Dr. Who

[Nerdanel]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Also noteworthy: unless we have major plot changes, it looks like Smith is the last Doctor?

indeed.. but i have a feeling there'll be a way out of this. i have no idea how, but.. i'm sure moffat has it all figured out. :P

he gives a lot of clues, he always does, and most of them are too obvious. i have a feeling we'll see some connections with older episodes to all of this, too.. i love it.

[Rían]

naaah, I can't see them ending the Doctor. They'll get out of it somehow!

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Probably. But at the same time, Moffat does like to have indicators of things to come. Then again, this would probably not be subtle enough for him. We shall see.

[Nerdanel]

oh, and about amy being pregnant: she is drinking wine in the beginning of the episode.

(which might mean she just came up with the idea that she's pregnant from feeling ill now and then (which is a bit of a weak argument), or the aliens told her, or she is pregnant and allows herself to have a bit of wine. :P)

[Rían]

yeah, that's true (about the wine) - well, we'll see!

About the River Song story - her "worst day" or however she called it - she said she'll know everything about the Doctor and he'll know nothing about her - how in the world does that work? It used to be that she was in HIS future, and she knew about the relationship that they had not yet had to HIS knowledge, and that makes sense. But now they've seemed to change it around to they're like going opposite directions in the timeline (what happened to the timey-wimey ball, BTW?) and eventually he'll know nothing of her and she'll know everything about him (and it was the opposite way before). How does this work? I can see that she's in her present but his future, but I don't see how this twist works - as time goes on, you accumulate experiences - how can the Doctor end up knowing nothing about River? I know they like weird things, but this doesn't seem to hold water, although it is certainly tragic, which they also like (and which is one of the elements that make the show good).

[Nerdanel]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

yeah, that's true (about the wine) - well, we'll see!

About the River Song story - her "worst day" or however she called it - she said she'll know everything about the Doctor and he'll know nothing about her - how in the world does that work? It used to be that she was in HIS future, and she knew about the relationship that they had not yet had to HIS knowledge, and that makes sense. But now they've seemed to change it around to they're like going opposite directions in the timeline (what happened to the timey-wimey ball, BTW?) and eventually he'll know nothing of her and she'll know everything about him (and it was the opposite way before). How does this work? I can see that she's in her present but his future, but I don't see how this twist works - as time goes on, you accumulate experiences - how can the Doctor end up knowing nothing about River? I know they like weird things, but this doesn't seem to hold water, although it is certainly tragic, which they also like (and which is one of the elements that make the show good).

they're going opposite ways on the time line. we follow the doctor's time line: he knows more and more about river every time they meet; she knows less and less about him (because we see her earlier and earlier in her time line). we've already seen the first time the doctor meets river (and the last time river sees the doctor), when she knows everything about him (even his name) and he knows nothing about her (silence in the library).

so every time river says that the day will come when she'll meet the doctor and he'll know nothing about her - for the doctor and us, that has already happened. the first time the doctor met river, he saw her die.

does that make more sense, did i manage to explain that at all?

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by Nerdanel

we've already seen the first time the doctor meets river (and the last time river sees the doctor), when she knows everything about him (even his name) and he knows nothing about her (silence in the library).

Yeah, I was thinking about that; as I recall, she wasn't terribly devastated, was she? Wouldn't that have been her "worst day," in Silence in the Library?

[Nerdanel]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Yeah, I was thinking about that; as I recall, she wasn't terribly devastated, was she? Wouldn't that have been her "worst day," in Silence in the Library?

well, i watched the episodes again a couple of days ago (i'm just like that..), and her sadness makes a lot more sense now.. she's not devastated, but she clearly knows it's the first time he meets her, and for a short time she desperately tries to tell him he has to have met her before. but she seems to accept it quite quickly, and at the end, she sacrifices herself.

it's actually quite nice to watch those episodes again, now that we know river a bit better, and know what's happening. that first time it was just like 'who the hell is she'...

[Rían]

Originally Posted by Nerdanel

well, i watched the episodes again a couple of days ago

Yeah, I did too - they were good episodes on their own, but even more enjoyable with all this new info.

