Topic: New Doctor Who (Read 54237 times)

Bal · « **Reply #720 on:** December 25, 2012, 01:53:04 PM »

RE: Christmas special

[spoiler]The monsters are pretty much the B plot here, with most of the episode focusing on the new companion, Clara. Except she dies, but not before uttering the same last words as Oswin (Run you clever boy) in Asylum of the Daleks, and then at her funeral it's revealed that her full name is Clara Oswin Oswald, and we're shown a third version of her, apparently contemporary, standing next to the Victorian Clara's grave. The Doctor ends the episode looking for another Clara, because she's lived and died at least twice now, and that's the sort of thing to turn his head. After the credits we're treated to a preview of next season, where the main mystery seems to be who or what the girl who lives again and again really is. Also, there is no sign of River in the season preview, and no indication that the Doctor is married, as things get pretty steamy between him and Clara. We don't know how long he's been sulking, but it's possible River has gone to the Library.[/spoiler]

Thad · « **Reply #721 on:** December 26, 2012, 02:12:25 PM »

Well, if you're going to go back to the "mopey antisocial Doctor has to learn to love again" well, you could do worse than literalizing it by making Richard E Grant the villain.

I wouldn't mind a whole season (half-season?) of [spoiler]the Doctor chasing down Clara somewhere else in the time and her dying by the end of the episode[/spoiler].

Re: River: Caroline Skinner makes a comment in the interview I just linked -- doesn't reveal much but she does strongly imply that [spoiler]River and Clara will meet[/spoiler].

Perhaps the most interesting thing she addresses is that this is a role reversal for the Doctor -- this time it's the new companion who has HIM mystified.

Anyhow, I think it's a damn fine hook, but River had an even better one and sorta belly-flopped the big reveal(s). We'll see.

Thad · « **Reply #722 on:** December 28, 2012, 11:11:21 AM »

Huge grain of salt with this one, but Eccleston plays coy about returning for the 50th anniversary instead of just giving a flat "No."

Tor also says that Blogtor Who had a post up about an ostensible script for The Eleven Doctors but took it down. Again, grain of salt, but it's not TOO farfetched.

(Keeping in mind that there's precedent for recasting deceased Doctors for anniversary shows, I'd quite like to see Sean Pertwee play his father's role. He really does look just like him. That said, boy 11 sure is a lot and it might be easier to manage just the 8 who are still alive. On the other hand, well, 50th anniversary; why not make it as big as possible?)

Thad · « **Reply #723 on:** February 28, 2013, 07:15:34 PM »

Poster for upcoming episodes shows original-universe Cyberman and Ice Warrior.

Thad · « **Reply #724 on:** March 25, 2013, 08:23:42 PM »

The Bells of Saint John: A Prequel - Doctor Who - Series 7 2013 - BBC One

Points off for misuse of "prequel", but aside from that it's quite good.

Royal☭ · « **Reply #725 on:** March 30, 2013, 05:58:12 AM »

Tennant and Piper confirmed for the 50th anniversary

Thad · « **Reply #726 on:** March 30, 2013, 11:39:10 AM »

Welp, that's confirmation of multiple Doctors. (I mean, we can nitpick and say "maybe it's the human clone of the Tenth Doctor", but that's not exactly relevant even if it's the case; the point is it's David Tennant.) Frankly I would be surprised at this point if it's ONLY Tennant and Piper.

Thad · « **Reply #727 on:** March 30, 2013, 01:40:22 PM »

Perfectly decent re-reintroduction of Clara.

Highlights:

Man the Client sure left the other bad guys twisting in the wind, didn't he? "Oh yeah, this guy's probably gonna show up sooner or later. It would be a great idea if you fucked with someone he warned you not to fuck with and then taunted him for awhile. Let me know how that goes for you; laterz."

