)

Morrus said:


> Hmm, yeah.  That's very true.
> 
> I always figured the TARDIS' defenses should basically be that it exists a nanosecond out of step with the environment.  A temporal shield, as it were -- the reason it's invulnerable is because when you attack it, it's not actually there. It can appear to be there, it can choose to let people in, but for all intents and purposes it's out of step with the actual time.




The TARDIS has exactly that defense mechanism - it was used in one or two classic series episodes, and also in The End of Time Part 1. But it's not an always-on thing - the Doctor has to activate it, and while it's active, the TARDIS is invisible and undetectable, and cannot be interacted with.

Another defense the TARDIS has is HADS (Hostile Action Displacement System) which can automatically dematerialise it when it's under attack, rematerialising it in a nearby safe location. It's worth noting that if the TARDIS were truly invulnerable, it wouldn't need such a system.

Assuming that the HADS is still functional, that is one way the TARDIS could survive in the current episode.



HobbitFan said:


> And the Skaro being invisible reveal doesn't quite make sense the way its portrayed.  The Doctor and Missy clueing in on not being on station due to gravity was good but making the building masquerade as a station was not.  If we, somehow could cloak the Earth I don't think we'd then try to impersonate a space sation by keeping just part of the top floors of a building visible..right?  That makes no sense.




Especially since the invisiblity field clearly doesn't mask Skaro's mass or solidity. Anyone flying a spaceship within visual range of that 'station' is going to notice that they're in a planet's gravity well, even assuming they don't crash right into it. The only purpose the disguise served was as a reveal for the audience.


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## Staffan (Sep 20, 2015)

Morrus said:


> Spoilers for aired episode only.
> 
> I've watched yesterday's new episode twice now.  Here are my initial thoughts:
> 
> - deaths just have zero impact now. The Doctor was "due to die soon" not that long ago with the whole tomb on Trenzalore arc with Matt Smith.  Missy died then just came back and pretty much told us to camera that we aren't getting it explained, and that death is just for "other people".  Isn't Davros dead? Clara and Missy getting exterminated... ? Just no impact. There's not one tiny part of me that felt anything there.




Missy _clearly_ didn't die in Death in Heaven. The FX was different - it was the same FX as teleporting. And she would never expose herself like that to a bunch of Daleks without a trick up her sleeve, such as the vortex manipulators she and Clara used earlier, probably augmented with a bit of visual trickery to make the Daleks think they exterminated her.


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## Morrus (Sep 20, 2015)

MarkB;6705107  said:
			
		

> Especially since the invisiblity field clearly doesn't mask Skaro's mass or solidity. Anyone flying a spaceship within visual range of that 'station' is going to notice that they're in a planet's gravity well, even assuming they don't crash right into it. The only purpose the disguise served was as a reveal for the audience.




I assume the pilot knew.


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## Morrus (Sep 20, 2015)

Staffan said:


> Missy _clearly_ didn't die in Death in Heaven. The FX was different - it was the same FX as teleporting. And she would never expose herself like that to a bunch of Daleks without a trick up her sleeve, such as the vortex manipulators she and Clara used earlier, probably augmented with a bit of visual trickery to make the Daleks think they exterminated her.




Maybe. But given that it appears next week's episode is about the Doctor trying to rewrite time, that suggests there's something that needs rewriting.


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## Morrus (Sep 20, 2015)

I did love the way the Doctor simply said "gravity" to Missy, and she just replied "I know!"


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## MarkB (Sep 20, 2015)

I thought UNIT bought the whole "eight snipers" thing a little too easily. This is the Master we're talking about - there were any of a dozen ways she could've been protected against bullets. And really, given how quickly she can turn a situation around, it's insane that they weren't simply ordered "take your shot at the first sign of trouble".


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## Bedrockgames (Sep 20, 2015)

Morrus said:


> Spoilers for aired episode only.
> 
> I've watched yesterday's new episode twice now.  Here are my initial thoughts:
> 
> - deaths just have zero impact now. The Doctor was "due to die soon" not that long ago with the whole tomb on Trenzalore arc with Matt Smith.  Missy died then just came back and pretty much told us to camera that we aren't getting it explained, and that death is just for "other people".  Isn't Davros dead? Clara and Missy getting exterminated... ? Just no impact. There's not one tiny part of me that felt anything there.




I enjoyed the episode but this was something that I didn't really like. It isn't that death is meaningless, it is that 1) they've done "oh no, Doctor's gonna die" as a hook far too many times for it to be effective, and 2) they didn't even attempt an explanation for why people were not dead. With Missy, I think she never died as the beam was a totally different color when it struck her, so that wasn't such a big deal to me. Davros I was really scratching my head over (though it is possible I may be stupidly overlooking some significant alteration to the timeline from a prior episode). I will say, the episode itself struck me as very strong. I think it outweighed these flaws. But it was such a strong episode, I kind of wanted all the pieces to fit together tightly and some things kind of stuck out (for example why did they need clara and missy to lead them to the doctor if they already had a Dalek planted at the fair?). 

On the whole Missy and Clara dying taking away from death. Because it is obviously the central plot point that he needs to go back in time to undo them, and it was shown moments after the deaths, I think it is okay. I am more bothered when they do stuff like bring Rory back month after he's been wiped from existence or hand wave things years down the road. If it is built into the episode itself, that's fine.


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## Morrus (Sep 20, 2015)

MarkB said:


> I thought UNIT bought the whole "eight snipers" thing a little too easily. This is the Master we're talking about - there were any of a dozen ways she could've been protected against bullets. And really, given how quickly she can turn a situation around, it's insane that they weren't simply ordered "take your shot at the first sign of trouble".




What were the 8 snipers for? She mentioned two hearts.

But her leverage was the planes. That's why they didn't shoot her. Doing so might mean 4000 plane crashes. It's a Dead Man's Switch.


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## MarkB (Sep 20, 2015)

Morrus said:


> What were the 8 snipers for? She mentioned two hearts.




Also brain stem and other bits - probably an effective combination to kill a Time Lord, but a single rocket launcher would do the job equally well. And honestly, if Missy had told me "You'll need 8 snipers", I'd probably send 20.



> But her leverage was the planes. That's why they didn't shoot her. Doing so might mean 4000 plane crashes. It's a Dead Man's Switch.




Yeah, but by that logic, that's true no matter who she kills. They couldn't have given the kill order even if she'd vapourised Clara immediately. So the snipers are a meaningless threat - a safety blanket.


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## Morrus (Sep 20, 2015)

MarkB said:


> Also brain stem and other bits - probably an effective combination to kill a Time Lord, but a single rocket launcher would do the job equally well. And honestly, if Missy had told me "You'll need 8 snipers", I'd probably send 20.
> 
> 
> 
> Yeah, but by that logic, that's true no matter who she kills. They couldn't have given the kill order even if she'd vapourised Clara immediately. So the snipers are a meaningless threat - a safety blanket.




Exactly. The snipers were pointless. They could even be murdered at whim with no response.


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## Tonguez (Sep 21, 2015)

Morrus said:


> Exactly. The snipers were pointless. They could even be murdered at whim with no response.




to be fair they do call this out with Missy saying the snipers are there to make UNIT comfortable meeting with her rather than for an actual deterrent. Its part of Her toying with the humans.

and They really should start calling it the Missy show, since she is the only character that flows with the narrative. Clara really is just a puppy and even the Doctor's bits were a little forced. While the anachronism joke was fun the rest of the scene with the Ax fight at a renaisance arena was a bit err and colony Sarv while a nice concept had its potential wasted.

This weeks episode had awesome elements and I'm looking forward to next week in order to see how they can take the potential of this week and actually realise an awesome episode .



Morrus said:


> - on that note, WHY (this time) is the Doctor convinced he's going to die tomorrow, so that he needs to write his will?  And why did he not do that last time we had the "Doctor dies soon" plot?




I'm guessing that the Will device is a chekovs gun which explains how Missy and Clara survive extermination and the Doctor gets back to Tardis despite it being destroyed.

Also how are the Daleks suppose to destroy the Tardis inside their base without the resulting explosion destroying them and their city?


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## Morrus (Sep 21, 2015)

My wife has a theory that the Will is actually Missy's and that she was lying about it being the Doctor's.


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## Ryujin (Sep 21, 2015)

I just rewatched Missy's 'death scene' at the hands of Lethbridge Stuart Cyberman last night. The look on the Doctor's face clearly said, "Oh no, she got away again."

Everyone is talking about a cloaked Skaro. That wasn't my take-away from the episode. I saw a bunch of projections or illusions, so that's what I figured the deaths and destruction of the TARDIS were also. I could be wrong and we could end up seeing the Doctor running around and rewriting time from his own timeline, which he isn't supposed to do (but does anyway).


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## MarkB (Sep 21, 2015)

Ryujin said:


> I just rewatched Missy's 'death scene' at the hands of Lethbridge Stuart Cyberman last night. The look on the Doctor's face clearly said, "Oh no, she got away again."
> 
> Everyone is talking about a cloaked Skaro. That wasn't my take-away from the episode. I saw a bunch of projections or illusions, so that's what I figured the deaths and destruction of the TARDIS were also. I could be wrong and we could end up seeing the Doctor running around and rewriting time from his own timeline, which he isn't supposed to do (but does anyway).




If it was an illusion of Missy and Clara finding a cloaked Skaro and then getting exterminated, the question is why? As psychological torture for the Doctor it's over-elaborate - simply having Missy and Clara finding the TARDIS in another room on the station, followed by their deaths, would have been no less effective.

Until we're shown a reason for Davros to be lying about having gone home to Skaro, there's no reason not to take that part of the story at face value.


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## Ryujin (Sep 21, 2015)

MarkB said:


> If it was an illusion of Missy and Clara finding a cloaked Skaro and then getting exterminated, the question is why? As psychological torture for the Doctor it's over-elaborate - simply having Missy and Clara finding the TARDIS in another room on the station, followed by their deaths, would have been no less effective.
> 
> Until we're shown a reason for Davros to be lying about having gone home to Skaro, there's no reason not to take that part of the story at face value.




Oh, I'm pretty sure that it's really a rebuilt Skaro. As to the rest it's Steven Moffat and Davros. There is no such thing as "over-elaborate."


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## Janx (Sep 21, 2015)

Ryujin said:


> I just rewatched Missy's 'death scene' at the hands of Lethbridge Stuart Cyberman last night. The look on the Doctor's face clearly said, "Oh no, she got away again."
> 
> Everyone is talking about a cloaked Skaro. That wasn't my take-away from the episode. I saw a bunch of projections or illusions, so that's what I figured the deaths and destruction of the TARDIS were also. I could be wrong and we could end up seeing the Doctor running around and rewriting time from his own timeline, which he isn't supposed to do (but does anyway).




I guess so.

The problem is, I thought the Master died way back under a previous doctor, when he took over earth and made everybody look like him.  It's hard to remember, but these guys keep on dying and coming back.

Maybe it would help if they would stop killing people off, then they wouldn't have these quirks when they bring them back on the show.


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## MarkB (Sep 21, 2015)

Janx said:


> I guess so.
> 
> The problem is, I thought the Master died way back under a previous doctor, when he took over earth and made everybody look like him.  It's hard to remember, but these guys keep on dying and coming back.




The Master sacrificed himself to save the Doctor at the end of The End of Time and was drawn into the Gallifrey timelock along with Rassilon and his supporters. Honestly, if anything, that makes his unexplained return last season more problematic than if he had 'only' died.


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## Ryujin (Sep 22, 2015)

MarkB said:


> The Master sacrificed himself to save the Doctor at the end of The End of Time and was drawn into the Gallifrey timelock along with Rassilon and his supporters. Honestly, if anything, that makes his unexplained return last season more problematic than if he had 'only' died.




Yup, it implies that he knows where Gallifrey is, despite her misdirection last season. It also makes you wonder if Gallifrey is still in one piece, in the time lock.


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## HobbitFan (Sep 22, 2015)

Something else I'm not sure about is the plausibility of the "UNIT running a computer search to find the Doctor" scene.  It assumes two things:  1. That he's in earth's past and that 2. that there was a record made of Doctor showing up and doing something.  
Those are some pretty big assumptions when you think about it.


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## trappedslider (Sep 22, 2015)

HobbitFan said:


> Something else I'm not sure about is the plausibility of the "UNIT running a computer search to find the Doctor" scene.  It assumes two things:  1. That he's in earth's past and that 2. that there was a record made of Doctor showing up and doing something.
> Those are some pretty big assumptions when you think about it.




Well,considering how many times he's shown up in Earth's Past, also they were IIRC looking for events in which it was likely that he would be there for.....


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## Tonguez (Sep 22, 2015)

HobbitFan said:


> Something else I'm not sure about is the plausibility of the "UNIT running a computer search to find the Doctor" scene.  It assumes two things:  1. That he's in earth's past and that 2. that there was a record made of Doctor showing up and doing something.
> Those are some pretty big assumptions when you think about it.





it's been established that there are dedicated websites of Tardis watchers and also that UNIT has dedicated software that does nothing but scan for Doctor sightings. I suspect UNIT routinely scans for anachronisms and other anomalies just in case it has to investigate. 

and considering that UNIT has access to computer systems as advanced as Mr Smith I'm willing to suspend logic with regards to Googling the Doctor


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## MarkB (Sep 23, 2015)

Tonguez said:


> it's been established that their are dedicated websites of Tardis watchers and also that UNIT has dedicated software that does nothing but scan for Doctor sightings. I suspect UNIT routinely scans for anachronisms and other anomalies just in case it has to investigate.
> 
> and considering that UNIT has access to computer systems as advanced as Mr Smith I'm willing to suspend logic with regards to Googling the Doctor




The really sad part, from the Doctor's perspective, is that they could only find one single event in Earth's history where the Doctor showed up and there wasn't a crisis.


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## Morrus (Sep 23, 2015)

MarkB said:


> The really sad part, from the Doctor's perspective, is that they could only find one single event in Earth's history where the Doctor showed up and there wasn't a crisis.




They could only find "loud" events where he made his presence well-known so that it got well-documented.  There would be thousands of times he's just hung out quietly and enjoyed himself.  UNIT would never be able to find those.


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## Umbran (Sep 23, 2015)

Morrus said:


> Exactly. The snipers were pointless. They could even be murdered at whim with no response.




To quote the Brigadier:  "Just once I'd like to meet an alien menace that wasn't immune to bullets."


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## Umbran (Sep 23, 2015)

Heck Davros was "killed" in the very first serial in which he appeared (back in 1975), and then was brought back in 1979.  His defying death is as old as the character.  The same goes for The Master, really.

I don't have a major problem with the no-impact deaths, for two reasons.  First off, the show's production is so heavily watched by people looking for scoops and spoilers that they can't write anyone off without everyone knowing about it, and the writers and producers know this - you *cannot* surprise anyone with the death of a major character on Doctor Who, and as a result, making death matter is extremely difficult.   Also,  these episodes aren't about the emotional impact of death of friends.  They seem to be about the moral and emotional impact of time-travel and assassination, which is a rather different thing.  And the scene where the Doctor recognizes the child Davros *was* impactful.

I, for one, am tired of the "wacky-crazy" Master/Mistress already - the Doctor is really all the wacky we need.  But then, I'm not a fan of the "rubber-clown-nose" approach to insanity to begin with, so the shtick wears quickly on me.  I'd be happy with a return of a bit of the Delgado/Ainsley style to Gomez's Mistress, as it would provide some much-needed contrast to the Doctor's personality.


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## Ryujin (Sep 23, 2015)

I would say that the "rubber clown nose" approach to insanity is no more outre than was Roger Delgado's "Snidely Whiplash" moustache-twirling evil. I take them both as being affectations of The Master, rather than actual character.


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## Umbran (Sep 23, 2015)

Ryujin said:


> I would say that the "rubber clown nose" approach to insanity is no more outre...




I am not saying it is outre.  I'm saying it is annoying, displeasing, and redundant given that the Doctor himself tends to the wacky.  In terms of storytelling structure, it isn't a good choice.

