Here's a funny thought.
Hurt Doctor ends up being thrown back into the Doctor's timestream, assumes the identity of The Master from then on and pops up throughout the Doctor's travels.
:lol :lol :lol
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Doctor Who Series Seven |OT| The Question You've Been Running From All Your Life
- Thread starter Mr. Sam
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Here's a funny thought.
Hurt Doctor ends up being thrown back into the Doctor's timestream, assumes the identity of The Master from then on and pops up throughout the Doctor's travels.
:lol :lol :lol
Well, it's about as much as I expected. It had 45 minutes to play things out and crammed all the meat into the last 10 minutes. It's how I see typical Moffat arc progression - introduce huge/interesting story possibilities in a finale, don't bring them up in any meaningful way during the season, cram it into small a section of the current finale, while introducing even bigger story arcs on top of the current ones.
RTD may have been silly or outright stupid with his conclusions, but at least he wrapped them up to start anew the next season.
From a production standpoint, it was fantastic, the sets, the music, the cinematography all great. Hell I even liked the explanation for Clara (albeit, in a rather eye-rolling lead up/setting) and how she became 'The Impossible Girl'. Strax/Jenny/Vastra are always welcome guests as far as I'm concerned, and they didn't disappoint me here either. Minus the reveal, this feels like a story we should have gotten closer to the beginning of the 7b than at the end. Clara's basically a cute cardboard cutout even now, and this is the foundation for her character to be built on.
The ending is another huge Moffat finale cliff hanger. I mean John-fucking Hurt as the Doctor, man. I just don't want to get my hopes up, because just like 'River is your Daughter' and 'DOC-TOR WHO/Egg-Stir, Min Eight' before it, I worry this will be squandered. Oh, and please for the love of god, don't use Hurt to retcon any of the previous 10 incarnations. A pre-Doctor Timelord/8.5/etc would be fine. Hell, even The Master would be fine, ridiculous, but fine
RTD may have been silly or outright stupid with his conclusions, but at least he wrapped them up to start anew the next season.
From a production standpoint, it was fantastic, the sets, the music, the cinematography all great. Hell I even liked the explanation for Clara (albeit, in a rather eye-rolling lead up/setting) and how she became 'The Impossible Girl'. Strax/Jenny/Vastra are always welcome guests as far as I'm concerned, and they didn't disappoint me here either. Minus the reveal, this feels like a story we should have gotten closer to the beginning of the 7b than at the end. Clara's basically a cute cardboard cutout even now, and this is the foundation for her character to be built on.
The ending is another huge Moffat finale cliff hanger. I mean John-fucking Hurt as the Doctor, man. I just don't want to get my hopes up, because just like 'River is your Daughter' and 'DOC-TOR WHO/Egg-Stir, Min Eight' before it, I worry this will be squandered. Oh, and please for the love of god, don't use Hurt to retcon any of the previous 10 incarnations. A pre-Doctor Timelord/8.5/etc would be fine. Hell, even The Master would be fine, ridiculous, but fine
John Hurt is the actor playing the new Doctor, unless you're being sarcastic.
I know that, but he's not the "the doctor"...
I'm not a idiot, I know very well who John hurt is.
I was trying to say the person John hurt is playing is the form he was before he become the first doctor.
I think it's important to recognize that Moffat's vision of Who, like it or not, is as what I'd like to call Science Fairy Tale. It's basically a spaceship and time travel version of Grimm's more than anything else. There's always this sense of there being a lot of untold detail to the story because the story itself is larger than life and abstracted away. They work best from simple fears played out on a grand, but slightly incomprehensible, stage.
I think that's why Gaiman works so well as a guest in his world, because he writes a very similar kind of thing (but better than Moffat, mostly. I think he aimed too SF in some ways with his recent episode and it didn't work so well).
But if what you want is Science Fiction or even Science Fantasy, it probably doesn't work well for you.
I've used the same term.
KuwabaraTheMan
Banned
Yeah, those would be the biggest of my quibbles. I think beyond just the way the episode plays on emotions, is that the emotions feel unbelievable based on the writing we've got.