Also: while Moffat certainly takes liberties with technology at times (ACID CELL PHONE HARD DRIVE), I love that he understands the single fundamental issue of computer security: that the most secure system is as strong as the stupidest (or most corrupt) person with access to it. [spoiler]Every single employee sharing their workplace on Facebok[/spoiler] FTW.

Lottel · « **Reply #728 on:** March 30, 2013, 06:13:40 PM »

(Okay. About TIME I can load this dumb page.)

Anyone else get a weird Deja Vu of Silence in the Library?

Bal · « **Reply #729 on:** March 31, 2013, 12:08:32 AM »

I quite enjoy the Doctor's inevitable "You fucked with the wrong guy" moment toward the end. I'm also not sure the GI didn't think they could win. It's only met the Doctor twice we know of, and might not know how much of a bad idea it is to mess with him.

Thad · « **Reply #730 on:** March 31, 2013, 01:43:08 PM »

Quote from: Lottel on March 30, 2013, 06:13:40 PM

Anyone else get a weird Deja Vu of Silence in the Library?

That and Idiot's Lantern.

Quote from: Bal on March 31, 2013, 12:08:32 AM

I quite enjoy the Doctor's inevitable "You fucked with the wrong guy" moment toward the end. I'm also not sure the GI didn't think they could win. It's only met the Doctor twice we know of, and might not know how much of a bad idea it is to mess with him.

They've quite clearly set up GI as Big Bad for this half of the season, though, and quite probably involved in some way in Clara's origin story. (Er, I mean, beyond the ways we already KNOW he's involved in her origin story.) I like to think of this as one step in a long game -- he knew the Doctor would show up and shut him down eventually and he'd get away while his henchmen distracted him. (Note that the Doctor, so far as we know, never finds out that the GI was responsible for the whole thing -- though he DOES know there's a "client".)

I mean, it COULD be that the GI's just been hanging out for fifty years not paying any fucking attention whatsoever to what the Doctor's gotten up to, which more than anything would just make his name hilariously ironic. But my read is that he deliberately threw his meat puppets under a bus.

Bal · « **Reply #731 on:** March 31, 2013, 02:03:36 PM »

Well, it definitely knows enough about the Doctor to know he's associated with UNIT, so it tracks that he's been keeping track, but given the state it was in when we last saw it I suspect it didn't have very much, lets say, influence until more recently. Took a long time to recover and all of that. So it's been observing, but too weak until now. I can't recall, was their any mention of the GI or similar in Asylum of the Daleks? I don't think there was, but it woulddefinitely tie Clara in pretty solidly.

Thad · « **Reply #732 on:** March 31, 2013, 06:38:18 PM »

Quote from: Bal on March 31, 2013, 02:03:36 PM

Well, it definitely knows enough about the Doctor to know he's associated with UNIT, so it tracks that he's been keeping track

Actually the Great Intelligence has fought the Doctor and UNIT before, in The Web of Fear (UNIT's first appearance). I haven't seen it either (and indeed hadn't heard of the Great Intelligence prior to Christmas -- I haven't watched many of the partly-missing serials).

Quote from: Bal on March 31, 2013, 02:03:36 PM

I can't recall, was their any mention of the GI or similar in Asylum of the Daleks? I don't think there was, but it woulddefinitely tie Clara in pretty solidly.

Well, Clara's certainly going by the name of Oswin and has become a computer expert in Asylum, so she could potentially be the future version of this Clara. But of course that's not necessarily the case given what we've seen.

Aside from Idiot's Lantern and Silence in the Library, I'm sure the "I don't know where I am" sequence was meant to evoke Oswin's "room" in Asylum.

Royal☭ · « **Reply #733 on:** March 31, 2013, 06:59:42 PM »

Might be significant that Oswin means "God's Friend" and Oswald means "God's power."