On top of that, as a distant second issue, I can accept a really intelligent, principled, mustache-twirling evil a lot more easily than I can a misrepresentation of insanity.  Again, it isn't about being outre, it is about how people who have been through trauma and abuse don't end up like that.  Yes, I know, alien psychology, blah, blah.  The point remains that in an age when we have issues with comprehension of mental health, wacky-clown-nose insanity isn't an assistance.


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## Morrus (Sep 23, 2015)

Umbran said:


> I am not saying it is outre.  I'm saying it is annoying, displeasing, and redundant given that the Doctor himself tends to the wacky.  In terms of storytelling structure, it isn't a good choice.




I find her superb; I enjoy her performance immensely.  Very happy with it indeed!


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## Ryujin (Sep 23, 2015)

Umbran said:


> I am not saying it is outre.  I'm saying it is annoying, displeasing, and redundant given that the Doctor himself tends to the wacky.  In terms of storytelling structure, it isn't a good choice.
> 
> On top of that, as a distant second issue, I can accept a really intelligent, principled, mustache-twirling evil a lot more easily than I can a misrepresentation of insanity.  Again, it isn't about being outre, it is about how people who have been through trauma and abuse don't end up like that.  Yes, I know, alien psychology, blah, blah.  The point remains that in an age when we have issues with comprehension of mental health, wacky-clown-nose insanity isn't an assistance.




As I said, I see it as more of an affectation than 'legitimate' insanity (despite the looking into the untempered schism backstory). The behaviour is very similar to the classic DC Joker both in levity and homicidal behaviour. We also have a darker, less whacky Doctor now. 



Morrus said:


> I find her superb; I enjoy her performance immensely.  Very happy with it indeed!




As do I. It seems a very reasonable progression from John Simm's singing, dancing Master and she does it exceedingly well.


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## Tonguez (Sep 23, 2015)

Umbran said:


> On top of that, as a distant second issue, I can accept a really intelligent, principled, mustache-twirling evil a lot more easily than I can a misrepresentation of insanity.




I don't think Missy is attempting to portray her Master on the basis of faux insanity, the Insanity shtick was John Simms, whereas Gomez comes across more as the self entitled villain who has embraced their evilness and really does see everyone else as inferior.  Missy enjoys being the villainous balance to the Doctor, her demented Mary Poppins is simply a feminine variation of the mustache-twirling menace


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## Bedrockgames (Sep 23, 2015)

Morrus said:


> I find her superb; I enjoy her performance immensely.  Very happy with it indeed!




I am a big fan of over the top, larger than life villains and think she is one of the best I've seen on screen in ages. Michelle Gomez is up there with the likes of Vincent Price and Gary Oldman for me.


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## Umbran (Sep 23, 2015)

Ryujin said:


> We also have a darker, less whacky Doctor now.




/*Umbran looks at the tank, electric guitar, and "Dude!"  Looks back at Ryujin.*/

I don't think so.


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## Umbran (Sep 23, 2015)

Morrus said:


> I find her superb; I enjoy her performance immensely.  Very happy with it indeed!




This has nothing to do with the actress.  She, herself, is doing an awesome job with what they are giving her.  I very specifically want her to stay.

I am merely not so happy with what they are giving her to do.


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## Morrus (Sep 23, 2015)

Umbran said:


> This has nothing to do with the actress.  She, herself, is doing an awesome job with what they are giving her.  I very specifically want her to stay.
> 
> I am merely not so happy with what they are giving her to do.




Yeah, I get it.  I just feel differently!  I love what they're doing with her.  I wasn't so much a fan of John Simm, though.


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## Ryujin (Sep 24, 2015)

Umbran said:


> /*Umbran looks at the tank, electric guitar, and "Dude!"  Looks back at Ryujin.*/
> 
> I don't think so.




Looks at any episode of Matt Smith's Doctor. Looks at Capaldi's Doctor. Capaldi's seems perfectly well balanced by comparison.


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## MarkB (Sep 26, 2015)

SPOILERS for tonight's episode, in case anyone's still catching up...



I really enjoyed this episode. Up until now I was still ambivalent about Missy - she was a bit too manic, a bit too evil-just-because - but the pre-credits scene this week just completely sold me on her, and the rest of the episode didn't disappoint.

The whole bluff-and-double-bluff between Davros and the Doctor, the soul-baring on both sides, and on the other hand Missy's unique take on doing the normal Doctor-and-companion stuff was all very well done, and it wrapped up neatly with a small morality tale about mercy.

Oh, and one more thing:



MarkB said:


> Assuming that the HADS is still functional, that is one way the TARDIS could survive in the current episode.




Called it.


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## HobbitFan (Sep 27, 2015)

I'd call it half-good.  All the character stuff with Clara, Doctor, Davros and the Mistress were great.  
The "god from the Machine" ending with the dalek undead sludge was retarded.  Mind-numbingly stupid.  
I honestly don't know how to think about the episode as what I like I really liked but what I disliked I hated.


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## Morrus (Sep 27, 2015)

HobbitFan said:


> The "god from the Machine" ending with the dalek undead sludge was retarded.  Mind-numbingly stupid.




Wow. Strong words. I'd be interested in hearing why you feel the plot of the episode was "retarded" and "mind-numbingly stupid".  Are we even still using the word "retarded"?

I liked it. A lot. The longest conversation between The Doctor and Davros ever.  I think the double episode was excellent - watching all that in a single seating will be a pleasure. Delightful leisurely paced.


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## Tonguez (Sep 27, 2015)

I liked it, it was a great pay-off after last weeks build up and showcased all the main characters well. The Davros-Doctor dialogue was a masterwork and the Oswald Dalek callback was a fun nod, underlined by Missys ongoing meddling. I thought the rise of the dalek undead sludge was a good resolution of the dilemma and well within accepted Dalek canon. The show of mercy was a nice touch too


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## MarkB (Sep 27, 2015)

HobbitFan said:


> The "god from the Machine" ending with the dalek undead sludge was retarded.  Mind-numbingly stupid.




A Deus Ex Machina resolution is one that is from factors external to the established plot. If Captain Jack Harkness had beamed in at the last moment with a spare set of time bracelets and said "Hello guys and girls, anyone want a ride?", that would have been a Deus Ex Machina.

The resolution to this episode arose naturally from the characters' actions and the previously-established facts. I certainly didn't anticipate it in advance, but the moment the Doctor began his countdown and I realised that he did, in fact, have a plan, my immediate thought was "ooh, the sewer-daleks!"



On another note, does anyone else think that this isn't the last we've heard of "the Hybrid"? Davros assumed that the ancient Time Lord legend of two warrior races brought together to create a third, even stronger one must refer to the Time Lords and the Daleks, but I'm guessing there may actually be different candidates involved.

I wouldn't be surprised if this becomes a running theme for this season.


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## Bedrockgames (Sep 27, 2015)

MarkB said:


> A Deus Ex Machina resolution is one that is from factors external to the established plot. If Captain Jack Harkness had beamed in at the last moment with a spare set of time bracelets and said "Hello guys and girls, anyone want a ride?", that would have been a Deus Ex Machina.
> 
> The resolution to this episode arose naturally from the characters' actions and the previously-established facts. I certainly didn't anticipate it in advance, but the moment the Doctor began his countdown and I realised that he did, in fact, have a plan, my immediate thought was "ooh, the sewer-daleks!"
> 
> ...




My first thought was maybe this is how they explain the Valeyard. But that might be too much of a stretch.


----------



## Tonguez (Sep 27, 2015)

MarkB said:


> On another note, does anyone else think that this isn't the last we've heard of "the Hybrid"? Davros assumed that the ancient Time Lord legend of two warrior races brought together to create a third, even stronger one must refer to the Time Lords and the Daleks, but I'm guessing there may actually be different candidates involved.
> 
> I wouldn't be surprised if this becomes a running theme for this season.





I thought we already had the Hybrid in the human daleks - which could be where they're going with the Clara Dalek thing and I wonder if thats Missys very clever idea

besides which did anything happen with the Doctor being half-human thing?


----------



## HobbitFan (Sep 27, 2015)

A couple things:
1. MarkB is right.  I used the "god from the Machine" phrase incorrectly.  My goof.
2. I should not have been so colorful in my earlier post.  I should have said something more along the lines of not liking the idea of the sludge daleks and finding the ending weak.  
Anything beyond that was just hyperbola.

I think you guys are right about Davros' hybrid comments and the guess about why the doctor left Gallifrey will probably come back up later this season.  Those lines felt like Moffat setting soemthing up.


----------



## Richards (Sep 27, 2015)

After Missy started stabbing the dalek in the sewers with the brooch she got from the Doctor "upon the birth of her daughter," it got me to thinking: what if this isn't the first time the Master/Missy has been female?  What if, back in the First Doctor days (before the televised episodes, when Hartnell's Doctor wasn't an old man yet), an earlier female version of Missy was the Doctor's first wife?  That would make her Susan's grandmother.  It would also give an even stronger reason why the Doctor would send Missy his confession disk, and could explain why he's had a soft spot for the Master/Missy over the years.  (He's gone out of his way to save the Master/Missy's life even after the Master/Missy has tried killing him.)

Just a thought.

Johnathan


----------



## Morrus (Sep 27, 2015)

It occurs to me that the shields on Davros' chair are stronger than the TARDIS shields!

I loved the chair joke, by the way

I was worried Missy was mellowing. Nah, she's still evil!


----------



## Bagpuss (Sep 27, 2015)

Morrus said:


> It occurs to me that the shields on Davros' chair are stronger than the TARDIS shields!




Not really the Tardis shields could deal with normal Dalek blasters even when it was dematerialised from whatever weapon they tried to destroy it with before.


----------



## Morrus (Sep 27, 2015)

Bagpuss said:


> Not really the Tardis shields could deal with normal Dalek blasters even when it was dematerialised from whatever weapon they tried to destroy it with before.




I'm trying, but I can't parse that sentence into anything!  Could you rephrase it?


----------



## Staffan (Sep 27, 2015)

Morrus said:


> I'm trying, but I can't parse that sentence into anything!  Could you rephrase it?




Bunch of regular Daleks fired on the TARDIS, which its shields could handle without trouble. They brought in a special weapon, and in order to deal with that it dispersed. Even in its dispersed state, it could maintain shields around the Doctor and Clara that could handle regular Dalek blasters.


----------



## Morrus (Sep 27, 2015)

Staffan said:


> Bunch of regular Daleks fired on the TARDIS, which its shields could handle without trouble. They brought in a special weapon, and in order to deal with that it dispersed.




I don't recall two stages to the attack.  All the Daleks in the room fired at it; it had to disperse to survive. All the same Daleks in the same room fired at Davros' chair, which shrugged it off.


----------



## MarkB (Sep 28, 2015)

Morrus said:


> I don't recall two stages to the attack.  All the Daleks in the room fired at it; it had to disperse to survive. All the same Daleks in the same room fired at Davros' chair, which shrugged it off.




And then at the end, the Daleks all fired at the Doctor and Clara, and the dispersed TARDIS's shields shrugged it off.

I suspect that even the combined firepower of all those Daleks, even including the Special Weapons Dalek, wasn't actually enough to penetrate the TARDIS's shields, at least not without a sustained barrage. The reason it dispersed was so that they wouldn't try again with more firepower.


----------



## delericho (Sep 28, 2015)

Morrus said:


> It occurs to me that the shields on Davros' chair are stronger than the TARDIS shields!




Are they more powerful, or are they just tuned to defend against that specific attack, though? After all, Davros is _the_ expert on the technology the Daleks use, and he's been attacked by his creation before.


----------



## Bagpuss (Sep 28, 2015)

Morrus said:


> I don't recall two stages to the attack.  All the Daleks in the room fired at it; it had to disperse to survive.




All the Daleks didn't fire at the TARDIS, only a special ceiling mounted weapon that did a sustained beam.


----------



## MarkB (Sep 28, 2015)

Bagpuss said:


> All the Daleks didn't fire at the TARDIS, only a special ceiling mounted weapon that did a sustained beam.




Good spot. I was sure I remembered the Daleks using their combined firepower on the TARDIS, but a quick iPlayer recap set me straight.

So, I guess we don't actually know which is more powerful.


----------



## sabrinathecat (Oct 1, 2015)

Morrus said:


> Wow. Strong words. I'd be interested in hearing why you feel the plot of the episode was "retarded" and "mind-numbingly stupid".  Are we even still using the word "retarded"?



And yet you told me to "stop thread crapping".


----------



## Morrus (Oct 1, 2015)

sabrinathecat said:


> And yet you told me to "stop thread crapping".




Sabrina, don't be a jerk please.  There is nothing for you to win here. Negative comments are fine; it's just the same thing repeated over and over in every thread about the subject that constitutes threadcrapping.  I don't want to have to keep talking about this with you.  If you have any issues with it (which clearly you do, since you're bringing it up), take it to PM or email, please.


----------



## MarkB (Oct 4, 2015)

Well, they're certainly liking the two-parters this season.

I'm not quite convinced that this story has enough plot to justify that, and I wish the supporting cast were doing a better job of making me care about them, but it was reasonably entertaining nevertheless.


----------



## Jester David (Oct 5, 2015)

I like the return to more two-part stories. I didn't mind the season opener, but I'm an old school Whovian who remembers the days when sometimes they'd have an entire episode just setting up and teasing the eventual reveal. 
My favourite was the Dalek invasion of Earth storyline, where the entire first episode was everyone wandering the London waterfront wondering about the roboman and such, and where everyone was. And then, suddenly, at the end a Dalek rolls out of the Thames and it's all WFT?!? 

The ending on the ghost episode was kinda dramatic too. But the second episode seems like it will feel different, rather than being the second half of one long story. Which might be interesting.


----------



## HobbitFan (Oct 5, 2015)

I liked the first part.  How to judge the story overall will largely depend upon how they resolve things in part 2.  
I liked that it was a classic base under siege situation.  
Very much style over substance so far though...there isn't that much to the story and the characters are pretty thin.  
I enjoyed myself and look forward to seeing how they explain things.


----------



## Bedrockgames (Oct 5, 2015)

MarkB said:


> Well, they're certainly liking the two-parters this season.
> 
> I'm not quite convinced that this story has enough plot to justify that, and I wish the supporting cast were doing a better job of making me care about them, but it was reasonably entertaining nevertheless.




Whether it has enough plot, I think we'll only see when the next episode comes out (to me it seems like it does because there is a whole backstory to the events to explore, and I find myself wanting to know those details). For me though, I don't even care, I'm just glad to have two parters again. I think the show really shines on the two parters, it just has more room to breath. I've never really liked too much efficiency in my entertainment, and I feel sticking soley to the 45 minute structure made even great stories feel rushed at times.


----------



## Morrus (Oct 5, 2015)

I've found that the second part of a two parter almost always makes the first part better.


----------



## Ryujin (Oct 5, 2015)

Morrus said:


> I've found that the second part of a two parter almost always makes the first part better.




Setup always appears somewhat lacklustre, until you get the pay-off. Even in the best of shows.


----------



## HobbitFan (Oct 16, 2015)

What did ya'll think of Before the Flood? 
And, is everyone excited for Maisie Williams and Vikings? !!!


----------



## sabrinathecat (Oct 17, 2015)

Ryujin said:


> Setup always appears somewhat lacklustre, until you get the pay-off. Even in the best of shows.



Really? I always found it was the exact opposite: the set up is usually great, and then the resolution is cheap. At least with most shows. Doctor Who was normally the exception. But looking at things like NextGen, Forever Knight, and even the rare B5 two parter, the first episode was always better than the second one.


----------



## MarkB (Oct 17, 2015)

HobbitFan said:


> What did ya'll think of Before the Flood?




The villain was vague and poorly defined, the situation felt overly artificial, and the solution likewise. And I still didn't find any of the secondary characters sufficiently fleshed-out to make me actually care about them.

The stuff about paradoxes and where ideas originate in a closed time loop was interesting, but it only serves to raise the question of why one kind of paradox is 'allowed' and another is not.