Clara's decision could have been an incredibly powerful moment built up over the course of this half- season. Unfortunately, we got very little actual Doctor/Clara interaction that had any real meaning, and so that relationship and her decision didn't ring true.
Clara was created (speaking from an author point of view rather than an in universe point of view) to split up across time and save the Doctor at every point in his life. So that's what she does. Why she makes that incredibly selfless decision isn't important to the way Moffat has been writing the show, because that's how the puzzle is solved. This is the biggest thing that frustrates me about how this was all handled. We could have had a beautiful, emotional moment on par with the Doctor's sacrifice to save Peri in The Caves of Androzani, but this was all thrown aside so that we could focus entirely on the solution to the puzzle, and ignore the actual motivations of these characters as people with agency (as opposed to puppets of the author).
I personally feel like the Time War hasn't been adequately explained enough to give these events context (particularly in this season).
I (kind of) understand things after reading the comments here, but just watching the show as a casual viewer I had no idea what the significance of the Hurt Doctor was.
I (kind of) understand things after reading the comments here, but just watching the show as a casual viewer I had no idea what the significance of the Hurt Doctor was.
One of the rare times you and I will completely agree on something, Clara's sacrifice doesn't make any sense. It's really hard to buy in to her devotion to the Doctor.
On the fields of Gallifrey Base, at the spring of 2013, when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer, an Episode will be watched, an Episode that must never, ever be watched.
Fear Her?
EleventhDoctor
Banned
You don't understand-that episode was really a brilliant deconstruction of the plight of a single parent raising a troubled child, and the anxieties that come along with it too. From a social viewpoint many people cast unfair critiques and unrealities and judgments on single mothers raising children and I think this episode fairly tried to tackle this topic in a way that only a modern science fiction series could. It reminded me of other great classic shows like "Charles in Charge" or "The Hogan Family". Because of the nature of modern storytelling and a ever-present need to be "hip" and appeal to the great unwashed masses, some of that may have been lost in the production-but I'd much rather have an episode try to get a message like that across than some other episode like "Asylum of the Daleks" that's trying to be "fun" or have a fast paced "plot" all in the name of trying to be entertaining.
Sigh. Fucking Moffet.
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
Well now. Just watched the episode. I was confused. Then I was more confused. Then John Hurt showed up and those words popped up and I was excited. I don't really know what happened. I may have to watch again and again.
So, what was River this time? At what point in her timestream was this incarnation of River? She was not in physical form at all the entire episode as it was always inside Clara's head. But then she was in The Doctor's head. Is this River after her death? Or after her last appearance? (In Angels Take Manhattan) Is this the part where the Doctor sends her back to The Library? Have we ever seen that yet? Will we ever see that? Is this her last appearance on the show? I hope not. But that's just me. I happen to like the one with the big hair.
The kiss between The Doctor and invisible River was hilarious. And the integration of Clara and The Great Intelligence into older footage was really cool, if not fake looking at times, but it was pretty neat. I also liked seeing the TARDIS in its raw undisguised form. Question, was the footage of the original Number 1 Doctor stealing the TARDIS from the show or something they CGI'd up for the episode? Did we ever see the TARDIS as itself and not as a phone box?
Also, is "Desktop" really a term we use now for a location whose appearance can be changed at will? It's like if I went into the Holodeck on Star Trek and said the same thing. The "Desktop Theme". Number Five said the same thing when he met Number Ten. Seems an out of place reference when "Desktop" was a term applied to computers only as recently as the early '90s. But then you have a character from the '80s using it. Yeah, I know, Time Travel, they probably invented the term. Blah blah blah.
So, what was River this time? At what point in her timestream was this incarnation of River? She was not in physical form at all the entire episode as it was always inside Clara's head. But then she was in The Doctor's head. Is this River after her death? Or after her last appearance? (In Angels Take Manhattan) Is this the part where the Doctor sends her back to The Library? Have we ever seen that yet? Will we ever see that? Is this her last appearance on the show? I hope not. But that's just me. I happen to like the one with the big hair.
