I am outraged that Australian Whovian tragics don’t get an early (ie only a few hours after the UK) peek this year. We have to wait for 7:30pm on Boxing Day like any old muggle!
In Matt Smith’s final episode as The Doctor he “must sacrifice everything to save a town called Christmas from the Time Lord’s greatest enemies.”
How on earth will we manage?
We could chat about it here, being suitably spoiler-sensitive, maybe?
Categories: arts & entertainment
In memoriam: Diana Rigg 
#AWW2017 – non-fiction – six reviews 
Otterday! And Open Thread 
Wonder Woman movie marketing machine tied up in knots 
Hoyden About Town 
Just rude really. We have to wait for pt 2 of the Hobbit (not that I’m in any rush to see it but the household Hobbit fanatic is), we have to wait for Dr Who and we have to wait for Boxing Day for the next Ashes test. Good thing we get to live in Australia in the meantime.
You don’t seem to have had a thread on Day of the Doctor yet, so we could talk about that while (most of) us are waiting…
If you click on the
doctor-whoarchive tag (at the foot of the post) Nick, you’ll find comments are still open on the 50th Anniversary Episode post just below this post in the index.I did wonder where you were on that one!
Most people sem to be hung up on what incarnation of the doctor capaldi is going to be, I’m much more interested in who Tasha Lem is. It seems that she’s an old friend of the doctor, but introduced into history just for this christmas special, not Romana
Hello! I hope this is okay to post here and not on the 50th Anniversary thread, it’s less about The Day of the Doctor and more wild speculation about the upcoming series based on the 50th episode and also just general wild theorising. I have no one to share it with *weeps into jellybabies* and I know there are Whovians here at Hoyden (Hoydens About Town would make an excellent episode title for Who, probably involving River, Madame Vastra & Jenny) and I MUST share the wildness!
Anyway, mild SPOILERS for The Day of the Doctor (here goes)(probably everyone in the universe spotted this so it’s not news, but hey ho):
In the scene where the Doctor is stealing the fez, the painting behind him is a famous French painting by Théodore Géricault about an infamous French shipwreck; the name of the ship?
The Medusa. [duh duh DUH]
The Medusa Cascade , as you will recall, was a rift in time and space where Davros stashed all the planets he nicked that time, was said to have been sealed by the Doctor, and has a whole bunch of links to the Time War and whatnot.
So my theory is that Eleven will die sealing the rift. Also, I think the Dalek in The Day of the Doctor that read the words ‘No more’ that the Doctor had seared into the wall was Dalek Caan, even though it looked like he got blown to smithereens (no one ever dies in SF, right?)and that the Xmas Special and forthcoming season will feature this. Possibly.
I’m going to split my post, for ease of reading (I’m sure you’re all riveted). 😉
SO (mild SPOILERS for the 50th again), to continue, I also believe that Clara was, all along, both a trap and a trick, a spy and a weapon, a sleeper agent Dalek human-puppet, created and planted into the Doctor’s life by an unholy alliance of Time Lords and Daleks, not to destroy him but to ‘save’ him in order to save Gallifrey and release the Time Lords, and to continue to be the Oncoming Storm etc. that drives the Daleks to be the terror of the universe that they enjoy being (there’s an episode, I can’t remember which, where the Daleks say without the Doctor they would have no need to be as bad as they are).
So, I think the Daleks need the Doctor to fight against, and the Time Lords need him to free them, and they (or factions thereof) created Clara. Throughout her time in the TARDIS Clara is always wearing something red – and the Time Lords wear red.
And, the very first time we meet Clara, in ‘Asylum of the Daleks’ we also meet the Dalek puppet-humans for the first time, and there are references throughout her time to people not being what they seem, the TARDIS not trusting her and other examples I’ve forgotten right now.
But you know what clinched it for me that Clara’s a Dalek puppet?
Soufflé.
What is the nickname for a Dalek’s arm-thingies? The plunger and the egg-whisk. What does Clara love to do? Make soufflés. What’s in a soufflé? Eggs. What do you whisk an egg with? An egg-whisk.
I rest my case.
One last thing, I think the theme of the forthcoming season will be how the Time Lords are not necessarily people you want around, so in the end the Doctor will have to lock them away again.
Why do I think this I don’t hear you asking?
There’s another painting in The Day of the Doctor that is highlighted, in the scene where Kate walks off to the left and a sinister shadow is seen to the right, directly in front of camera is what looks like the painting by Swaine of the HMS Victory, I couldn’t quite tell on my screen, but if it is it seems to have been reversed…And a victory reversed is a defeat (or victory soured). So the ‘Time Lords Victorious’ are not so glorious…?
The phrase ‘peace in/for our time’ was used, which always reads as ominous to me because of the Chamberlain/Munich Agreement association, it must have been deliberately used, so it could have been suggesting the treaty would break down, or the Time Lords freed would bring an end to peace, or both. Or none. 😀
There was also two Tudor-esque portraits on pillars that the Doctor and co. walked past, they looked familiar but they went by so fast; one might have been the famous painting of Richard The Third, and if it was, maybe that means the Doctor will be meeting him!
Oh, and I forgot to mention, in the painting ‘The Raft Of The Medusa’ shown in the episode, the heads of the people seem to have been replaced by the heads of Cybermen!
Well, thanks for listening, ignoring, whatevs, I just had to get all that of my chest!
Wishing all you Hoydens and your families a Happy Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year!
Actually,@Calcifer, Dalek puppet-humans have been a feature of Doctor Who since the first Doctor, except to begin with they were referred to as Dalek Robo-Men.