----------



## Morrus (Oct 17, 2015)

Yeah, not my favourite episode.


----------



## delericho (Oct 17, 2015)

I've actually enjoyed each episode of this season so far more than the previous one.


----------



## Morrus (Oct 18, 2015)

I like the look of next week.

[video=youtube;MZz0__eJuhE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZz0__eJuhE[/video]


----------



## Tonguez (Oct 18, 2015)

do eels count as deus ex machina?

strange comedic episode that told a complete story and not just a build up to the second parter.
The Fires of Pompeii reference was intriguing as was the closing scene

and as a closing thought is it canon that the Doctors Mother was human?


----------



## Morrus (Oct 18, 2015)

Tonguez said:


> and as a closing thought is it canon that the Doctors Mother was human?




No. There's a throwaway line in that rubbish TV movie where he says he's half human, but the producers have waved it away with that old "Rule 1: the Doctor lies" trick. He's 100% Time Lord.


----------



## MarkB (Oct 18, 2015)

And it seems that AryaAshildr is set to become a recurring character.

Her name caught me off guard at first - when she first said it, I thought it was some form of Viking rank, as in "I am a Shielder". Took a couple more mentions for it to settle in.


----------



## Morrus (Oct 18, 2015)

MarkB said:


> And it seems that AryaAshildr is set to become a recurring character.




I doubt it. She's pretty busy. Just this two-parter, I expect. 

Interesting that immortality is casually available via a small device.


----------



## trappedslider (Oct 18, 2015)

Tonguez said:


> The Fires of Pompeii reference was intriguing as was the closing scene




Well, Moffett had stated that there was a plan to explain why The Doctor looks like Caecilius from that episode. (something I mentioned a number of times in the past and was dismissed with a shrug)


----------



## MarkB (Oct 18, 2015)

Morrus said:


> I doubt it. She's pretty busy. Just this two-parter, I expect.



Yeah, I was thinking the BBC would have trouble affording her.



> Interesting that immortality is casually available via a small device.




Odd that it's all-or-nothing - the Doctor couldn't have told it to just pop back out once it was done? And does that mean that those aliens were functionally immortal too?


----------



## Staffan (Oct 18, 2015)

My main beef with this episode: *EFFING HORNED HELMETS*.


----------



## Morrus (Oct 18, 2015)

Staffan said:


> My main beef with this episode: *EFFING HORNED HELMETS*.




Yeah, I totally said that when I saw them.


----------



## Staffan (Oct 18, 2015)

Morrus said:


> Yeah, I totally said that when I saw them.




To be honest, when I first saw them, I thought "These have to be fake vikings somehow, and the horned helmets are a clue." But nooo...


----------



## Bedrockgames (Oct 18, 2015)

Staffan said:


> To be honest, when I first saw them, I thought "These have to be fake vikings somehow, and the horned helmets are a clue." But nooo...




I think you have to leave that sort of expectation at the door with Doctor Who, it is more cinematic in how it depicts history. I almost thought the horns were meant as a needle to the eye of sticklers for historical realism (they had to know, and those horns were pretty huge).


----------



## MarkB (Oct 18, 2015)

As I recall, the term "vikings" itself isn't even accurate - a viking was the Norse term for a raiding expedition.

Vikings are an established part of Doctor Who canon, having appeared in _The Time Meddler_ way back in the First Doctor's era. I don't recall whether the ones in that story had horned helmets, though.


----------



## Ryujin (Oct 19, 2015)

Staffan said:


> My main beef with this episode: *EFFING HORNED HELMETS*.




My immediate connection was to a recent video by Lindybeige.

[video=youtube;RHHLFFy6CWs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHHLFFy6CWs[/video]


----------



## Tonguez (Oct 19, 2015)

trappedslider said:


> Well, Moffett had stated that there was a plan to explain why The Doctor looks like Caecilius from that episode. (something I mentioned a number of times in the past and was dismissed with a shrug)




yeah but that explanation seems a bit too easy, there must be something more to it.

Indeed as another link to the 10th Doctor I'm wondering if Ashildr is The Woman



MarkB said:


> As I recall, the term "vikings" itself isn't even accurate - a viking was the Norse term for a raiding expedition..




yeah I thought that too, my comment was "they're not real vikings, did Noresmen even go around saying "We are Vikings?""



Staffan said:


> My main beef with this episode: *EFFING HORNED HELMETS*.




but the wings on alien Odins helmet were worse, the whole presentation was very camp and I actually thought the horned vikings were aliens too

oh and I also first heard A Sheilder as if it was short for Sheildmaiden or something
edit: I wonder if that was deliberate? does anyone speak viking? and does ass hildr mean something like Battle God?


----------



## delericho (Oct 19, 2015)

Staffan said:


> To be honest, when I first saw them, I thought "These have to be fake vikings somehow, and the horned helmets are a clue." But nooo...




Yep, that was my thought exactly - especially with all that stuff about him not being Odin and the yo-yo not being Odin's sign, and then _another_ fake Odin showed up...

I thought this episode was okay. But it was also the first one this year I haven't enjoyed more than its predecessor.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (Oct 19, 2015)

Morrus said:


> I doubt it. She's pretty busy. Just this two-parter, I expect.
> 
> Interesting that immortality is casually available via a small device.



The Doctor said accidents could still happen, though, so it's probably not the Jack Harkness Type immortality that lets you come back from everything.


----------



## Staffan (Oct 19, 2015)

Tonguez said:


> but the wings on alien Odins helmet were worse, the whole presentation was very camp and I actually thought the horned vikings were aliens too



Yeah, but "Odin" was _supposed_ to be fake.



> edit: I wonder if that was deliberate? does anyone speak viking? and does ass hildr mean something like Battle God?



Ashildr basically means "god of battle", yes. As as in the Aesir, and Hildr is a version of Hilda, which means battle. It should probably be pronounced As-hildr rather than Ash-ildr, though.

The "As" in Ashildr is basically the same as the "Os" in many English names. Like... Oswald (though "wald" means "ruler" - the same root as "wield").


----------



## The_Silversword (Oct 24, 2015)

Ive been super busy at work and only just now got into the new season. Started watching part 2 od the Davros epeisode, for some reason the DVR did not record part one, bastards!! Watched part one of the ghost episode, and I cant help feeling like Im missing something here, what the hell is up with the sunglasses!?


----------



## Morrus (Oct 24, 2015)

I liked tonight's episode a lot! A great discussion about immortality, with an amusing turn by Rufus Hound. The alien invasion was utterly incidental and subservient to the real story, as it sometimes is.


----------



## Ryujin (Oct 24, 2015)

The_Silversword said:


> Ive been super busy at work and only just now got into the new season. Started watching part 2 od the Davros epeisode, for some reason the DVR did not record part one, bastards!! Watched part one of the ghost episode, and I cant help feeling like Im missing something here, what the hell is up with the sunglasses!?




Sonic sunglasses.


----------



## The_Silversword (Oct 25, 2015)

Ryujin said:


> Sonic sunglasses.




What!? Why!?


----------



## RangerWickett (Oct 25, 2015)

I am glad this episode strove to have a compelling message. I don't think the tea was steeped long enough for it to quite come together, but it had some good potential. And gallows humor was a hoot.


----------



## RangerWickett (Oct 25, 2015)

The_Silversword said:


> What!? Why!?




Because nothing's cooler than exploring a dark mansion at night with sunglasses on. Or because this show is silly a lot of times, and the Doctor does things because he needs to entertain himself.


----------



## Richards (Nov 1, 2015)

Another two-parter?  It seems like they're stealthily returning to the older format, since two hour-long episodes equals four half-hour episodes, and four-episode stories used to pretty much be the norm.

And what's up with UNIT becoming entirely led by women?  Leader of UNIT: the Brigadier's daughter.  Scientific advisor: a woman.  Top scientist: the Brigadier's granddaughter.  Soldier in charge of the attack on the Zygons in the church: a woman.  Drone pilot: a woman.  I think the only male UNIT member in tonight's episode with any lines was the guy who wimped out when confronted with a Zygon wearing the form of his mother - after specifically being warned about that exact type of subterfuge - and who subsequently was responsible for getting his entire group wiped out.

Nice job, man.  I guess they probably should have had a woman leading that group.

Johnathan


----------



## Crothian (Nov 1, 2015)

The women didn't do any better. Unit was as useful and effective as Cobra goons. It was really pathetic. I never liked the Zygons so I knew going it I was not going to enjoy this episode and even with those really low standards going into it the episode still disappointed me. I think this is my least favorite episode of the current doctor.


----------



## MarkB (Nov 1, 2015)

Yeah, there are a lot of problems with this episode. As an allegory for terrorism and radicalisation of people within our own society, it was heavy-handed at best. And as a believable set-up, it simply wasn't - _this_ is the "totally watertight peace treaty with safeguards built in for both sides"? Settle twenty million shape-shifting aliens amongst the human population and hope that nothing goes wrong?

For one thing, how does that even work? The Zygons have supposedly been learning new tricks since they arrived, but as the Doctor said, up until that point the only way for a Zygon to maintain a human form was to have a living human to imprint from. So were all these Zygons duplicates of already-existing humans, and what happened when one of those humans died?

Also, the original-series story that introduced the Zygons made a major point of them having some very specific dietary requirements - they needed the milk of a bioengineered creature called the Skarasen, a large amphibious beast that happened to live in Loch Ness. Does this current crop of Zygons have their own Skarasen, and even if they do, how do they manage a Skarasen-milk round for twenty million undercover aliens?


----------



## Bedrockgames (Nov 1, 2015)

Some of those early New Who episodes were pretty heavy handed with the political allegory. This reminded me a bit of the series under Davies. I do agree that the premise of settling 20 million zygons felt a bit much to believe (though the more I thought about the day of the doctor episode the less of an issue I had with it), but I often find that with Who I find their political decisions tough to swallow so it didn't stand out as especially egregious to me in the respect.

I will say this for the set up. In a way it makes the Day of the Doctor better because it means there were real consequences for establishing the peace. It wasn't just "okay we'll leave each other alone" it meant that a real compromise had to be struck. And it was a compromise that came with serious risk for humanity. So in that respect it was a more realistic political compromise because it was more than just humans being mean to zygons and vice versa for the sake of meanness: there were real stakes. 

Overall I liked the episode. A good rubber monster episode that wasn't perfect in the set up but once it got started it worked well. I really liked Jenna Coleman's performance in this one. Very happy to have the two-parters back and glad it doesn't feel like we are zipping through storylines anymore (even if it means a little messiness here or there). As much as I liked the later Matt Smith episodes, I was really getting tired of the condensed storytelling approach.


----------



## Morrus (Nov 1, 2015)

By far my favourite episode of this year so far. The only thing I didn't like is that I always thought Zygons looked a bit silly (in a Slitheen kind of way).

Other than that, this was great. Can't wait for next week's resolution. I'm enjoying the all two-parter format they've adopted this year (though the two with Arya Stark were pretty loosely linked).


----------



## Morrus (Nov 1, 2015)

Richards said:


> Another two-parter?  It seems like they're stealthily returning to the older format, since two hour-long episodes equals four half-hour episodes, and four-episode stories used to pretty much be the norm.




The whole of this year's series is two partners.



> And what's up with UNIT becoming entirely led by women?  Leader of UNIT: the Brigadier's daughter.  Scientific advisor: a woman.  Top scientist: the Brigadier's granddaughter.  Soldier in charge of the attack on the Zygons in the church: a woman.  Drone pilot: a woman.  I think the only male UNIT member in tonight's episode with any lines was the guy who wimped out when confronted with a Zygon wearing the form of his mother - after specifically being warned about that exact type of subterfuge - and who subsequently was responsible for getting his entire group wiped out.




It certainly passed the Bechdel Test.


----------



## delericho (Nov 9, 2015)

I rather enjoyed this week's episode. Not much more to say about it than that, really.


----------



## Morrus (Nov 9, 2015)

I loved it.  This is Capaldi's defining Doctor moment, I think.  That speech/monologue was so well performed.


----------



## Ryujin (Nov 9, 2015)

Morrus said:


> I loved it.  This is Capaldi's defining Doctor moment, I think.  That speech/monologue was so well performed.




Very telling in the, "That's the same thing that you said the last three times" moment. This Doctor isn't so much The Trickster, as he is Machiavelli as an archetype.


----------



## Morrus (Nov 9, 2015)

Ryujin said:


> Very telling in the, "That's the same thing that you said the last three times" moment. This Doctor isn't so much The Trickster, as he is Machiavelli as an archetype.




Last 15 times!


----------



## MarkB (Nov 9, 2015)

Morrus said:


> Last 15 times!




That's the only part that troubled me. Bonnie gets to go through her epiphany and carry it with her. Poor old Kate Stewart has her memory erased for the 16th time and never gets to keep that moment for herself.


----------



## Morrus (Nov 9, 2015)

MarkB said:


> That's the only part that troubled me. Bonnie gets to go through her epiphany and carry it with her. Poor old Kate Stewart has her memory erased for the 16th time and never gets to keep that moment for herself.




If she doesn't forget, the box bluff won't work in her in time #16.


----------



## Ryujin (Nov 10, 2015)

Morrus said:


> Last 15 times!




It went by so fast that I'd missed the exact number, but knew that it was more than once. Thanks.


----------



## delericho (Nov 10, 2015)

I think he was probably joking about there being a previous 15 times. The body count was surely too high for him to go through that cycle once every six weeks or so.


----------



## MarkB (Nov 15, 2015)

There were some interesting elements to yesterday's show - the deliberate use of POV and fixed cameras, the outcome, the future worldbuilding - but none of that made up for about the most ridiculous premise I have ever heard of, a concept so silly, even by Doctor Who standards, that it kept me from taking any other aspect of the story seriously.


----------



## Ryujin (Nov 16, 2015)

MarkB said:


> There were some interesting elements to yesterday's show - the deliberate use of POV and fixed cameras, the outcome, the future worldbuilding - but none of that made up for about the most ridiculous premise I have ever heard of, a concept so silly, even by Doctor Who standards, that it kept me from taking any other aspect of the story seriously.




Struggled with that myself. It just didn't make even the peripheral sense required for suspension of disbelief. That's usually not a problem for me unless the subject material impacts directly on my fields of knowledge and it's bungled really, really badly. It's clearly a 'race' that they want to be ongoing and that's a rather poor start for it.


----------



## Morrus (Nov 16, 2015)

I've never liked Mark Gatis's episodes, and this was no exception. I was at the Doctor Who Exhibition in London this weekend, and I actually fell asleep during the thing with him and Moffat. The thing with Capaldi, Gomez, and Osgood was way better. I think I'm in love with Michelle Gomez. In person, she's still got that Missy vibe. 

A weak episode following last week's acting masterclass from Capaldi and Coleman. 

No mention of a "hybrid" this week?

Capaldi says the sonic screwdriver is coming back, and the sunglasses are just a phase. Sadly, that's the biggest spoiler he could be persuaded to reveal.


----------



## Ryujin (Nov 16, 2015)

Morrus said:


> I've never liked Mark Gatis's episodes, and this was no exception. A weak episode following last week's acting masterclass.
> 
> No mention of a "hybrid" thus week?




No mention that I heard.

I remember reading a short SF story, many years ago, in which bacteria and virii 'decided' that they would like the human experience, and so went about infecting people and replacing all the cells or their bodies with themselves. That makes no real biological sense, but would have made more story sense than 'sleep dust.'


----------



## Bedrockgames (Nov 17, 2015)

This episode didn't really do it for me (mainly I think because of the found footage approach).


----------



## HawaiiSteveO (Nov 17, 2015)

Thank goodness it's not just me! Starting to think I was the only one . . .

I'm not a Capaldi/Coleman/Moffet/ hater . . . just really haven't been feeling it lately with DW.

Looking back, it started in Matt Smith's last year. I noticed I never watched (most) episodes again after the initial viewing and I still can't quite say why. I hope I snap out of it, love the show just blah with it lately and sketchy episodes haven't helped.