The kiss between The Doctor and invisible River was hilarious. And the integration of Clara and The Great Intelligence into older footage was really cool, if not fake looking at times, but it was pretty neat. I also liked seeing the TARDIS in its raw undisguised form. Question, was the footage of the original Number 1 Doctor stealing the TARDIS from the show or something they CGI'd up for the episode? Did we ever see the TARDIS as itself and not as a phone box?
Also, is "Desktop" really a term we use now for a location whose appearance can be changed at will? It's like if I went into the Holodeck on Star Trek and said the same thing. The "Desktop Theme". Number Five said the same thing when he met Number Ten. Seems an out of place reference when "Desktop" was a term applied to computers only as recently as the early '90s. But then you have a character from the '80s using it. Yeah, I know, Time Travel, they probably invented the term. Blah blah blah.
Add Jack Harkness to this group and you've got yourself a terrible show I would watch every single week.
Because I love each and every one of those characters, but the show would definitely be a disaster. And I would watch every second.
Box of Bunnies
Banned
It's her post-Library consciousness.
I love River, but I wouldn't mind if that was the last we saw of her. Her last scene was a great farewell.
She's from the Library, after being 'saved'.
One of the between-season shorts shows him going to it. But we haven't seen it. And we probably never will. It'd never match your imagination.
Probably not, but who knows.
The footage of the First Doctor talking was taken from an episode, I'm not sure which one but it's distinctly memorable and I remember hearing the exact line before. In the old show we saw TARDIS' as many disguised things (the Master's and the Rani's had a fully functioning chameleon circuit) and I think we saw them somewhat like in this episode in The Deadly Assassin, but it's been a while.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
I think it was. The way that scene was shot and played seemed really, really final.
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
Interesting. But how? Wibbly wobbly timey wimey of course. So she's inside this computer world with CAL and all the people who died from the Vashta Nerada and she decides to somehow beam her conciousness into the dream world... from within a computer?
So how did The Doctor see her? Oh, "spoilers"? Was that explained? Clara saw her and River thought he couldn't see her. But how could he see her? Also, when she tried to slap him, would he have even felt anything? If she thought he couldn't see her, why even bother slapping him unless somehow he could feel nothing slapping him.
Yeah, I know the short you're talking about. I guess it would be too much to imagine they'd be able to pull that off well enough. So that would do fine I guess.
I can see her coming back again. This time in physical form. Sometime next season. Now that Clara knows who she is. Kind of.
Well I mean The Doctor's TARDIS. Did we ever see this scene with the cylindrical TARDIS' in the original show or did they make up this design for this episode? I recall watching the first few minutes of Unearthly Child and it starts off with a Police phone box right off the bat. (Was that the TARDIS, or an actual phone box? I guess I really should watch the original seasons.)
User 100115
Banned
Going to read the rest f the thread, but omg you guys.
OMG.
No seriously. Holy shit.
Also, I cried like a baby. River! My heart.
So this 'new' doctor is an older doctor right? Otherwise he wouldn't have known him. Time War eeeeeeee!
OMG.
No seriously. Holy shit.
Also, I cried like a baby. River! My heart.
So this 'new' doctor is an older doctor right? Otherwise he wouldn't have known him. Time War eeeeeeee!
KuwabaraTheMan
Banned
At the beginning of An Unearthly Child, it has the police box shape because they're in 1960's London. It adopted the shape to fit in there (a feature of the chameleon circuit). Almost immediately afterwards, however, the chameleon circuit malfunctioned, and so when the first trip we see in the TV show is taken, the Doctor exits the TARDIS and is confused as to why it still looks like a Police Box.
So it didn't always look like that, although it almost always has within the show (there have been a few occasions where the Doctor briefly gets it working again).
Had some misgivings about the timey-wimey magic at the end, but then realized that the story isn't over yet. The Doctor and Clara are still trapped within the "time tunnel." It is, after all, the perfect place for the anniversary. The show could bring in anybody and any settings throughout the history of the show without much explanation.
Sorry I misread your comment, I thought you were one of the many people who thought John Hurt was his name.
Man you're full of questions. I assume that River in the Library is effectively in a permanent state of 'dreaming' and so can be called to these things any time. It didn't make clear how they did that, though, no.