[Rían]

hmmm, I'll have to think about that a bit ...

(I'm glad people are posting here - it's so fun to talk Dr. Who with the new season coming up!)

[Nerdanel]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

hmmm, I'll have to think about that a bit ...

(I'm glad people are posting here - it's so fun to talk Dr. Who with the new season coming up!)

do that, and ask more questions if you have them!

in short, the doctor and river go in opposite directions on the time line. the viewers follow the doctor's time line and the first time we saw river, she died. she doesn't know about that yet, 'cause it hasn't yet happened to her (that's the timey-wimey part). the last time we see river will be the first time she meets the doctor (i presume) when he'll know everything about her and she'll know nothing about him (and she'll be a young girl then, according to what she said in the first episode of the new season).

yeah, discussing doctor who and trying to figure out what's going on is the only way to survive between episodes!

[Draken]

Yes that puts it very well. It just so happens that the Doctor met her at the end of her life and, as he gads about the time stream, keeps bumping into her further into her past from that event. I say "just happens" - there may well more to it than that.

There's still the big unknown of who she kills to merit imprisonment in the (pretty ineffective) Stormcage - most people assume the Doctor. She flagged up the danger of a paradox so maybe that's what will happen - a paradoxical parallel Doctor who must be destroyed to preserve the original... but then, the "River kills the Doctor" theory is all TOO obvious.

I'm wondering if the opening scenes - with the Doctor deliberately getting noticed in history - might be significant. The Doctor has NEVER courted recognition before. And why "wave from history" when he could just visit whenever he liked?

[Nerdanel]

Originally Posted by Draken

Yes that puts it very well. It just so happens that the Doctor met her at the end of her life and, as he gads about the time stream, keeps bumping into her further into her past from that event. I say "just happens" - there may well more to it than that.

There's still the big unknown of who she kills to merit imprisonment in the (pretty ineffective) Stormcage - most people assume the Doctor. She flagged up the danger of a paradox so maybe that's what will happen - a paradoxical parallel Doctor who must be destroyed to preserve the original... but then, the "River kills the Doctor" theory is all TOO obvious.

I'm wondering if the opening scenes - with the Doctor deliberately getting noticed in history - might be significant. The Doctor has NEVER courted recognition before. And why "wave from history" when he could just visit whenever he liked?

yeah, it seems to obvious that it's river who kills the doctor.. at the same time, it's a bit tempting to think it is: after all, she keeps amy from interrupting when the astronaut shoots the doctor, and for some reason she says 'of course not' when she tries shooting the astronaut.. but then again, why would she try shooting herself (since it clearly has to be in her past, if that killing is what she's imprisoned for).

no, it's too obvious. she must've killed someone else.. but who?

[Nerdanel]

AWESOME episode!!! 8D

so much left unsaid, so much confusion..

who is the time child? is amy her own mother, is the child amy? is it river? someone completely different? and poor river.. the last time she got to kiss the doctor. :/

[mithrand1r]

Originally Posted by Nerdanel

AWESOME episode!!! 8D

so much left unsaid, so much confusion..

1. Who shoots the doctor at beginning of 2 part episode?
2. Amy seemed to die in a similar way as in "Silence in the Library" (only an echo of herself left)
3. Who is the little girl? Is she related to anyone of the main characters?
4. Who sent the invites? Is it definitely the Doctor? (The Doctor is probable, but it could be someone else)
5. What do the aliens want on the moon or with the space suits?

Interesting episode. The aliens were creepy enough. Seems as if there are several races (Human, Sea Devils, Silurian) on this planet. Each with their own claim to the planet.

[Nerdanel]

Originally Posted by mithrand1r

1. Who shoots the doctor at beginning of 2 part episode?
2. Amy seemed to die in a similar way as in "Silence in the Library" (only an echo of herself left)
3. Who is the little girl? Is she related to anyone of the main characters?
4. Who sent the invites? Is it definitely the Doctor? (The Doctor is probable, but it could be someone else)
5. What do the aliens want on the moon or with the space suits?