----------



## Morrus (Nov 17, 2015)

The first two episodes were both excellent. The second Zygon episode was truly superb. The two Maisie Williams eps were average, and last week was poor. 3 episodes left!


----------



## HawaiiSteveO (Nov 17, 2015)

Most recent one I watched twice was Flatline from season 8... wow didn't think I was that bah-humbug!

Of course I'm a nut who misses Donna Noble! 

HawaiiSteveO has left the library . . . HawaiiSteveO has been saved . . .


----------



## Morrus (Nov 17, 2015)

HawaiiSteveO said:


> Most recent one I watched twice was Flatline from season 8..




Sorry to hear that!


----------



## Morrus (Nov 21, 2015)

That was a good Doctor Who ep! Kind ruined by spoilers though. Watching that without seeing trailers and casting news would have been great.

So, bye-bye Clara. Next week's is apparently a Doctor-only episode, and then we have the finale.


----------



## nerfherder (Nov 21, 2015)

Weirdly, I think it was actually you that spoiled the cast change for me.  Well, you spoiled it first.  Then it was impossible to avoid the news.  Sigh!

At least I should avoid most of the Star Wars spoilers.


----------



## delericho (Nov 22, 2015)

Morrus said:


> That was a good Doctor Who ep! Kind ruined by spoilers though.




Yep, a good episode ruined. It wasn't even realistically possible to avoid the spoilers - the details have been everywhere in the last couple of weeks.


----------



## MarkB (Nov 22, 2015)

delericho said:


> Yep, a good episode ruined. It wasn't even realistically possible to avoid the spoilers - the details have been everywhere in the last couple of weeks.




You can always, you know, not read them. II went into this episode with no idea it contained anything pivotal.


----------



## nerfherder (Nov 22, 2015)

MarkB said:


> You can always, you know, not read them. II went into this episode with no idea it contained anything pivotal.




Short of avoiding all news, the internet, and TV, it would be almost impossible for someone in the UK to avoid the spoiler about Clara leaving.


----------



## MarkB (Nov 22, 2015)

nerfherder said:


> Short of avoiding all news, the internet, and TV, it would be almost impossible for someone in the UK to avoid the spoiler about Clara leaving.




I am in the UK. I don't keep up with news a great deal, but I certainly don't avoid it, though I do try to avoid spoilers about shows I like.

I knew the actor was leaving at some point, though I think only from a comment in this thread, but I knew nothing about how the character would leave, or in which episode.


----------



## delericho (Nov 22, 2015)

MarkB said:


> You can always, you know, not read them. II went into this episode with no idea it contained anything pivotal.




You're very lucky then. There were interviews with JLC earlier this week discussing her leaving and the emotions we were 'supposed' to feel watching the episode - all of which was outlined _in the headline for the article_.


----------



## Morrus (Nov 22, 2015)

Yeah, I certainly didn't get it from any spoiler sites or anything. It was even publicised in ads for Graham Norton with Capaldi saying clear as day "It's the end of the road for Clara Oswald".


----------



## nerfherder (Nov 22, 2015)

MarkB said:


> I am in the UK.



For some reason, I read your name as MerricB on my phone


----------



## RangerWickett (Nov 22, 2015)

I was spoiled when I saw Russ's status yesterday saying, "That was a good Doctor Who ep! Kind ruined by spoilers though."

So I knew something noteworthy was going to happen. Not like it was hard to predict, but still.


----------



## Morrus (Nov 23, 2015)

I don't know is how dead she is, given that this image is blaring out on magazine covers:




That's not somethings we've seen yet.


----------



## Ryujin (Nov 23, 2015)

Given her previous time fragmented status and how she needs to have been that way in order for The Doctor to still exist, one or more of her fragments could still be kicking around.


----------



## MarkB (Nov 23, 2015)

Morrus said:


> IThat's not somethings we've seen yet.



And I'd have liked to keep it that way. Just because it's on a magazine cover, that doesn't mean it's unavoidable and can be dropped into the thread un-spoiler-tagged.


----------



## delericho (Nov 23, 2015)

Morrus said:


> I don't know is how dead she is, given that this image is blaring out on magazine covers:




_Surely_ the writers can't be foolish enough to bring her back to life just to get the happy ending? Can they?

As you said in the OP, we've reached a point now where deaths just have no impact, and that's largely because they'll just be handwaved away (perhaps even without explanation). The only chance of reversing that is to have some deaths that stick, and given that JLC is leaving anyway this is an ideal time to do that. Bringing Clara back to life only to wave her off into the sunset may be the worst possible thing they could do right now.


----------



## Bagpuss (Nov 23, 2015)

Morrus said:


> I don't know is how dead she is, given that this image is blaring out on magazine covers:
> 
> That's not somethings we've seen yet.




Can she actually ever die? I thought Clara was scattered throughout the Doctors timeline. The one he's been travelling with is just one of many Claras. Isn't that how she died as a Dalek, and then in Victorian England, etc. Isn't she "The Impossible Girl"?

The only think I didn't like about last nights episode was the number of trailers that seemed to make it abundantly clear that is was the one she was going to die in. Particularly the one right after Strictly.

How many other people thought he was going to stick her in the empty status pod to buy more time to figure it out?


----------



## Bagpuss (Nov 23, 2015)

MarkB said:


> I am in the UK. I don't keep up with news a great deal, but I certainly don't avoid it, though I do try to avoid spoilers about shows I like.




They put a bloody huge spoiler right at the end of Strictly Come Dancing. You must have seen that one?


----------



## MarkB (Nov 23, 2015)

Bagpuss said:


> They put a bloody huge spoiler right at the end of Strictly Come Dancing. You must have seen that one?




No. I watched the episode on iPlayer.


----------



## Staffan (Nov 23, 2015)

delericho said:


> _Surely_ the writers can't be foolish enough to bring her back to life just to get the happy ending? Can they?
> 
> As you said in the OP, we've reached a point now where deaths just have no impact, and that's largely because they'll just be handwaved away (perhaps even without explanation). The only chance of reversing that is to have some deaths that stick, and given that JLC is leaving anyway this is an ideal time to do that. Bringing Clara back to life only to wave her off into the sunset may be the worst possible thing they could do right now.




Could be a ghost-type situation, where her mind is kept in the "quantum shadow" or something, and gets released to do some final deed before passing on for realsies.

I think they're overdoing it a little with the tragic fates of the companions by now: trapped in a parallel world (albeit with a human clone of the Doctor), mindwiped, stuck in the past, and now killed by her own overconfidence. The only companion that actually had a happy ending so far has been Martha - and that's because _she walked away_.


----------



## Bagpuss (Nov 24, 2015)

Staffan said:


> The only companion that actually had a happy ending so far has been Martha - and that's because _she walked away_.




Is that sort of always going to be the case though? Either you walk away or you stay with the Doctor long enough that something bad happens to you, such that you can't stay with him anymore.

Besides I still don't see how Clara can die as such. This one can die sure, but he's already seen two other version of her die and how many other version are still out there?


----------



## Morrus (Nov 24, 2015)

Very few companions ever died. Out of about 40 companions, only a tiny number did. Clara, Adric, Kamelion, maybe a couple of others I forget. But it's unusual.


----------



## MarkB (Nov 24, 2015)

Bagpuss said:


> Is that sort of always going to be the case though? Either you walk away or you stay with the Doctor long enough that something bad happens to you, such that you can't stay with him anymore.
> 
> Besides I still don't see how Clara can die as such. This one can die sure, but he's already seen two other version of her die and how many other version are still out there?




It depends upon how you interpret the events of her first season. As I understand it, the reason the Doctor has encountered other Claras is because she scattered herself back through his timeline, in order to reverse the vindictive efforts of the Great Intelligence to undo his past. So the other Claras are not different versions as such, they're facets of Clara.

The Clara who emerged from that experience was the whole person, and the Doctor's current incarnation is not part of that timeline, which resulted from his now-averted death on Trenzalore. So even if those facets of Clara are still part of the Doctor's past, they aren't part of his future.


----------



## Morrus (Nov 24, 2015)

I liked Victorian Clara. I wish she'd been the companion. Much more interesting than Contemporary Clara.


----------



## Staffan (Nov 24, 2015)

Bagpuss said:


> Is that sort of always going to be the case though? Either you walk away or you stay with the Doctor long enough that something bad happens to you, such that you can't stay with him anymore.



I'm not an expert on old Doctor Who, but I did read some Wikipedia on old companions. Most left because they had other stuff to do - perhaps they found a mate or some other purpose in life. Very few died or left on account of being unable to continue.


----------



## Ryujin (Nov 24, 2015)

Morrus said:


> I liked Victorian Clara. I wish she'd been the companion. Much more interesting than Contemporary Clara.




I definitely agree with you there. She was far more interesting to me being of her time, and yet a strong female character who bucked the status quo of her time.


----------



## Tonguez (Nov 24, 2015)

Jamie gets mind wiped

Tegan ran after Ressurection of the Daleks saying “It’s stopped being fun - I’m sick of it.” 

Mel of course runs off with a pirate

Peri might also have been either killed by or married to Brian Blessed (or both)

oh and most famous Companion Sarah Jane Smith was dumped so the Doctor could return to Galifrey


----------



## Staffan (Nov 25, 2015)

Tonguez said:


> Jamie gets mind wiped
> 
> Tegan ran after Ressurection of the Daleks saying “It’s stopped being fun - I’m sick of it.”
> 
> ...




My point exactly. The Doctor and these companions, other than Jamie (according to Wikipedia Peri survived and married Yrcanos), all parted ways for various reasons _before_ permanent damage was inflicted. By comparison, the new series has:

Rose Tyler - stranded in a parallel reality. She later managed to return, but that was temporary.
Martha Jones - left because she was in unrequited love with the Doctor.
Donna Noble - mindwiped.
Amy Pond (and Rory) - got Weeping Angeled.
Clara Oswald - (seemingly) died from her own overconfidence.
I guess you could add River Song to this list, getting electrocuted and uploaded to a library. But I'm not sure she counts as a regular companion.


----------



## Morrus (Nov 25, 2015)

I don't think Amy and Rory's leaving was sad at all. They went and lived a happy life together, albeit in a different time period. Theirs was a happy ending.


----------



## Bagpuss (Nov 26, 2015)

Staffan said:


> I'm not an expert on old Doctor Who, but I did read some Wikipedia on old companions. Most left because they had other stuff to do - perhaps they found a mate or some other purpose in life.




So they walked away.



> Very few died or left on account of being unable to continue.




The ones that didn't.

I'll agree that in this new era more have suck about until something bad happens, makes for more interesting telly I guess.


----------



## Bagpuss (Nov 26, 2015)

Morrus said:


> I liked Victorian Clara. I wish she'd been the companion. Much more interesting than Contemporary Clara.




I wouldn't mind seeing a non contemporary companion.


----------



## Nagol (Nov 26, 2015)

Bagpuss said:


> So they walked away.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




The one exception would be Sarah Jane Smith who got abandoned by The Doctor rather than walking away.


----------



## Bedrockgames (Nov 26, 2015)

Bagpuss said:


> Is that sort of always going to be the case though? Either you walk away or you stay with the Doctor long enough that something bad happens to you, such that you can't stay with him anymore.
> 
> Besides I still don't see how Clara can die as such. This one can die sure, but he's already seen two other version of her die and how many other version are still out there?




I think in a show with time travel and alternate dimensions, it is never really possible to completely wipe out a character (the way they handled Rory when he was eliminated from existence seems like the only one with any real sticking power.....and they found a way around that). The writers can always find a way to bring them back if they really want to. It seems like when they do really get rid of somebody, they have to jump through all kinds of hoops to explain why it isn't possible to bring the person back in some form. It is actually harder to swallow that they are truly dead sometimes because there are so many means available to the doctor to undo that kind of thing, or foresee it and prevent it. Given the nature of the setting, it actually strains my disbelief less when people pop back in after being dead or sent to another reality, more than when they stay dead. 

In terms of Clara, I would think if they wanted to, they could easily use Clara's fragments to bring her back. It sounds like Jenna Coleman is onto another show but I wouldn't be surprised if she makes appearances on the show down the road.


----------



## delericho (Nov 28, 2015)

Huh. Of all the plot points from the McGann spell, that was one I really didn't expect them to dig up again.

Plus, it was awfully lucky that room 12 didn't reset...


----------



## Morrus (Nov 28, 2015)

Holy moley, looks like there's going to be a major climate change in Doctor Who!

I loved that.  It was awesome.  Although...

The Doctor's dead now. They need to rename the show.  That's just a clone of him. If he claims to be 2000 years old (or 2 billion?) he's telling a big porkey - as of now he's about 6 hours old.


----------



## MarkB (Nov 29, 2015)

Very good, intense, unexpected episode, and a great performance by Capaldi, essentially carrying an entire episode on his own.

He was sounding very Tom Baker in this episode, especially in his narrrative voice.


----------



## Morrus (Nov 29, 2015)

It's a game changer. Gallifrey is back, and put him in a billion-year trial to extract a confession about the hybrid from him?

What sort of hybrid is he? He stated that the Dalek hybrid idea is ludicrous - Daleks would not accept that.

I really hope they're not revisiting that weak-ass half-human idea from the TV movie.


----------



## trappedslider (Nov 29, 2015)

The Doctor's last line is "The hybrid [...] is me." Or is it "The hybrid [...] is Me" ?


----------



## Bedrockgames (Nov 29, 2015)

trappedslider said:


> The Doctor's last line is "The hybrid [...] is me." Or is it "The hybrid [...] is Me" ?




I completely missed that. Interesting.


----------



## Bedrockgames (Nov 29, 2015)

Morrus said:


> e.  Although...
> 
> The Doctor's dead now. They need to rename the show.  That's just a clone of him. If he claims to be 2000 years old (or 2 billion?) he's telling a big porkey - as of now he's about 6 hours old.




I think he was saying that is how teleported work--they are like 3D printers. So the moment he teleporters there, it wasn't the original. But whether it constitutes a new doctor or not, that is venturing into some tricky territory.


----------



## Morrus (Nov 29, 2015)

trappedslider said:


> The Doctor's last line is "The hybrid [...] is me." Or is it "The hybrid [...] is Me" ?




Oh...

That didn't occur to me. Good thinking. Though if he ran away from Gallifrey because of some hybrid-related secret, Me wasn't around until much later.


----------



## MarkB (Nov 29, 2015)

Bedrockgames said:


> I think he was saying that is how teleported work--they are like 3D printers. So the moment he teleporters there, it wasn't the original. But whether it constitutes a new doctor or not, that is venturing into some tricky territory.




Yeah - like, if he'd had another power source available, could he have cloned up a load of extra Doctors?

It's kind-of hard to tell how literally to take the whole confession-wheel experience. I think it literally happened from the Doctor's perspective, but whether it took place out in normal reality or was all part of some self-contained pocket universe is less clear. Is the Doctor now billions of years into the future, or did that time only pass within the confines of the device?


----------



## Morrus (Nov 29, 2015)

MarkB said:


> Yeah - like, if he'd had another power source available, could he have cloned up a load of extra Doctors?
> 
> It's kind-of hard to tell how literally to take the whole confession-wheel experience. I think it literally happened from the Doctor's perspective, but whether it took place out in normal reality or was all part of some self-contained pocket universe is less clear. Is the Doctor now billions of years into the future, or did that time only pass within the confines of the device?




He's frequently billions of years in the future! Time traveller, y'know!


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (Nov 29, 2015)

Morrus said:


> Holy moley, looks like there's going to be a major climate change in Doctor Who!
> 
> I loved that.  It was awesome.  Although...
> 
> The Doctor's dead now. They need to rename the show.  That's just a clone of him. If he claims to be 2000 years old (or 2 billion?) he's telling a big porkey - as of now he's about 6 hours old.



Do you reset the count every time the Doctor used a teleport in the many years of this show? Is there anything distinguishable about the Doctor after his first teleport into the confession thingy compared to the millionth time?