And no, none of that was explained either. I don't think she was expecting him to feel the slap, though.
No, the TARDIS' chameleon circuit was broken before the first episode started and has been broken ever since, except very briefly for the sixth doctor after which it broke again. http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Attack_of_the_Cybermen
EleventhDoctor
Banned
Also I believe the Doctor once fixed the Chameleon Circuit but likes the way the TARDIS looks as a police box so he keeps it that way.
Box of Bunnies
Banned
It's pretty much just left at "oh, I have a mental link with you too so I can see you as well." Basically an extension of why Clara could.
The Doctor's own TARDIS is never shown like that, no. It's only ever not the police box in Attack of the Cybermen when Six attempts to fix the Chameleon circuit but doesn't quite get it right, causing the ship to comically turn in to out of place objects.
Rodney McKay
Member
Overall I was pretty ho-hum about this finale. The nostalgic heartstrings they tried to pull weren't really effective for me even though I did love the old Doctor Who's when I was younger. I don't know, maybe it would have been more effective if they hadn't spoiled the Clara reveal at the very beginning of the episode. That was the mystery I was looking forward to having solved, and they pretty much spoiled it with a quick narration.
I was actually pleased at River's conclusion. She wasn't as overdone as her appearances usually are.
Also, did they ever actually give an explanation for who/what the Great Intelligence was? If they did I must have either missed it or forgotten about it already.
I just looked it up online and I had no idea he/it was an old Doctor Who bad guy. Did they mention it at all this season that the Doctor had dealt with him/it before?
I was actually pleased at River's conclusion. She wasn't as overdone as her appearances usually are.
Also, did they ever actually give an explanation for who/what the Great Intelligence was? If they did I must have either missed it or forgotten about it already.
I just looked it up online and I had no idea he/it was an old Doctor Who bad guy. Did they mention it at all this season that the Doctor had dealt with him/it before?
I liked it. It was entertaining from beginning to end and I've left satisfied.
I think Hurt will fit in between 8 and 9, and as hinted won't be considered a "Doctor" because he fights and ends the Time War.
I'm not that much of a whovian so excuse my question: Why did the first Doctor had to flee Galifrey (and steal a TARDIS)?
[edit] What bothered me a bit was they reused exact music from last years finale for the big climax (doctor stepping into the streams)
I think Hurt will fit in between 8 and 9, and as hinted won't be considered a "Doctor" because he fights and ends the Time War.
If that were the case, I'd really hope they got Ecclestone for a (very secret) cameo at the end...
I'm not that much of a whovian so excuse my question: Why did the first Doctor had to flee Galifrey (and steal a TARDIS)?
[edit] What bothered me a bit was they reused exact music from last years finale for the big climax (doctor stepping into the streams)
Bobby Roberts
Banned
How can it be a "Spoiler" if it's happening inside the show proper? The mystery was solved pre-credits. There was more mystery to follow, and then it ended on a whopper of a mystery.
And yeah, I believe in the Snowmen episode, the Doctor mentions tangling with him previously.
Box of Bunnies
Banned
He didn't have to, he wanted to. Time Lords a stuffy, boring lot. He left for adventure.
Rodney McKay
Member
Maybe spoiler isn't the right word, but they just blurted it out at the beginning with no context. It just felt like "Oh, that's it? OK..." Basically it jumped the gun on the build-up they were doing since her character's introduction.
I didn't really care about the remaining mystery of "how" it was happening. I already assumed it was "Timey whimey stuff" and what do you know, it was!
The end cliffhanger was definitely cool, and I can't wait for the followup special, but that didn't make THIS episode any better.
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
I know that. My question was whether the police box we see at the very beginning of the first episode was the TARDIS, or an actual police box itself.
That's cool...
Now I really need to watch that episode...s.