Also, thing I didn't notice: [spoiler]The book that Clara's young charge is reading is by Amelia Williams, which is Amy Pond's pen name.[/spoiler]

Bal · « **Reply #734 on:** March 31, 2013, 08:21:16 PM »

I think the "Oswin" screen name thing is just this version of Clara's tie in to the name. Oswin was I think just her actual first name (no Clara) she had in the Asylum, it was her middle name as a Victorian, and now it's a handle she came up with.

There does seem to be some kind of inheritance from each incarnation in terms of knowledge and habits. Victorian Clara becomes a governess to improve her station, modern Clara wants to travel to improve herself in a different way, but becomes a nanny instead. She gains computer knowledge which future Clara, who was in the midst of beginning her long desired travels, also possesses.

Thad · « **Reply #735 on:** April 01, 2013, 07:04:28 AM »

Yeah, it could just be a "ripples" thing where each incarnation shares aspects of the others and there are still three of them. In fact, I prefer that possibility; Oswin turning out to be a future version of Clara is way too much like River's story.

(Speaking of River and the whole meeting-each-other-out-of-order thing, I've heard there's a companion on the radio series who starts out with the Eighth Doctor and then teams up with the Sixth. I think that's a pretty neat idea and exactly the sort of thing you can only do on the radio series.)

Still plenty of questions to ask if that's the case, though. Like, is there a progression/evolution at work here? Is it merely echoes? Was Victorian Clara the original and are the others somehow the result of meddling by the GI?

And how much will be resolved by the end of the season?

Meanwhile, Smith says he'll still be the Doctor next year. It could be misdirection (rule one: the Doctor lies) but it's probably not; the fan speculation that the Fall of the Eleventh will occur on the fiftieth anniversary special and he'll regenerate is most likely not going to happen. Meaning that either the Fall of the Eleventh isn't actually what it sounds like, or it's not happening on the Fiftieth Anniversary. (Or both.)

Depending on how long the Fiftieth Anniversary Special is and whether its plot continues in the coming season, I'm thinking it's probably not going to be the big climactic Fields of Trenzalore story Moffat's been building to.

Bal · « **Reply #736 on:** April 01, 2013, 02:00:11 PM »

The Fall of the Eleventh being exactly what it says on the tin pretty much goes against Moffat's whole storytelling philosophy, so I'm sure there's something else going on there, though still extremely dire. As for the fiftieth, Matt Smith seemed quite excited about it in an interview on The Nerdist that aired the same night as the premier, and seemed to indicate it tied in to the Clara storyline, though that point was slightly vague. Whatever's going to happen with the rest of this season and the anniversary, I suspect two things. First, we're not going to see the Fall of the Eleventh play out this season, though we may find what is happening with all these Claras, and even when the Fall does happen Matt Smith will still be The Doctor.

Thad · « **Reply #737 on:** April 01, 2013, 07:21:39 PM »

Yeah, I'm inclined to agree on all points.

Sharkey · « **Reply #738 on:** April 02, 2013, 11:38:18 AM »

Tons and tons of little details in this. Amy's book is one, along with the characters on the cover, and the chapter numbers in the following conversation. Still loving the visual nods to every previous tunnel effect in the opening credits. Hell, Tom Baker's scarf is hanging out in the background of a shot or two. And yeah, I'm pretty sure it's no coincidence that the easter premiere was full of easter eggs.

Also, I'd love it if they at least teased the possibility of Clara being River's daughter, though I'm not holding my breath.

Thad · « **Reply #739 on:** April 03, 2013, 07:45:29 PM »

Nice Things We Can't Have: Animated Doctor Who, featuring all eleven Doctors, with designs by Dan Norton of Thundercats (2011). (And speaking of nice things we can't have, if you look through the other stuff on his page you'll see a Safari Joe design and a reference to Hachiman.)

ALSO: Preemptive continuity nitpick: I guess it's okay for #10 to meet #11, but he can't KNOW that he's #11. Because that would contradict his later-in-his-timeline acceptance that he is going to regenerate into the Governor.

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Author Topic: New Doctor Who (Read 54237 times)