----------



## Ryujin (Nov 29, 2015)

trappedslider said:


> The Doctor's last line is "The hybrid [...] is me." Or is it "The hybrid [...] is Me" ?




Since the first is grammatically incorrect, I'm going with the second


----------



## Bedrockgames (Nov 29, 2015)

MarkB said:


> Yeah - like, if he'd had another power source available, could he have cloned up a load of extra Doctors?
> 
> It's kind-of hard to tell how literally to take the whole confession-wheel experience. I think it literally happened from the Doctor's perspective, but whether it took place out in normal reality or was all part of some self-contained pocket universe is less clear. Is the Doctor now billions of years into the future, or did that time only pass within the confines of the device?




Yeah, that is the other part of it. The Confession Dial, and the fact that it was all occurring inside it, gives it a much more trippy "what is real and what is imagination" kind of feel. Those might not have been literal events occurring in the dial, but just figments produced by a self-loathing doctor who wanted to impose a kind of purgatory on himself for letting Clara die. 

Great episode in my view, largely because it generates so much discussion like this.


----------



## Umbran (Nov 29, 2015)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Do you reset the count every time the Doctor used a teleport in the many years of this show?




Yah.  We had this discussion in another thread Morrus had on teleporters, even.  What counts as the self?

Of course, we could just take the whole experience as metaphorical, within the dial, so that *even the teleporter* is part of a mental construct, not real.  

We now know why they call it a "confession dial" at least.  It is there to extract confessions - presumably so that no important information can ever be lost from a Time Lord.

And, well, if they bring back the half-human doctor idea, maybe at least we'll get to see Paul McGann do a guest appearance!

Though, I'm going to guess that hybrid is Me is the way they'll go.  They reminded us of it too often for it to not be relevant.


----------



## Morrus (Nov 29, 2015)

Is that when he gets the confession dial? In which case are we seeing events in order this year? There was also that "longest month of my life" reply in the Zygon episode. Is there some funky timey wimey stuff going on here?


----------



## Umbran (Nov 29, 2015)

Morrus said:


> Is that when he gets the confession dial? In which case are we seeing events in order this year? There was also that "longest month of my life" reply in the Zygon episode. Is there some funky timey wimey stuff going on here?




I don't think it is that complicated.

Mayor Me is hired to catch the Doctor for someone.  At that time, he hands over his confession dial to Mayor Me as well.  He gets the dial back after his ordeal.  We don't need time to be terribly bent for this to be consistent.

The Doctor mentions that the equipment he sees in the castle is consistent with a heavy-duty, long range teleporter, which could take him up to one light year from his place of origin, which was on Earth.  That probably doesn't get him to Gallifrey.  I'm guessing instead of teleporting any major distance, he was *put into the dial*, which Mayor Me then handed over (presumably now, ultimately to the Time Lords).  The Doctor uses the dial's own internal logic against it, and breaks free rather than give his confession, and he picks it up after he exits it.

The amount of subjective time he spent in there was very, very long, but the whole episode notes how he can sometimes enter periods of extreme mental activity, where time to him passes very slowly while he thinks.  So, maybe he's been in there a billion years, or maybe his whole experience in the dial was in that extreme state, so much less external time passed.

We shall see.  If he gets his TARDIS back, exactly how long it took will be moot, really.


----------



## Morrus (Nov 29, 2015)

Yeah, you're probably right.


----------



## MarkB (Nov 29, 2015)

Umbran said:


> The Doctor mentions that the equipment he sees in the castle is consistent with a heavy-duty, long range teleporter, which could take him up to one light year from his place of origin, which was on Earth.  That probably doesn't get him to Gallifrey.




Or that could be the next big twist. We know that Gallifrey is "back in the sky", somewhere. How ironic would it be if, after the Doctor had scoured the Universe for it, it turned out to have popped up within our own solar system, maybe cloaked the same way Skaro was at the start of the season.


----------



## Morrus (Nov 29, 2015)

MarkB said:


> Or that could be the next big twist. We know that Gallifrey is "back in the sky", somewhere. How ironic would it be if, after the Doctor had scoured the Universe for it, it turned out to have popped up within our own solar system, maybe cloaked the same way Skaro was at the start of the season.




I'd find that a bit silly. Other than the Doctor's personal attachment to our planet, there's nothing special about it. Why our solar system? Or even our galaxy?


----------



## Umbran (Nov 29, 2015)

MarkB said:


> Or that could be the next big twist. We know that Gallifrey is "back in the sky", somewhere. How ironic would it be if, after the Doctor had scoured the Universe for it, it turned out to have popped up within our own solar system, maybe cloaked the same way Skaro was at the start of the season.




How ironic?  No, how dumb.  That would be "the moon is an egg" level of bad science.  The cloak didn't stop Skaro's gravitational effects - you could *stand* on the cloaked surface and not float away.  Within our own solar system, a body the size of another planet would have major impact on the orbits of other planets, and be quickly detected by Earth from those effects.

So, let's hope they *didn't* go that route.


----------



## Ryujin (Nov 29, 2015)

Morrus said:


> I'd find that a bit silly. Other than the Doctor's personal attachment to our planet, there's nothing special about it. Why our solar system? Or even our galaxy?




Since I first started watching the show, back in the late '70s, I've wondered if Time Lords weren't just humans from a few billion years in our own future, given how attached The Doctor seems to be to our insignificant little planet.


----------



## Morrus (Nov 29, 2015)

Umbran said:


> How ironic?  No, how dumb.  That would be "the moon is an egg" level of bad science.  The cloak didn't stop Skaro's gravitational effects - you could *stand* on the cloaked surface and not float away.  Within our own solar system, a body the size of another planet would have major impact on the orbits of other planets, and be quickly detected by Earth from those effects.
> 
> So, let's hope they *didn't* go that route.




Well, if your objection is the physics rather than the narrative, I think Gallifrey can overcome that. A local gravitational distortion field or something. Let's face it, it's all just magic.


----------



## Umbran (Nov 30, 2015)

Morrus said:


> Well, if your objection is the physics rather than the narrative, I think Gallifrey can overcome that. A local gravitational distortion field or something. Let's face it, it's all just magic.




No, that starts getting worse.  The whole "for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction" comes into play then - if it is on orbit in our solar system, the sun is pulling on it, but with that distortion field it doesn't pull back on the Sun?  Gah.

This would also fly in the face of the danger that Gallifrey posed to the Earth when the Master almost brought it out of the Time Lock.  It just gets so, so, ridiculously messy and inconsistent that going there requires us to thrash around staking explanations to make it all work.  To what end, when, with infinite magic, they could do everything from a distance as well?

I don't mind them violating the laws of physics and waving their hands and saying "Gallifreyan superscience!"  so long as it has some point other than, "Wowsers!"  Shock and awe, with no plot difference, is not a suitable reason to tie consistency into a knot.


----------



## Morrus (Nov 30, 2015)

Umbran said:


> No, that starts getting worse.  The whole "for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction" comes into play then - if it is on orbit in our solar system, the sun is pulling on it, but with that distortion field it doesn't pull back on the Sun?  Gah.




Like I said, it's not physics. It's Time Lord tech. Which is magic. They have unlimited time travel and they regenerate when they die, for goodness' sake! Heck, they put entire stars inside rooms in TARDISes! Ignoring gravity is pretty trivial to them. 



> This would also fly in the face of the danger that Gallifrey posed to the Earth when the Master almost brought it out of the Time Lock.  It just gets so, so, ridiculously messy and inconsistent that going there requires us to thrash around staking explanations to make it all work.  To what end, when, with infinite magic, they could do everything from a distance as well?




Well, yes. Again, like I said, the issue is a narrative one, not a scientific one. There's no scientific objection which can't be overcome with a single line of narrative magic. 

All that aside, that assumes they are putting Gallifrey in our solar system. Which I'm sure they're not, for all the narrative reasons we've cited. It's a daft plot idea with no appreciable benefit.


----------



## Ryujin (Nov 30, 2015)

There's only one thing that really bothers me about the episode and it's explicitly covered in the narrative; that the Time Lords would create something that could be exploited by a Time Lord, when "everyone gets something wrong about Time Lords."


----------



## Morrus (Nov 30, 2015)

Ryujin said:


> There's only one thing that really bothers me about the episode and it's explicitly covered in the narrative; that the Time Lords would create something that could be exploited by a Time Lord, when "everyone gets something wrong about Time Lords."




Yeah, that struck me as slightly odd, too.


----------



## Morrus (Nov 30, 2015)

Questions:

- Who wrote "I'm in 12"?
- Why was the missing hexagonal  stone buried?
- Why have an exit at all (albeit an almost impenetrable diamond one)? Why not just not have an exit? Then he'd have to confess to escape.
- He refused for billions of years to confess. Gets free. Then immediately says "I know you can still hear me" and confesses.


----------



## MarkB (Nov 30, 2015)

Ryujin said:


> There's only one thing that really bothers me about the episode and it's explicitly covered in the narrative; that the Time Lords would create something that could be exploited by a Time Lord, when "everyone gets something wrong about Time Lords."




There's a difference between "could be" and "likely to be". Sure, the Doctor says that it takes a long time for a Time Lord's body to die completely - but how many Time Lords, I wonder, having been dealt that fatal blow could actually summon up the willpower to remain conscious, to drive their dying cells to keep functioning long enough to drag them all that way and then pour their last energy into buying another chance?

Sure, a Time Lord might be aware that death isn't instantaneous for them, but I think most Time Lords would find that feat just as inconceivable as anyone who wasn't familiar with his physiology.


----------



## Ryujin (Nov 30, 2015)

Morrus said:


> Questions:
> 
> - Who wrote "I'm in 12"?
> - Why was the missing hexagonal  stone buried?
> ...




- Presumably The Doctor in one of the earlier passes, once he figured things out, so that he could set up the following loop.
- There was little else to write on, that would point to digging?
- Because there had to be some tangible goal for the confession.
- Because it was ambiguous enough that it acts as a threat, as well as the truth. The Doctor likes his drama.



MarkB said:


> There's a difference between "could be" and "likely to be". Sure, the Doctor says that it takes a long time for a Time Lord's body to die completely - but how many Time Lords, I wonder, having been dealt that fatal blow could actually summon up the willpower to remain conscious, to drive their dying cells to keep functioning long enough to drag them all that way and then pour their last energy into buying another chance?
> 
> Sure, a Time Lord might be aware that death isn't instantaneous for them, but I think most Time Lords would find that feat just as inconceivable as anyone who wasn't familiar with his physiology.




Presumably it's a common enough occurrence that it resulted in a cultural practice of "not burying them too soon." That makes it at least statistically significant. At least as common as the reason why for a time it was a historical practice to bury people in a "safety coffin" with access to a bell pull. Given the history of The Doctor as known by his own people, not the sort of mistake that they should make. Unless it was intended to be that way, of course.


----------



## Umbran (Nov 30, 2015)

Morrus said:


> Well, yes. Again, like I said, the issue is a narrative one, not a scientific one. There's no scientific objection which can't be overcome with a single line of narrative magic.




Many authors believe that.  Many authors also write things that follow Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crud.  

In good writing - be it fantasy magic or science fiction superscience, you still have *rules*, even if they are implicit.  The author sets expectations in the audience, and if you clumsily violate those expectations, you tend to create dissatisfaction in your audience.  Sure, they could write a single line and wave it away, and then major science bloggers who normally laud the show will come down on it like they came down on, "Kill the Moon," for similar reasons: basic fixable laziness on the part of the writers and producers.  

Correct me if I am wrong, but you seem to come from this from the assumption that if you find a way to give an audience an excuse to ignore something, then you're okay.  I don't think the audience of Doctor Who is generally looking for reasons to ignore things.  Many of them are looking for reasons to *think* about things.  You won't satisfy them with poorly written one-liners.


----------



## Morrus (Nov 30, 2015)

Umbran said:


> Many authors believe that.  Many authors also write things that follow Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crud.
> 
> In good writing - be it fantasy magic or science fiction superscience, you still have *rules*, even if they are implicit.  The author sets expectations in the audience, and if you clumsily violate those expectations, you tend to create dissatisfaction in your audience.  Sure, they could write a single line and wave it away, and then major science bloggers who normally laud the show will come down on it like they came down on, "Kill the Moon," for similar reasons: basic fixable laziness on the part of the writers and producers.
> 
> Correct me if I am wrong, but you seem to come from this from the assumption that if you find a way to give an audience an excuse to ignore something, then you're okay.  I don't think the audience of Doctor Who is generally looking for reasons to ignore things.  Many of them are looking for reasons to *think* about things.  You won't satisfy them with poorly written one-liners.




No. That's why I recommend well-written lines instead. I certainly wouldn't be so silly as to advocate poorly written anything.


----------



## delericho (Nov 30, 2015)

Morrus said:


> Questions:
> 
> - Who wrote "I'm in 12"?
> - Why was the missing hexagonal  stone buried?
> ...




Why didn't the 'missing' hexagonal stone reset like everything else? Someone restored the soil in the garden but _didn't_ move that stone back into place?

After he gets soaked, he goes and finds an identical set of clothes drying by the fire - a set of clothes from the previous iteration of the loop. But, then, did that mean the _first_ iteration spent most of his time running around naked? And wouldn't that have altered his choice of actions, preventing the loop from forming in the first place?

As mentioned, if he has fuel to burn, there's no reason he couldn't clone up an army of Doctors to help him. But there's clearly an energy source there somewhere - he's shown eating a bowl of soup, which had to come from somewhere... oh, and there's a fire that burns for two billion years. So why not get help?

Once he's found the not-diamond wall, why just wait for the monster to come get him? How could he know it wouldn't kill him instantly, or at least before he could get back to the teleporter?

Why punch down the wall over billions of years? Wouldn't it be quicker to misdirect the monster, go get the shovel, and spend 82 minutes hacking at the wall?

Actually... shouldn't the rest of the castle eroded away to nothing long before he punched down the diamond wall?

I think this was probably one of those episodes it's best just to enjoy, rather than over-analyse.



Umbran said:


> In good writing - be it fantasy magic or science fiction superscience, you still have *rules*, even if they are implicit.




There haven't been any rules in Doctor Who for years, if there ever were.


----------



## Ryujin (Nov 30, 2015)

delericho said:


> Why didn't the 'missing' hexagonal stone reset like everything else? Someone restored the soil in the garden but _didn't_ move that stone back into place?
> 
> After he gets soaked, he goes and finds an identical set of clothes drying by the fire - a set of clothes from the previous iteration of the loop. But, then, did that mean the _first_ iteration spent most of his time running around naked? And wouldn't that have altered his choice of actions, preventing the loop from forming in the first place?
> 
> ...




The stone is an excellent point. For the rest, perhaps items that came in from outside, via The Doctor, don't reset? That would explain the clothes and the skull.


----------



## Morrus (Nov 30, 2015)

Ryujin said:


> The stone is an excellent point. For the rest, perhaps items that came in from outside, via The Doctor, don't reset? That would explain the clothes and the skull.




But then there would be millions of sets of clothes. One for each skull!


----------



## Ryujin (Nov 30, 2015)

Morrus said:


> But then there would be millions of sets of clothes. One for each skull!




No, because he removes them each time. It's a swap-out.


----------



## delericho (Nov 30, 2015)

Morrus said:


> But then there would be millions of sets of clothes. One for each skull!




Weren't the clothes he was wearing at the end burned up along with his body, leaving only his skull behind? In which case, there's only one set left - the ones he left drying by the fire.

The only problem is that that meant that the _first_ time through the loop he left his clothes drying and spent the rest of his adventure running around in his underwear.


----------



## Bagpuss (Nov 30, 2015)

Ryujin said:


> No, because he removes them each time. It's a swap-out.




But the very first time, he must have spent the rest of the time walking round naked while they were drying.


----------



## Ryujin (Nov 30, 2015)

Bagpuss said:


> But the very first time, he must have spent the rest of the time walking round naked while they were drying.




Yup, either that or he would have gone back to leave them there just prior to frying himself, the first time, after setting up all of the other breadcrumbs.