I do have another question though. How does the phone box itself get damaged anyway? Or dirty? I mean, it's a projection and as the poster above says, he did fix it. So shouldn't it be able to reset itself to clean off any dirt and repair any broken parts, like say windows? Note: The window that broke when they "landed" is the same window that is broken on the giant TARDIS grave. Nice little touch. I mention it because in Angels Take Manhattan I believe River and The Doctor were cleaning it off. You would think he could just push a button to reset the circuit. (Since it's fixed apparently.) But when he broke the window he seemed sad as if it were now something he had to work on. Also, the TARDIS changes its appearance all the time slightly like when 10 turned into 11 it gained light-up signage for effect. So obviously the circuit still works and the TARDIS can make itself look pretty when it wants to. (Like when it took a few hours to reboot itself after burning out when 10 regenerated and it wouldn't let him in until then.)
Am I getting this right though. At the beginning of the episode some Gallifreyan repairmen or whatever heard the TARDIS being stolen and said something along the lines of it being a broken TARDIS. So later in the episode Clara tells the First to not take that one and instead take another. Then again, if the TARDIS is in the repair shop, and that's where he's stealing it from, why steal it from a repair shop, and why is there a working one next to it? Weird. Maybe I'm overthinking it. I guess you could have repaired ones next to unrepaired ones. But without signs to signify which ones were broken, how was he to know in the first place and how did she know which one was working?
And yes, my mind is a stream of conciousness right now. I am actually rewatching the episode right now.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
I dunno. I mean, I get what you're saying, I just think the context you're looking for was the preceding 7 episodes. Starting with a bang like that was something I really, really enjoyed, personally. That was a pretty slick cold-open.
EleventhDoctor
Banned
It was the best cold opening ever. It was complete respect to the original actors/characters/series-and you want to see the rest of the episode to see how she gets herself into that situation. I loved it.
This confused me, too. The scenes before the GI infects the Doctor's timeline play out like they're archrivals or something, like they've been going at each other for years, but I don't remember it being totally consumed with destroying Eleven when it showed up earlier this season.
The GI feels like a total afterthought tbh.
NotTheGuyYouKill
Member
That ending.
I literally made that face.
I'm still in shock.
Holy shit.
I literally made that face.
I'm still in shock.
Holy shit.
User 100115
Banned
That ending.
I literally made that face.
I'm still in shock.
Holy shit.
I covered my mouth in shock when they said 'The Valeyard' and I don't think I removed it until the episode was over.
That ending.
I literally made that face.
I'm still in shock.
Holy shit.
Same. Literally the same face.
:O
User 100115
Banned
The Doctor and River's conversation was very heartwarming. Then it cracked me up when he brought up that it probably looks weird as hell kissing her, since Strax, Vastra, and Jenny couldn't see her.
Rodney McKay
Member
Eh, for me it just felt like they had been working on editing together this scene spliced with a bunch of old Who footage, and they loved it so much that they blew their load too soon. Personally I think I liked the subtle way they brought in the old Doctors in the very first Matt Smith episode when the aliens look up his past and it shows all the Doctors and it ends with him walking though. Only thing I liked about this episodes callbacks was seeing Clara in those period clothes, Rawr.
After that everything in the episode felt very by the numbers outside of the cliffhanger. I always love the Lizard Lady/Sontaran stuff, but everything with the Doctor and Clara just didn't do anything for me (other than the final goodbye to River). I was ALMOST surprised that they killed the lizard lady's partner, but nope, they bring her back so as to negate any kind of emotional impact that would have had.
I actually considered that for a moment, then laughed at myself. :lol
D
Deleted member 10571
Unconfirmed Member
I'm actually not sure I quite understood who Clara is now, exactly. "The girl who saves the Doctor", but that's it? Why, how? Did I miss something essential here?
obin_gam
Member
She was basically a loop. She jumps in the timestream in this episode to become the Claras we meet this season.
Nope. That's all she is. The Girl Who Saved The Doctor. No character development what so ever, just a solution to a problem.
It's already been covered by other people but the general consensus is that he is a regeneration between the 8th and 9th Doctor. If this turns out to be true than it also nicely highlights that "The Doctor" is not his name, it is a title most of his regenerations carry. But not every single one. So we go "Nameless Gallifreyan -> 1st through 8th Doctor -> Hurt -> 9th through 12th Doctor -> The Valeyard -> 13th Doctor -> ???".
EDIT:
quoting this as it seems like the best explanation.
Commander Jameson
Member
Do we know what happened to the GI?
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