Trepidation. Almost never like regeneration .
Trepidation. Almost never like regeneration .
Robo-Men were created through old-fashioned surgery and implants. Dalek-puppets were created through a nano-cloud.
Well, us Brits have seen it now.
I’m much more interested in who Tasha Lem is.
Mixed feelings about Tasha Lem; she’s heavily Moffated. The Silents (and the Silence) turned out to be not at all what I thought they’d be.
Eleven gets a very dignified pre-regeneration speech. Accompanied by something extra bittersweet.
I guess Dalek technology has improved over time…
SunlessNick: I noticed that both Smith and KG were wearing wigs.
*bouncebouncebouncebounce* It’s about to start!
Wow, that was a really big reset button.
So, the stalemate on Trenzalore is enforced by the fact that the Doctor will answer the question if anyone attacks. So, what’s stopping him from answering when the Daleks attack?
How did the Church get de-Daleked so easily?
Decades (at least) have passed between Clara’s second and third visit to Christmas. Her second visit coincides with the Dalek attack, but somehow they don’t seem to do much damage at all to this tiny community and its small collection of wood-based buildings in the years to come.
How does Christmas survive on a planet when the days last minutes? How did it get founded in the first place?
What was the point of the Truth Field? Or the anti-nudity holograms? Was it the Moff doing a double bluff – “if I write this in everyone will imagine it will have some significance later on, but then it won’t ha ha ha ha ha!”?
The weeping angel attack takes place at night in a place where its cold enough for the snow to settle. Clara is (we’re told) naked, but she doesn’t die of hypothermia or, indeed, look remotely cold?
Come to think of it, why is Clara apparently intrigued – but not remotely disturbed – by what looks like a real human arm projecting from the snow drift?
Anyone else wishing that they had followed Calcifer’s script?
On Twitter @timsterne has started a tweet stream on how the Daleks should just give up and open a cafe or something. Some interesting and funny tweets starting to come through.
I did not love it, though there were a few good moments. But I was actually getting bored in parts, that shouldn’t happen. And the only bit that made an emotional connection for me was Clara’s grandma’s story about her husband.
Sorry about the duplicate comments earlier. I was commenting from my new touch screen . . . I find them quite tricky. Anyway, I was pleased. I thought it was sweet. The resolution seemed extremely forced, but whatever. I’ll wait a couple days and then make a post about how the Doctor’s character seems to be poised.
I enjoyed it, but not having watched Eleven, the loose ends being tied up were just references that didn’t mean anything.
I did love his farewell speech, and the way it could well be Matt Smith’s, as well as the character’s.
I really thought the regeneration bit where the Dalek ship was destroyed was overdone. It’s like Moffat & co are just going for bigger and bigger special effects, which just … isn’t really Dr Who, to me. My mindset’s still with the original series and I get a niggling feeling that it’s effects at the expense of sense or story, sometimes, with the new series.
I did like Capaldi’s opening lines. Nothing worse than having kidneys the wrong colour. 🙂
Clara is (we’re told) naked, but she doesn’t die of hypothermia or, indeed, look remotely cold?
The Doctor does say the holo-projector has some sort of heating element in it.
I wasn’t greatly fond of this, but I did like the final answer to the “Doctor Who” question.
I’d have liked Peter Capaldi to be the last of the “natural” regenerations rather than the first of the “unnatural” ones (getting round the 12-limit would have been a good time to break the white-guy pattern, and Ten’s half-regeneration needn’t have been a proper one).
Couldn’t stand it, from the tacky dig at Ten’s prettiness, to Eleven’s jokiness after Tasha reprimanded him after assaulting her.
I have expressed my feels by creating a facebook page campaigning for Ruth Jones to become the next Doctor Who showrunner.
I thought the bit about the holo clothes and the whole “Oooh they’re naked” bit was pointless and pretty childish.
Plus, what a joke that it was all “Weeping Angels!” in the promotions. Um, no. One brief scene doesn’t equal them as serious antagonists.
Couldn’t stand it, from the tacky dig at Ten’s prettiness, to Eleven’s jokiness after Tasha reprimanded him after assaulting her.
I twitched at both those things too. And it’s twice now that Eleven has kissed an unwilling woman; this is not a habit I want the show to have.
I have expressed my feels by creating a facebook page campaigning for Ruth Jones to become the next Doctor Who showrunner.
I don’t know anything about Ruth Jones, but I could stand to see Orla Brady as the Doctor.
There was something to be said for the almost-final battle having the Doctor fight alongside one of his former enemies, but an older enemy than the Silence would have had more impact.
And I think it should have taken longer for the Time Lords to reappear after the Day of the Doctor (well, at least the Time Lords of Gallifrey – I always wanted Omega to be running the Silence).
The Weeping Angels are popular villains to the kids, hence their heavy use in the promos. For adults, the top villain would be the Daleks or the Master.
I was very disappointed. Like you, Mimbles, I found myself getting bored. Not a good sign.
Hated the naked/hologram clothes weirdness, hated Eleven kissing Tasha.
I think it could have benefited from being split into a couple of parts, with less attention on turkeys and invisible nudity, and more on explaining how this episode supposedly wrapped up all the loose ends from the last three seasons…
[Really? Mod team sez no to derailing. ~ tt]I said I would write a reaction post “in a few days” and then I didn’t. Better late than never?
<a href="http://kristinking.org/2014/01/10/my-reaction-to-the-doctor-who-christmas-special/http://kristinking.org/2014/01/10/my-reaction-to-the-doctor-who-christmas-special/</a>