----------



## Morrus (Nov 30, 2015)

Ryujin said:


> No, because he removes them each time. It's a swap-out.




No. Each time a new doctor appears, a new set of clothes is created.


----------



## Ryujin (Nov 30, 2015)

Morrus said:


> No. Each time a new doctor appears, a new set of clothes is created.




And then fried to ash when he uses himself to fuel the teleporter, or he'd have immediately known what was going on from the moment that he materialized.


----------



## Umbran (Nov 30, 2015)

Ryujin said:


> Yup, either that or he would have gone back to leave them there just prior to frying himself, the first time, after setting up all of the other breadcrumbs.




There is a problem with that - it takes energy to make the clothes in the teleporter, too.  If he's in his skivvies when he fries (the first, or nth time, doesn't matter) where does the next doctor get his starting clothes?  There's a few pounds of mass-energy not accounted for.

And, it is discussions like this which demonstrate why a single line of "magic" often doesn't do it!


----------



## Ryujin (Nov 30, 2015)

Umbran said:


> There is a problem with that - it takes energy to make the clothes in the teleporter, too.  If he's in his skivvies when he fries (the first, or nth time, doesn't matter) where does the next doctor get his starting clothes?  There's a few pounds of mass-energy not accounted for.
> 
> And, it is discussions like this which demonstrate why a single line of "magic" often doesn't do it!




Since we didn't see his first pass through the loop that energy could have come from any piece of matter he took from a room, that would then be fried also. It wouldn't matter if it reset or didn't, with the room, as it would be missing by the first time that we saw it.


----------



## delericho (Nov 30, 2015)

Umbran said:


> There is a problem with that - it takes energy to make the clothes in the teleporter, too.  If he's in his skivvies when he fries (the first, or nth time, doesn't matter) where does the next doctor get his starting clothes?  There's a few pounds of mass-energy not accounted for.




There is anyway - there's a skull left behind each time.


----------



## Bedrockgames (Nov 30, 2015)

Umbran said:


> Many authors believe that.  Many authors also write things that follow Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crud.
> 
> In good writing - be it fantasy magic or science fiction superscience, you still have *rules*, even if they are implicit.  The author sets expectations in the audience, and if you clumsily violate those expectations, you tend to create dissatisfaction in your audience.  Sure, they could write a single line and wave it away, and then major science bloggers who normally laud the show will come down on it like they came down on, "Kill the Moon," for similar reasons: basic fixable laziness on the part of the writers and producers.
> 
> Correct me if I am wrong, but you seem to come from this from the assumption that if you find a way to give an audience an excuse to ignore something, then you're okay.  I don't think the audience of Doctor Who is generally looking for reasons to ignore things.  Many of them are looking for reasons to *think* about things.  You won't satisfy them with poorly written one-liners.




I take this stuff on a case by case basis. My expectations with an Arthur C Clarke novel are very different from my expectations of a Star Wars movie or Doctor Who. Doctor Who has always kind of had it both ways. Sometimes it has these really clever, fully explained things, but other times its just "reverse the polarity of the neutron flow". 

I think in an episode of Doctor Who like this, you will have minor things that are oversights or just not given much explanation, but the core concept was wonderful in my view. In Doctor Who, I can overlook stuff like what happened with the shirt, for the bigger picture that this episode creates.


----------



## Morrus (Nov 30, 2015)

Ryujin said:


> And then fried to ash when he uses himself to fuel the teleporter, or he'd have immediately known what was going on from the moment that he materialized.




Ah, yes. You're right!


----------



## Umbran (Nov 30, 2015)

Bedrockgames said:


> Sometimes it has these really clever, fully explained things, but other times its just "reverse the polarity of the neutron flow".




You see, I *loved* when the Doctor said that.  That was a clever way to inform the audience of the expectations they should have for the moment.  It only works the once, of course, but it did the job well.



> I think in an episode of Doctor Who like this, you will have minor things that are oversights




How an *entire planet* hides in plain sight, however, would be hard to call a minor oversight.


----------



## Umbran (Nov 30, 2015)

delericho said:


> There is anyway - there's a skull left behind each time.




Quite true. And a bunch of ash as well.  Hm...

And, the Doctor *eats* while there, every time.  The thing then can't really be a closed loop.  

Of course, the whole issue goes away as soon as you have it happening in a mindspace in the dial, rather than a real experience.


----------



## Bedrockgames (Nov 30, 2015)

Umbran said:


> You see, I *loved* when the Doctor said that.  That was a clever way to inform the audience of the expectations they should have for the moment.  It only works the once, of course, but it did the job well.
> .




But Doctor Who does stuff like that all the time.


----------



## Ryujin (Nov 30, 2015)

Umbran said:


> Quite true. And a bunch of ash as well.  Hm...
> 
> And, the Doctor *eats* while there, every time.  The thing then can't really be a closed loop.
> 
> Of course, the whole issue goes away as soon as you have it happening in a mindspace in the dial, rather than a real experience.




It could well have been a real experience that occurred in a closed time loop, in a dimensionally transcendental space. That's the thing, when you're dealing with a race who commands both space and time. It could have taken a real 3+ billion years, in a real physical space, and he could have come out a objective 5 minutes after going in to a person outside the space.


----------



## Morrus (Nov 30, 2015)

When does Gallifrey exist, anyway?  In the future?  The past? Is it outside time? Do they even think like that?


----------



## Umbran (Nov 30, 2015)

Bedrockgames said:


> But Doctor Who does stuff like that all the time.




Yes.  Sometimes they do it badly, and sometimes well.  I'm only against the bad bits. 

This was a good bit, to me, not just because of the words, but because it is a Trek reference.  It says, "we are inserting treknobabble here, don't worry about the content," in a self-aware, slightly self-deprecating way, making a joke of it.  That has artistry that a general single line of "It is Time Lord magic!" just doesn't have.


----------



## MarkB (Nov 30, 2015)

Umbran said:


> How an *entire planet* hides in plain sight, however, would be hard to call a minor oversight.




It's hardly something the Time Lords would have any difficulty with, though. At the very simplest, they could place the whole planet half a second out of synch with normal time, and nobody would know it was there - that's the trick the Daleks use to hide 26 pilfered planets in The Stolen Earth.

Even if they didn't do it that way, and just cloaked the planet, dealing with gravitational anomalies would be child's play to them. This is the race that harnessed black holes to power their time travel experiments. The TARDIS alone, with some minor help, is capable of towing Earth across the galaxy. If they wanted to nullify Gallifrey's gravitational effect upon surrounding space, they could do so without any difficulty.


----------



## Umbran (Nov 30, 2015)

Ryujin said:


> It could well have been a real experience that occurred in a closed time loop, in a dimensionally transcendental space. That's the thing, when you're dealing with a race who commands both space and time. It could have taken a real 3+ billion years, in a real physical space, and he could have come out a objective 5 minutes after going in to a person outside the space.




The time isn't the issue.  The *energy* is the issue.  Since the Doctor specifically used the energy argument to come to his conclusions of how he should operate in the situation, its plot relevant.  So far, it looks like the Doctor was *wrong* about the energy, and that's 1) weird that the Doctor gets it wrong and 2) a plot problem.  If the space was real and closed, like he surmised, a skull or set of clothes still isn't a big deal - they can easily steal the energy from off camera.  But *billions* of skulls becomes a consistency issue.  If there was enough spare energy for billions of skulls, the Doctor could have done something much more creative with what was at hand.

Whether he was correct or not becomes moot if it wasn't a real space.  A simulated space can break physical rules, a real space can't.


----------



## Bedrockgames (Nov 30, 2015)

Umbran said:


> The time isn't the issue.  The *energy* is the issue.  Since the Doctor specifically used the energy argument to come to his conclusions of how he should operate in the situation, its plot relevant.  So far, it looks like the Doctor was *wrong* about the energy, and that's 1) weird that the Doctor gets it wrong and 2) a plot problem.  If the space was real and closed, like he surmised, a skull or set of clothes still isn't a big deal - they can easily steal the energy from off camera.  But *billions* of skulls becomes a consistency issue.  If there was enough spare energy for billions of skulls, the Doctor could have done something much more creative with what was at hand.
> 
> Whether he was correct or not becomes moot if it wasn't a real space.  A simulated space can break physical rules, a real space can't.




Maybe I missed something, or maybe I am not following your argument, but I think you are adding assumptions to the rules that the show didt indicate. Since the skull was left behind, it obviously didn't need the energy from the skull to do the copy. And a skull being left behind each time explains the presence of the pile of skulls. All we know is it needed energy, we don't know that it needed a 1-1 list of every part of the doctor's body to reproduce it. The energy needed was the fire form his body burning. That probably isn't a whole lot anyways, so I think he was basically just giving it a bit of a spark. This struck me is a a particularly tight episode in terms of explaining things (I'll grant that moon egg was pretty sloppy but this was a very organized and fairly internally consistent episode as far as Who goes). I certainly wouldn't say it was bad writing.


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (Nov 30, 2015)

AFAIK, only the Teleporter itself needed some energy. Not the entire trap. The trap might have its own energy source, but the teleporter needs to work only once, so it isn't recharged. But the Doctor needs food, depending on how long he stays inside and finally gives the confession everyone wanted to know. And the food is something that in turn gives energy to the doctor, so he can use it to run the teleporter again.

And he might not have been running around naked the first time. The first time was the time he needed to figure out how the trap worked and how he could beat it. He might have actually spend much longer doing that, giving a few extra confessions possibly to stay alive to get back from the crystal wall to set up everything. 

Of course, the doctor could be wrong on some things. Hey, when he jumps through the window and says "Now I'll do something you won't expect" is kinda wrong - if the system was learning, it had already known this would happen.


----------



## Staffan (Nov 30, 2015)

Umbran said:


> The amount of subjective time he spent in there was very, very long, but the whole episode notes how he can sometimes enter periods of extreme mental activity, where time to him passes very slowly while he thinks.  So, maybe he's been in there a billion years, or maybe his whole experience in the dial was in that extreme state, so much less external time passed.



Except it wasn't a few billion years in subjective time. Subjectively, he only experienced one go around the loop. He used an objective measure, the stars, to measure how long it had been.


----------



## delericho (Dec 1, 2015)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> AFAIK, only the Teleporter itself needed some energy. Not the entire trap. The trap might have its own energy source, but the teleporter needs to work only once, so it isn't recharged. But the Doctor needs food, depending on how long he stays inside and finally gives the confession everyone wanted to know. And the food is something that in turn gives energy to the doctor, so he can use it to run the teleporter again.




Or he could have taken the power leads out of one of those handy monitor screens and used that to recharge the teleporter. That's surely a more efficient way to recharge the thing than to burn up his own body.

He might even have been able to reprogram the teleporter to work in reverse, thus taking him back to Earth. (And if he _really_ wanted to know who set the trap, there's then nothing stopping him from getting in his TARDIS and heading back into the castle...)


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (Dec 1, 2015)

delericho said:


> Or he could have taken the power leads out of one of those handy monitor screens and used that to recharge the teleporter. That's surely a more efficient way to recharge the thing than to burn up his own body.
> 
> He might even have been able to reprogram the teleporter to work in reverse, thus taking him back to Earth. (And if he _really_ wanted to know who set the trap, there's then nothing stopping him from getting in his TARDIS and heading back into the castle...)




The reverse the teleport direction might be interesting, but we havne't seen his acitivites in the first 7,000 years - maybe that did not work.

Any solution he could come up with also couldn't take too long - he needs a new confession every 60 minutes or so, and he doesn't actually want to confess something important.


----------



## delericho (Dec 1, 2015)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Any solution he could come up with also couldn't take too long - he needs a new confession every 60 minutes or so, and he doesn't actually want to confess something important.




I don't think so - he notes in the episode that he could lure the creature to one end of the castle and then run to the other, thus gaining 82 minutes, but he only needs a confession when he gets cornered by it. Otherwise, he can just run away again.

One thing that's interesting is that he also doesn't seem to need a _new_ confession each time - the monster seems to be satisfied by him repeating himself each time through the loop.


----------



## Ryujin (Dec 1, 2015)

delericho said:


> Or he could have taken the power leads out of one of those handy monitor screens and used that to recharge the teleporter. That's surely a more efficient way to recharge the thing than to burn up his own body.
> 
> He might even have been able to reprogram the teleporter to work in reverse, thus taking him back to Earth. (And if he _really_ wanted to know who set the trap, there's then nothing stopping him from getting in his TARDIS and heading back into the castle...)




Eliminating himself and getting a 'master reset' was part of the requirement for getting out, as he already knew that it would take a ridiculously long time to effect his escape. He likely could have come up with a different way to power the teleport but given a finite area to work on it wouldn't matter if he'd had 2 Doctors, 20 Doctors, or an infinite number of doctors; they could only be so effective.


----------



## delericho (Dec 1, 2015)

Ryujin said:


> Eliminating himself and getting a 'master reset' was part of the requirement for getting out, as he already knew that it would take a ridiculously long time to effect his escape. He likely could have come up with a different way to power the teleport but given a finite area to work on it wouldn't matter if he'd had 2 Doctors, 20 Doctors, or an infinite number of doctors; they could only be so effective.




Two Doctors would _definitely_ help - one to distract the monster and one to work on the problem.

But my big problem is that he didn't even _try_ reprogramming the teleporter to take him back, but instead seemed determined to use the least efficient solution possible. Seriously, he decided to punch through a stronger-than-diamond wall at a rate of four punches every few days? At the very least, he should have used the shovel.


----------



## Ryujin (Dec 1, 2015)

delericho said:


> Two Doctors would _definitely_ help - one to distract the monster and one to work on the problem.
> 
> But my big problem is that he didn't even _try_ reprogramming the teleporter to take him back, but instead seemed determined to use the least efficient solution possible. Seriously, he decided to punch through a stronger-than-diamond wall at a rate of four punches every few days? At the very least, he should have used the shovel.




But that would likely only buy you one pass through the loop, when you need a Google Plex.

Presumably it was the only way that he could work things. At any rate a punch is more dramatic than a shovel smack. Besides, it started out as four punches. In a hundred thousand years it's 5. Then 6.....


----------



## delericho (Dec 1, 2015)

Ryujin said:


> But that would likely only buy you one pass through the loop, when you need a Google Plex.




It also buys thinking time, meaning that one might well be enough.



> Presumably it was the only way that he could work things. At any rate a punch is more dramatic than a shovel smack. Besides, it started out as four punches. In a hundred thousand years it's 5. Then 6.....




Oh, well, that's alright then.


----------



## Ryujin (Dec 1, 2015)

delericho said:


> It also buys thinking time, meaning that one might well be enough.
> 
> Oh, well, that's alright then.




I'm not going to second guess the 5 billion year old man on his decision, since it worked 

Given dynamite, a jack hammer, or his fists I could see The Doctor still using his fists, if only to make a statement.


----------



## delericho (Dec 1, 2015)

Ryujin said:


> I'm not going to second guess the 5 billion year old man on his decision, since it worked




Conversely, I'm more than happy to second guess a 54-year-old writer who appears to be making the rules up as he goes along. I'm just waiting for the day he has the Doctor literally handwave a problem away.


----------



## Ryujin (Dec 1, 2015)

delericho said:


> Conversely, I'm more than happy to second guess a 54-year-old writer who appears to be making the rules up as he goes along. I'm just waiting for the day he has the Doctor literally handwave a problem away.




They call that a "Sonic Screwdriver"


----------



## Bagpuss (Dec 1, 2015)

So enough of the time issues.

What about the Doctor's closing lines, about him being the hybrid?

Have they just confirmed the 1996 TV Movie line that the Doctor is half-human, half-timelord? Two warrior races.


----------



## Umbran (Dec 1, 2015)

Bagpuss said:


> What about the Doctor's closing lines, about him being the hybrid?
> 
> Have they just confirmed the 1996 TV Movie line that the Doctor is half-human, half-timelord? Two warrior races.




That's what they want you to think.  He says, "The Hybrid destined to conquer Gallifrey and stand in its ruins is me,""  Right?