Interesting episode. The aliens were creepy enough. Seems as if there are several races (Human, Sea Devils, Silurian) on this planet. Each with their own claim to the planet.

there are so, so many small similarities between these episodes and the library episodes.. i don't know if we're just being tricked to believe that, but there are certainly a lot of hints. for instance, these episodes have been, to some extent, about humans going to the moon; in silence in the library, there's doctor moon. there are space suits, it's the last time river meets the doctor, there's the echoing death you were talking about, etc...

the question about who sent the invites is indeed interesting.. and why did the doctor try to attract attention to himself through history (as shown in the very first minutes of the first episode), if he could just send them all a letter at the end of it?

we've speculated so much about who the girl might be, and it just feels crazy.. and amy seems to be half-pregnant somehow; is she not pregnant yet, but her offspring is walking the earth? is it even amy's kid, or was she just a host?

it might be that the aliens don't have any interest in the moon, they just wanted a space suit, so they made the humans make one. and i guess to rationalize it, the humans made a space program, which took them to the moon. why they needed a space suit, though, that's the question..

and it was brilliant with the silent telling everyone to kill them.. isn't there actually a glitch in the recording of armstrong's first words on the moon right around there?

i have a feeling we won't see this time girl for the next few episodes.. maybe for the mid-season finale in june. we'll see...

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

I think Amy's pregnant with Dr. Who .... he gets reborn that way instead of regenerating.

And he gets reborn as a girl! Who's for the six-year-old-girl-Doctor hypothesis?

So, either
a) we have some Doctamy hanky panky.
b) Amy gets preggers with Doctor.
c) Maybe the Doctor just regenerates this way?

OR, is this possibly Jenny?

Still, how is the whole Eleventh-Doctor-getting-killed-thing resolved? Or is this not yet clear?

And in the nitpicky category - what happens to the alien bodies when the Earthlings kill them? Are we constantly stepping over them and forgetting it? Or do they conveniently evaporate?

I wondered that, too.

Originally Posted by Nerdanel

I know!!! Her face just killed me!!!

[Nerdanel]

hehe, it's a fun hypothesis, but i don't think i can say i'm for it. although i have been waiting for the doctor to regenerate into a female..

[Draken]

So did the Silence destroy the Tardis in revenge? If so, how? If the Silence have spent all of time since 1969 fleeing an ever-expanding, unwittingly-genocidal human race, have they been forced to spread to other worlds? Did they use their post-hypnotically suggestive ways to put together that unlikely Pandorica-building alliance? Just why did they want to get hold of a spacesuit and (assuming it was their doing) strap a little girl in it while giving her the means to call for help? She seemed more significant to them than mere bait.

What did they mean by telling Amy that she will "bring the Silence?". As they had her in the same vessel that was in The Lodger, and that we were told then was a sort-of-TARDIS, presumably they can travel in time - which would explain why they claimed to have had her there for "many days". The woman at the orphanage looking through a non-existent hatch and pronouncing "she's only dreaming" - what was THAT about?

As for the positive/negative pregnancy scan - I wonder if that means that Amy being pregnant is one of those turning points in time, one that hasn't been resolved yet?

And a full-blown Timelord-style regeneration from the little girl to finish with! Not Jenny's "a little cough of energy and look I'm better" - a proper one.

What makes speculation so difficult is that Moffat understands the blogiverse and fandom in general. He know how our minds work and that's helping him generate more questions than answers with every episode, damn him.

As for the episode itself - loved it. The opening sequence was audacious in its misdirection, Canton was great, poor deranged Renfrew was great (the orphange sequence was straight out of Call of Cthulhu), the solution was fabulously inventive.

As for dead Silence putrefaction - our minds edit out all information about them, remember - so I'm guessing that would include odours etc too!

[Rían]

Originally Posted by Draken

The woman at the orphanage looking through a non-existent hatch and pronouncing "she's only dreaming" - what was THAT about?

Yeah, that was REALLLY weird!!

As for dead Silence putrefaction - our minds edit out all information about them, remember - so I'm guessing that would include odours etc too!

Maybe that's why we evolved walking - we're actually lifting our feet to step over those dead bodies until they're eaten by Vashta Nerada!