But, haven't they already devoted several episodes (including the one just previous) developing a character who refers to herself as "Me", because she lived so long she's forgotten her original name?  They did some nice stunt-casting I suspect specifically so the audience would be very interested in this character.  

I think, at the end of her first episode, he even refers to the fact that she's now a hybrid, being human with alien technology.


----------



## Umbran (Dec 1, 2015)

Ooh.  Just saw some encouraging things about the Christmas special!

I do not want to spoil anything for others, but... coolness!


----------



## Mustrum_Ridcully (Dec 1, 2015)

delericho said:


> I don't think so - he notes in the episode that he could lure the creature to one end of the castle and then run to the other, thus gaining 82 minutes, but he only needs a confession when he gets cornered by it. Otherwise, he can just run away again.
> 
> One thing that's interesting is that he also doesn't seem to need a _new_ confession each time - the monster seems to be satisfied by him repeating himself each time through the loop.



How does the monster know he's making a true confession? I think the reason for that would be that it's psychic in some way, and can register how he feels about a confession - is it a true one, is it a new revelation? And since for each iteration, it is a new and truthful confession for the Doctor, the monster registers it as such, too. 
An unfortunate limitation, I suppose. It could be that's the case because the confession dial doesn't actually know who will end up in it and has to reset at each teleport-in. (Which should only happen only once anyway.) And the machine might also need to have the ability to "teach" its victim that confessions are needed, otherwise they might die not knowing how it works, never revealing anything useful.

If the limitation didn't exist, of course, the second iteration would already spell the Doctor's doom, since he might not come up with a new confession in time.


----------



## delericho (Dec 1, 2015)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> How does the monster know he's making a true confession? I think the reason for that would be that it's psychic in some way, and can register how he feels about a confession - is it a true one, is it a new revelation?




Sure, but there's no hint of that in the episode. Might as well wonder why the creators don't just build a mind-reading machine.



> And the machine might also need to have the ability to "teach" its victim that confessions are needed, otherwise they might die not knowing how it works, never revealing anything useful.




Well, quite. It was only through dumb luck that he happened to blurt out his first 'confession'. And it's not much of one: that's a profound 'truth' that's true of just about everyone ever.



> If the limitation didn't exist, of course, the second iteration would already spell the Doctor's doom, since he might not come up with a new confession in time.




Indeed. Of course, that, again, is also true if he hadn't dragged his near-death body through the castle for a day and a half just to use the teleporter, or indeed if just one of the iterations had seen him get just slightly more damaged than average and so left unable to do that.

And that's one of the _other_ problems with the episode - that sort of closed loop doesn't really work, as explained in Jurassic Park. Because the number of skulls in the water increases with each iteration, the conditions for him hitting the water after jumping out the window are slightly different each time. One of those times, he should have broken his neck.


----------



## Umbran (Dec 1, 2015)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> How does the monster know he's making a true confession? I think the reason for that would be that it's psychic in some way, and can register how he feels about a confession - is it a true one, is it a new revelation? And since for each iteration, it is a new and truthful confession for the Doctor, the monster registers it as such, too.




Yep.  Another reason to think that it was a metaphorical space.  It isn't that someone who really knows the doctor set up a real place, or a simulation, that happens to be a perfect hell for the Doctor.  It is that *the Doctor* was induced to create his own prison.  The veiled monster knows when it is true because it is generated from his own mind.

You can consider the entire thing to really be a metaphor - what's actually happening is that he's trapped in the dial, that is essentially trying to be the mind-reading machine delericho mentioned, breaking down his defenses.  The images in the episode are just the mindscape version of those events.


----------



## delericho (Dec 1, 2015)

Umbran said:


> You can consider the entire thing to really be a metaphor - what's actually happening is that he's trapped in the dial, that is essentially trying to be the mind-reading machine delericho mentioned, breaking down his defenses.  The images in the episode are just the mindscape version of those events.




In which case, it will be interesting to see if he remembers going through those many iterations, or if he only remembers the few days covered by the last time through - in a real space he should only remember the last time through, while if it's a metaphorical space he might well remember more.


----------



## Umbran (Dec 1, 2015)

delericho said:


> In which case, it will be interesting to see if he remembers going through those many iterations, or if he only remembers the few days covered by the last time through - in a real space he should only remember the last time through, while if it's a metaphorical space he might well remember more.




If he didn't remember them while he was inside the dial, I don't expect they'll have him remember outside it, at least not in detail.  While we can work out that the thing is actually most cogent and self-consistent as a metaphorical or mindscape experience, I don't think they'll spend any effort clarifying that's what it was.

Plus, I think it'd stretch credulity for him to remember *billions* of years of history.  Sure, he's a timelord, but even they have mental limitations.


----------



## delericho (Dec 1, 2015)

Umbran said:


> Plus, I think it'd stretch credulity for him to remember *billions* of years of history.  Sure, he's a timelord, but even they have mental limitations.




No, but I figured be might remember being stuck in a loop, even without all the details. But you're right that they probably won't bother clarifying.


----------



## Umbran (Dec 1, 2015)

delericho said:


> No, but I figured be might remember being stuck in a loop, even without all the details.




He certainly knows he was in a loop - working that out in each and every loop is key to his escape.  If he doesn't know he's in a loop, he doesn't punch the wall.  He can figure out from the stars and the wall something like how many times he's been through the loop.


----------



## delericho (Dec 1, 2015)

Umbran said:


> He certainly knows he was in a loop - working that out in each and every loop is key to his escape.  If he doesn't know he's in a loop, he doesn't punch the wall.  He can figure out from the stars and the wall something like how many times he's been through the loop.




Ah, of course! Good point.


----------



## Cergorach (Dec 1, 2015)

Peter Capaldi is a great actor, but honestly 'his' Doctor I have trouble liking. It's gone from watching Doctor Who as soon as I got my mitts on the episode to, I'll watch it when I have nothing better to watch, I often even watch World Trigger before the Doctor...


----------



## Morrus (Dec 1, 2015)

Cergorach said:


> Peter Capaldi is a great actor, but honestly 'his' Doctor I have trouble liking. It's gone from watching Doctor Who as soon as I got my mitts on the episode to, I'll watch it when I have nothing better to watch, I often even watch World Trigger before the Doctor...




I love him.

His long conversation with Davros this year. I couldn't turn away. 

That speech at the end of the Zygon episodes. A step above Matt Smith shouting. 

Carrying that entire episode this week solo, the only actor on stage for almost an hour. Very few people can do that. You barely notice you're watching one person talk to himself. 

The guy is astonishing. He's the strongest actor ever to play The Doctor, and occasionally they let him loose. And when they do, oh man....

It's interesting. At the DWE at the Excel this year they said how the demographic was shifting. This year it's drifting upwards in age - a few kids checking out, but more adults signing in. It's a daring experiment, to be sure, but they lost a big adult contingent during the Smith era and gained a lot of kids.


----------



## HobbitFan (Dec 1, 2015)

Capaldi was superb this past week.  A Master class in acting.  And it was a great episode.  
Unfortunately, I haven't liked alot of the other shows this season as much.  Sleep No More for example, was horrible.  
And the hybrid arc hasn't been terribly well handled in terms of being an interesting mystery.  Mentioning a hybrid every other episode or so during a season isn't an arc.  
I'm assuming the hybrid stuff is going someplace interesting in "Hell Bent" this week.  
"heaven Sent" was so good last week and the Gallifrey has me intrgued.  I haven't been this excited since the 50th.  
I wish I had been this interested the whole season.  
I feel kinda bad for Capaldi because I think seasons 8-9 have let him down in terms of consistant writing quality.  
I'm hopeful that this next one is going to be awesome!


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## Cergorach (Dec 1, 2015)

Morrus said:


> You barely notice you're watching one person talk to himself.



 I notice and I think that is what I dislike.



Morrus said:


> The guy is astonishing. He's the strongest actor ever to play The Doctor, and occasionally they let him loose. And when they do, oh man....



I agree, an absolutely great actor! Maybe the problem is that it's looking more like the "Peter Capaldi Show" and less like "Doctor Who" from the previous nine years...



Morrus said:


> It's interesting. At the DWE at the Excel this year they said how the demographic was shifting. This year it's drifting upwards in age - a few kids checking out, but more adults signing in. It's a daring experiment, to be sure, but they lost a big adult contingent during the Smith era and gained a lot of kids.



I don't know what they changed, but change something they did, I'm less then pleased. And I'm not exactly young anymore either (about two years your then you are).


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## Morrus (Dec 1, 2015)

HobbitFan said:


> Capaldi was superb this past week.  A Master class in acting.  And it was a great episode.
> Unfortunately, I haven't liked alot of the other shows this season as much.  Sleep No More for example, was horrible.




Yeah, _Sleep No More_ was pretty much universally disliked. It got a really low BBC AI score. Once a year we get a Mark Gatiss written episode and it's always poor, and he still gets to write one a year.  I don't get it. It's because he writes _Sherlock_ with Moffat, I think.



> And the hybrid arc hasn't been terribly well handled in terms of being an interesting mystery.  Mentioning a hybrid every other episode or so during a season isn't an arc.




Arc? It's not an arc. It's the plot of the last episode, but not the series; they dropped occasional mentions of it into others. Nobody said it was an arc, or that it was supposed to be. Just a few teaser phrases, that's all. 

The arc this year was Clara. She was trying to be The Doctor. She was acting like him, taking charge of things.  And it killed her. This year's arc was a character study of a companion.



> I feel kinda bad for Capaldi because I think seasons 8-9 have let him down in terms of consistant writing quality.




I feel great for him!  This year, with the Dalek two-parter, the Zygon eps, this one-hander, and (looking likely) next week, he's had a record number of standout episodes.  This year has been utterly superb, IMO. Missy knocked it out of the ballpark.  That long Davros conversation was TV gold. They Zygon episodes were superb, especially the second one. Face the Raven was great, and Clara's departure *so* well acted. Just look at what those two convey in their faces in that ten minute sequence once they realise Clara has to die. This week Capaldi carried an episode on his own. Masie Williams in three episodes so far has put in world class performances.

Holy crap, has this been an actor's year! Utterly, utterly superb.  Shame about _Sleep No More_; it let the side down. IMO Mark Gatiss always does. And the two underwater eps were quite mediocre.


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## Morrus (Dec 1, 2015)

Cergorach said:


> I don't know what they changed, but change something they did, I'm less then pleased. And I'm not exactly young anymore either (about two years your then you are).




I don't know what to tell you. I think it's the best DW has been in years. You don't.

I win, I guess! Because it's like I like it right now.


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## Umbran (Dec 1, 2015)

Morrus said:


> I win, I guess! Because it's like I like it right now.




I think the casting choice has allowed them to step away from the nigh-constant semi-romance that the Doctor has had with companions and others for the entirety of the new series, and I think that's freed them up in several ways.


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## HobbitFan (Dec 2, 2015)

I assumed that the hybrid stuff was the intended arc mostly because that's the way fans online say at Gallifrey Base were talking about it.  

I agree with you on the intended arc for Clara.  That's the way I was thinking about what they did with her too.  I just wish some of it could been more subtle.  I would have been happier with more show and less tell in terms of characterization.  

Basically I was thinking there was a story thread i.e. the hybrid and then a character arc for Clara this season.  Both going on across the season.  
Maybe I read too much into things with the hybrid mentions.


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## HobbitFan (Dec 2, 2015)

Umbran said:


> I think the casting choice has allowed them to step away from the nigh-constant semi-romance that the Doctor has had with companions and others for the entirety of the new series, and I think that's freed them up in several ways.




Good point Umbran.  I was thinking similarly...


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## Morrus (Dec 2, 2015)

HobbitFan said:


> I assumed that the hybrid stuff was the intended arc mostly because that's the way fans online say at Gallifrey Base were talking about it.




Again, I don't know how to reply to that.  Whatever folks on another forum may or may not be saying, the Hybrid is clearly not an arc by any definition of an arc (thigh if the Hybrid is indeed "Me" rather than "me", it's been a major character in 3 episodes, with next week making 4). This year's arc is very much the companion story. It's been a year of superb character stuff. If people have missed that, they have my sympathies.  They've let some truly exceptional performances slip them by. This was an actors' year. 

The Hybrid is just the (presumed) plot of next week's episode, with a half-dozen foreshadowing words thrown in over the preceding 12 episodes. Doctor Who tends to drop in little foreshadow mentions, but those don't constitute an arc. They're just hints. The modern series is an episodic show, by and large, though it has done arcs occasionally.


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## Morrus (Dec 2, 2015)

Interesting theory. How much does he actually remember each time? 



> The Doctor: That's when I remember! Always then. Always... then. Always exactly then! I can't keep doing this, Clara! I can't! Why is it always me? Why is it never anybody else's turn?! ( Chalk taps ) The Doctor: Can't I just lose? Just this once?! Easy. It would be easy. It would be so easy. Just tell them. Just tell them, whoever wants to know, all about the Hybrid. ( Footsteps thud and flies buzz )
> 
> The Doctor: Can't I just lose? Just this once?! Easy. It would be easy. It would be so easy. Just tell them. Just tell them, whoever wants to know, all about the Hybrid. ( Footsteps thud and flies buzz ) The Doctor: I can't keep doing this. I can't... I can't always do this! It's not fair! Clara, it's just not fair! Why can't I just lose?! But I can remember, Clara. You don't understand, I can remember it all. Every time. And you'll still be gone. Whatever I do... you still won't be there.


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## Ryujin (Dec 2, 2015)

Umbran said:


> I think the casting choice has allowed them to step away from the nigh-constant semi-romance that the Doctor has had with companions and others for the entirety of the new series, and I think that's freed them up in several ways.




I think that it let them go back to "The Doctor as mentor", rather than unrequited love interest, as he was in the past. This season The Doctor has gone back to being the inscrutable, with The Companion being our proxy, and we found out what happens when "we" try to be The Doctor.

And yes, I think that Capaldi did an excellent job in his virtual one-man-show.


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## Zelofcad (Dec 2, 2015)

Reading this thread (hi everyone, by the way - first post here on ENWorld!) I thought reasonable that the Hybrid could be Ashildr, judging by the words the Doctor said at the end of Heaven Sent.
But re-watching the first two episodes of this season I noticed something I had forgotten. Davros asks the Doctor "Why did you leave Gallifrey?". And the Doctor answers "It's a boring place, Gallifrey. I was going out of my mind". And then Davros: "You weren't bored. No one runs the way you have run for so small a reason".
Now we know for certain that the Doctor was lying, and that he started running because he was afraid.
So maybe the reason for his running was that he knew he was the Hybrid, and that scared him. And "The Hybrid is me" was just Moffat's way to make us jump to the wrong conclusion.
That's why I'm starting to reconsider the idea that the Hybrid is Ashildr... Now I wouldn't go as far as telling that the most probable explanation at this point is that the Doctor is half human (as per the 1996 movie), but maybe we are going to discover something new about the Doctor's origins.
Just wanted to share these thoughts


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## Morrus (Dec 3, 2015)

We can has new preview trailer!

This is actually a clip, not a trailer. Hell Bent is over an hour long on Saturday.  I can't wait!

[video=youtube;hXOjUO23bD8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXOjUO23bD8#t=45[/video]


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## Ryujin (Dec 6, 2015)

Did anyone else jump immediately to thinking of "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" at the end of the finale?


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## MarkB (Dec 6, 2015)

That was... truly quite beautiful. It had me in tears by the end.

Also, I may have had a small geekgasm when I saw the classic TARDIS console room.


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## Morrus (Dec 6, 2015)

Classic TARDIS - awesome!

Again, an actor's masterpiece. When you realise that for the first 20 minutes he doesn't say a word. He manipulates the events around him and takes over Gallifrey by standing there silently. Everything happens on his face. So sublime. Truly the best actor every to play The Doctor.

They've all been able to do shouty stuff and talky stuff. But this guy also does quiet stuff. And he does it so powerfully. From that long conversation and shared joke with Davros, to his face during Clara's death buildup, to his Zygon speech, and to his 20-minutes of silent acting this week, Capaldi has a depth no actor has ever brought to the role. He's upped the bar.

The man needs the acting awards. Now. He has an Oscar (for directing) but he's one of the most incredible actors on TV right now. I love it, and this entire year which has been an actor's showcase.


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## Ryujin (Dec 6, 2015)

Morrus said:


> Classic TARDIS - awesome!
> 
> Again, an actor's masterpiece. When you realise that for the first 20 minutes he doesn't say a word. He manipulates the events around him and takes over Gallifrey by standing there silently. Everything happens on his face. So sublime. Truly the best actor every to play The Doctor.
> 
> ...




It's all in the eyebrows.

OK, and also in the massive depth of talent.


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## Morrus (Dec 6, 2015)

Ryujin said:


> It's all in the eyebrows.
> 
> OK, and also in the massive depth of talent.




He is just ridiculous. To go from Malcolm Tucker to this? I can't imagine any other Doctor doing what he does. And I love Tennant and Smith. But Capaldi - like John Hurt - is at another level.


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## Ryujin (Dec 6, 2015)

Morrus said:


> He is just ridiculous. To go from Malcolm Tucker to this? I can't imagine any other Doctor doing what he does. And I love Tennant and Smith. But Capaldi - like John Hurt - is at another level.




I see a bit of his Richelieu in The Doctor. Maybe a touch of the bagpipe playing frivolousness of Angus Flint. Definitely on a different level from his most recent predecessors.


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## Janx (Dec 7, 2015)

I half expected to see Missy outside the tardis when the knocking started

I suppose it's cool that Me and Clara get their own Tardis, and can technically come back for a guest spot.

Looks like the xmas episode will be a bit more cheery this time around with River being in it.


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## Janx (Dec 7, 2015)

In other bits:

The Lord President gets like 90 regenerations... and there's an allocation system.  So 12 is not a hard limit.

The Doctor is now Lord President...  Does he get to keep the new allocations since he ran away?

Who elected him to be Lord President?

Who's Rassilon?  I take it he's an old Who character?

Why does the Doctor hate the Lord President so much?

Why does the Doctor say it was Missy who brought Clara and him together?  That was only for the seasoning opener.  He's known Clara since she was the Impossible Girl who kept re-incarnating during the Matt Smith era when he officially took her on as a Companion.

Does this mean that Amy and Rory were sitting in a Diner that was really a Tardis parked in Nevada during the Doctor Who visits America season?

Was Clara in any of those shots working at the restaurant back then?

Who was the guy from the prior episode who got accused of a crime?  He just came out of nowhere as a friend of the Doctor and Clara (we didn't recognize him from a prior episode).


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## delericho (Dec 7, 2015)

Janx said:


> The Lord President gets like 90 regenerations... and there's an allocation system.  So 12 is not a hard limit.
> 
> The Doctor is now Lord President...  Does he get to keep the new allocations since he ran away?




I think they'll make very sure never to specify a number. They won't make _that_ mistake again!



> Who elected him to be Lord President?




I don't think it's an elected position - I think the High Council appoint the President.



> Who's Rassilon?  I take it he's an old Who character?




Yeah. He was the first Lord President and (I think) the inventor of Time Travel. Apparently, the Time Lords resurrected him to lead them in the Time War. He previously appeared in the guise of Timothy Dalton back at the end of the Tennant years.



> Why does the Doctor hate the Lord President so much?




Because of the horrors of the Time War? Because of Clara's death? Because of 4.5 billion years in the Confession Dial? Because he's a bona-fide monster?

Take your pick. 



> Why does the Doctor say it was Missy who brought Clara and him together?




Yeah, that was odd.



> Does this mean that Amy and Rory were sitting in a Diner that was really a Tardis parked in Nevada during the Doctor Who visits America season?
> 
> Was Clara in any of those shots working at the restaurant back then?




That was the suggestion, and I don't recall seeing her.



> Who was the guy from the prior episode who got accused of a crime?




No idea.


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## Ryujin (Dec 7, 2015)

The Doctor says that Missy brought Clara to him because she did. Clara was given the phone number to the TARDIS phone by "a lady in a shop", as she told Matt Smith's Doctor. At one point Missy admitted to being that lady and repeated her conversation with Clara, to Peter Capaldi's Doctor.


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## delericho (Dec 7, 2015)

Ryujin said:


> The Doctor says that Missy brought Clara to him because she did. Clara was given the phone number to the TARDIS phone by "a lady in a shop", as she told Matt Smith's Doctor. At one point Missy admitted to being that lady and repeated her conversation with Clara, to Peter Capaldi's Doctor.




Ah, yes. Good memory!


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## Morrus (Dec 7, 2015)

Janx said:


> The Doctor is now Lord President...  Does he get to keep the new allocations since he ran away?
> 
> Who elected him to be Lord President?




Hey, now he's President of Earth _and_ Gallifrey!



> Who's Rassilon?  I take it he's an old Who character?




He's been in both classic and nu-Who. He was last played by Timothy Dalton in a Tennant two-parter.



> Who was the guy from the prior episode who got accused of a crime?  He just came out of nowhere as a friend of the Doctor and Clara (we didn't recognize him from a prior episode).




Who do you mean?  The guy from _Face the Raven_? That was Rigsy from last year's episode _Flatline_ (the one with the 2D aliens).


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## Janx (Dec 7, 2015)

Morrus said:


> Hey, now he's President of Earth _and_ Gallifrey!
> 
> 
> 
> ...




All the mysteries are being solved   Yes, I meant Rigsy, who I didn't recall he was from Flatline.

And now we know how Missy connected during the Matt Smith era as well.

too many details...


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## Beleriphon (Dec 7, 2015)

Morrus said:


> Who do you mean?  The guy from _Face the Raven_? That was Rigsy from last year's episode _Flatline_ (the one with the 2D aliens).




You'll also note he's the young chap that Clara snaps a selfie with when The Doctor notices Afshildr in the background.


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## Neonchameleon (Dec 8, 2015)

Morrus said:


> I don't know what to tell you. I think it's the best DW has been in years. You don't.
> 
> I win, I guess! Because it's like I like it right now.




One of the things I will say is that I wouldn't have a Dr. Who that didn't range from the sublime to the ridiculous. It has the freedom to experiment in primetime in the way very few other shows do - can you think of any other prime time shows that have had five episodes in a row as different from political machinations and terrorism of The Zygon Inversion the found footage horror of Sleep No More, the genuine tragedy of Face the Raven, the single handed show that was Heaven Sent, and the heist/payoff/tragedy/farewell of Hell Bent? That's just the last five eposodes. 

I can recall precisely two runs of TV shows where the episodes were as individually distinct and the quality was as high. Forest of the Dead/Midnight/Turn Left/The Stolen Earth/Journey's End, and Cold Blood/Vincent and the Doctor/The Lodger/The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang. Yes, there are better seasons of TV than any of those three - but when I look at Hannibal I get Hannibal, and it simply doesn't have the range of Dr. Who.

And in Capaldi and Coleman they've two of the best actors on TV and one of the strongest double acts, period. Almost certainly the best actor to play The Doctor ever, and I can't think of a better actor as Companion either (although the writing for her hasn't always been so strong).

That said, any show that's as experimental as Dr Who is going to have some duds in there. (Sleep No More, Under the Lake, and especially Before the Flood all spring to mind). And if you don't want to bounce from technothriller through tragedy into single handed acting then current Dr. Who isn't the show for you. I see why people don't like it; if your tastes aren't fairly cosmopolitan then it's going to be outside comfort zones. And the scripts range from superb to ridiculous rather than being consistently high quality because it is experimenting (I'd say the most consistent season was Eccleston's)

And on Hell Bent, who else noticed The Doctor's double take when Clara asked him to tell her about Clara? Or the wink before using the memory wipe? Or Capaldi's eyeline near the end when he first said what he didn't know (looking away) then that he'd recognise her (looking straight into her eyes)?


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## HobbitFan (Dec 14, 2015)

What did ya'll think of the finale?


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## Morrus (Dec 14, 2015)

HobbitFan said:


> What did ya'll think of the finale?




Loved it.

Another Capaldi acting masterclass. How many actors can carry the whole first 20 minutes without saying a single word? That whole sequence, escalating up through ranks, until Rassilon stood before him? Perfection.

And the classic TARDIS interior? How gorgeous was that? It was like seeing an old classic car in perfect condition.

If I have a criticism, I don't like the flying diner imagery. That looks silly. And I'm not sold on the idea of Me being billions of years old. The Doctor's main strength is age and wisdom. She's, what, a billion times older and wiser? It makes him kinda insignificant.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Dec 14, 2015)

Morrus said:


> Loved it.
> 
> Another Capaldi acting masterclass. How many actors can carry the whole first 20 minutes without saying a single word? That whole sequence, escalating up through ranks, until Rassilon stood before him? Perfection.
> 
> ...



The difference is that the Doctor doesn't forget. (The dialogue of the previous episode might even imply that eventually he also remembered each instance of the pseudo-loop he went through, towards the end of each loop. Why? Time Lord Magic, I figure). 
Me has a human brain and can't hold to all her memories. She might actually forget the lessons life gave her occassionally. She might end up as wise as an old human, but... If I think of my grand pa, that might not be al that wise at all.


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## Ryujin (Dec 14, 2015)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> The difference is that the Doctor doesn't forget. (The dialogue of the previous episode might even imply that eventually he also remembered each instance of the pseudo-loop he went through, towards the end of each loop. Why? Time Lord Magic, I figure).
> Me has a human brain and can't hold to all her memories. She might actually forget the lessons life gave her occassionally. She might end up as wise as an old human, but... If I think of my grand pa, that might not be al that wise at all.




Yes, at best she might be able to pack a few lifetimes of wisdom and experience into that tiny human brain, along with a library of her past experience. Her biggest strength might be a Meegle Search.


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## Richards (Dec 15, 2015)

At least she still looks like herself...and didn't mutate into something like the Face of Boe.  (I'm still kind of fuzzy about just how _that_ happened.)

Johnathan


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## Ryujin (Dec 15, 2015)

Richards said:


> At least she still looks like herself...and didn't mutate into something like the Face of Boe.  (I'm still kind of fuzzy about just how _that_ happened.)
> 
> Johnathan




Metaphor for ego; he got big headed


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## trappedslider (Dec 15, 2015)

Richards said:


> At least she still looks like herself...and didn't mutate into something like the Face of Boe.  (I'm still kind of fuzzy about just how _that_ happened.)
> 
> Johnathan




i saw the best theory about that...so Dorium Maldovar gave River Song vortex manipulator that was, according to him, "fresh off the wrist of a handsome Time Agent" and he has been known to work with the headless monks who tend to behead others, And when they behead someone, the head survives. So at some point Jack had a run in with the Headless monks lol


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## Staffan (Dec 26, 2015)

Now I has a sad.


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## MarkB (Dec 26, 2015)

Farewell River.

Not one of the best Christmas episodes, but it was a nice enough romp, and it did finally close the loop on the time-twisting story of River Song. I'm tempted to go watch Silence in the Library again now, but I think I'd rather just take this as the end of the tale.


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## Staffan (Dec 26, 2015)

I have to say, with this season Moffat definitely leveled up. The only episode this season that I thought was bad was Sleep No More - sure, there were instances of silliness/dumbness here and there, but nothing I couldn't just accept as part of the show.

And the final trio of episodes, plus the Christmas special... they've been completely awesome. It might have been the lack of a distinctive "metaplot" for the season that made it great - in pretty much all the previous Moffat seasons, you've had season-long plots that are set up in episode 1, explored over the course of the season, and then resolved in the season finale. Season 5 had the Cracks in Time, Season 6 the Doctor's Murder and the Silence, Season 7 had the Many Lives of Clara Oswald (and suffered from being split over two years), and Season 8 had Missy in Heaven.

I mean, sure, there have been setups in earlier episodes. The Confession Dial was planted in episode 1, and you had Ashildr/Me in several episodes. But she was more of a recurring character than a plot device.

Now, the over-arching plot is nothing that Moffat started - Davies had Bad Wolf in season 1, Torchwood in season 2, Harold Saxon/the Master in season 3, and disappearing planets/the Darkness in season 4. But I think that particular bit is something that Moffat's not as good as Davies at, and I think this season has (hopefully) shown that he understands that and will avoid it in the future.

And of course, a lot of the credit for the season goes to Peter Capaldi, who has shown that he's more than a pair of eyebrows. I hope he'll be staying on for a long time.


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## Ryujin (Dec 26, 2015)

In this season the overarching plot was how Clara was flying off the rails, The Doctor along with her. Not as obvious as in previous seasons, but definitely there, and resolved in the final episode. Sort of. The Doctor doesn't like endings and neither does Mr. Moffat.

I liked the Christmas episode. Turn off brain and engage adrenaline. A typical running Doctor episode.


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## Bedrockgames (Dec 26, 2015)

I rather enjoyed this christmas special, and found the abrupt change in tone worked very well (that contrast made me more invested in the final moments of the episode).


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## Umbran (Dec 26, 2015)

MarkB said:


> Farewell River.




Well, maybe-not-really.  The night on that planet is 20+ years long, remember.


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## Staffan (Dec 27, 2015)

Umbran said:


> Well, maybe-not-really.  The night on that planet is 20+ years long, remember.




I think it was pretty clear that the Doctor spent those 24 years there with her, left, and then she took the Library job. She mentioned that her diary was nearing its end, and he gave her the sonic screwdriver from that episode.


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## delericho (Dec 27, 2015)

"Nearing its end" is a usefully vague term.

Plus, they do now have a habit of one Doctor-lite and/or Companion-lite episode each year, and they've just established that River has been in the habit of borrowing and returning the TARDIS at various points. So, if they wanted they could bring her back for one of their Doctor-lite episodes - show him starting some adventure, show her borrowing the TARDIS, and go from there. Indeed, there's no reason they need to confine themselves to the current Doctor when doing that.


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## Morrus (Dec 27, 2015)

It may be the last time River sees the Doctor. But it's time travel show. He can still go see younger versions of her.


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## MarkB (Dec 27, 2015)

Morrus said:


> It may be the last time River sees the Doctor. But it's time travel show. He can still go see younger versions of her.




Except that younger versions of her hadn't met this incarnation, or any subsequent one.


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## Umbran (Dec 27, 2015)

Morrus said:


> It may be the last time River sees the Doctor. But it's time travel show. He can still go see younger versions of her.




Specifically, she says that there are stories that their last night together was on that planet.  And that night is 24 years long.  So, it doesn't even have to be the last time for either of their perspectives, really.  Both have plenty of time to pop in and out.


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## Umbran (Dec 27, 2015)

Staffan said:


> I think it was pretty clear that the Doctor spent those 24 years there with her, left, and then she took the Library job. She mentioned that her diary was nearing its end, and he gave her the sonic screwdriver from that episode.




I think it is pretty clear that they implied it, but didn't *explicitly* say that, thus leaving themselves a pretty wide opening, to either have her never show up again, or to have her show up again if they really want to.

It is a time travel show with pretty loose logic.  They haven't felt tied down in the past, I don't see why they'd feel so now.  Their only real limitation is the actress aging out of the role.


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## Ryujin (Dec 27, 2015)

Morrus said:


> It may be the last time River sees the Doctor. But it's time travel show. He can still go see younger versions of her.




And there's still the hints that she may still be alive and kicking, in some way, that were dropped to Matt Smith's Doctor (Spoilers!).


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## Staffan (Dec 27, 2015)

Ryujin said:


> In this season the overarching plot was how Clara was flying off the rails, The Doctor along with her. Not as obvious as in previous seasons, but definitely there, and resolved in the final episode. Sort of.




Sure, there was a _character_ arc. But there wasn't a Big Plot Point that everything pointed toward, like with the cracks in the universe threatening to unravel all of existence. Or, I guess with this season, if they had been making a big deal about the Hybrid and/or Gallifrey's return all season.


----------

