DW 8x01 Deep Breath

[kerravonsen]

Hmmmm.
Ramblings that jump all over the place, ahoy.
There were things I enjoyed and things that niggled.


First question: did he jump or was he pushed?
I keep on changing my mind about the answer to that.

I surmise that "Missy" at the end is our new recurring villain.
And that she's collecting an army of people the Doctor has wronged.
And is rather clever in her lies.
The Doctor is certainly not her boyfriend!
But she does know rather a lot... far too much, really.

I liked the creepiness of the hold-your-breath thing... even if it didn't make all that much sense. It made nightmare-sense.

"I've seen this face before" - nice reference to Capaldi's earlier appearance in "The Fires of Pompeii". But if there's some deep significance to it, I doubt we will ever find out.

One pretty obvious question that the Doctor did not ask was "What is the promised land?" or "What do you think the promised land is?"
Though I suppose that would have detracted from his own assertion that he himself is never going to reach the Promised Land.

I almost cried during the phone-call from Eleven.

On the other hand -- while I can understand the Doylist reason for it -- I did feel it was out of character for Clara to get all "this is not my Doctor!" on us. Because as the Impossible Girl, she met so many different incarnations of the Doctor, is seems really odd for her to baulk at regeneration when she's seen more examples of regeneration than any other companion!
The Doylist reason is that it's supposed to ease the transition for the viewers.

I suppose the choice of plot and setting was playing it safe with familiarity; bringing back the Paternoster Gang, and the obsessive androids from the sister ship of the "Madame de Pompadour". Though why the androids of the "Marie Antoinette" would be obsessed with the Promised Land I have no idea. Unless it's simply that the poor thing was confused, with all the different spare parts clogging up its system.

Madame Vastra gets all the best lines out of the Paternoster Gang.

Did the Doctor ever speak dinosaur before? I very much doubt it. Or "The Invasion of the Dinosaurs" and "Dinosaurs on a Space Ship" would have been extremely different!
I did smile at the bit with the horse.

Comments

[kalypso]

First question: don't think we'll find out, but I'm OK with it either way; it's a sign this is one of the ruthless Doctors, and it probably was the robot's best option (given that we can assume the Doctor had no idea it could be scooped up by Missy).

Whereas I do think we'll find out why he subconsciously chose Caecilius's face (julesjones thought it could also be Frobisher from Torchwood - I'm not ruling out an explanation that brings him in too, but we've no reason to think that the Doctor saw Frobisher, whereas he did see Caecilius).

Current theory on Missy seems to be that the name is a clue.

Dinosaur-speak - in some ways, it's odder that the Doctor didn't speak it in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship but, if it required special learning beyond TARDIS-translation, I can think of an opportunity: Brian Williams sent Rory and Amy a postcard from Planet Siluria, and unless he had unexplained means of getting there on his own it seems likely that the Doctor took him there on a private adventure.

Clara's confusion: it does seem to be a slightly forced way of telling teen fangirls that they can't always expect to fancy the Doctor (though I think a lot of people will fancy this one anyway). But - quite apart from the fact that there's a difference between having seen the many faces of the Doctor and having to manage the actual messy transition from the one she knew best - I think it's just about possible to tie it in with their past relations. There was an online trailer in which the Eleventh Doctor and Clara independently talked about each other, and during that she said something about not falling in love with the Doctor being a trick she practised several times a day. Which implied she was aware that she was capable of falling in love with him, and that her indignation when Vastra suggested she was disappointed not to get a dashing young man might indicate the accusation had hit the mark. And in their last episode together, Clara rang the Doctor and said "You're my boyfriend", even if she hurried to explain it was the old I-need-a-fake-boyfriend scenario, so I thought the new Doctor stating baldly "I'm not your boyfriend" was in part a response to that.

The phone call was very moving.

[kerravonsen]

Current theory on Missy seems to be that the name is a clue.

I've heard some people say that "Missy" is short for "Mistress" -> a female Master. While the idea intrigues, I'd rather she were an original villain in her own right, really.

if it required special learning beyond TARDIS-translation, I can think of an opportunity: Brian Williams sent Rory and Amy a postcard from Planet Siluria, and unless he had unexplained means of getting there on his own it seems likely that the Doctor took him there on a private adventure.

Oh, that's a nifty idea!

There was an online trailer in which the Eleventh Doctor and Clara independently talked about each other, and during that she said something about not falling in love with the Doctor being a trick she practised several times a day. Which implied she was aware that she was capable of falling in love with him, and that her indignation when Vastra suggested she was disappointed not to get a dashing young man might indicate the accusation had hit the mark.

Ouch.

If only... that hadn't been the emphasis, though. I mean, I would have understood it better, it would have felt less out of character if... they could have had her distressed about the change for other reasons, like, for example, that he didn't remember who she was.

And in their last episode together, Clara rang the Doctor and said "You're my boyfriend", even if she hurried to explain it was the old I-need-a-fake-boyfriend scenario, so I thought the new Doctor stating baldly "I'm not your boyfriend" was in part a response to that.

Ah, now that makes more sense to me now.

[kalypso]

I've been thinking a lot about Clara's discomfiture, and I don't think there's a shortage of reasons for it.

Many people have said "But she'd seen all his regenerations before." I think that depends on what you mean by regeneration. She'd met twelve Doctors, most of them fleetingly (as I recall, in The Name of the Doctor she said something about him not usually noticing she was there), but as far as I know there's no evidence that she saw the previous moments of regeneration (though I suppose if he was going through all that he might not have had a chance to notice an extra spectator...)

In any case, it's not the fireworks of regeneration that's bothering her, it's the sticky phase afterwards where he's all over the place and can even lash out at a companion (hullo, Sixth Doctor) - we don't actually see what happened between them after he asked her how to fly the TARDIS and before Strax knocks on the door, and we come in only at the end of her account to Vastra, but she's looking pretty dishevelled when they emerge and it seems reasonable to assume that it's been traumatic one way or another, even if it was just a matter of trying to avoid the TARDIS crashing while he's gabbling nonsense.

And then - I think it's likely that she feels responsible for this regeneration, as she negotiated it with the Time Lords. She's certainly saved his life, but presumably she noticed with the previous incarnations of the Doctor that the overall trend was towards younger-looking versions, and therefore it's natural for her to conclude that something has gone wrong. And it's probably all the more disappointing because she had returned to the TARDIS at the end of The Time of the Doctor and found the Eleventh Doctor still there, back to the young man she knew after shedding all his centuries of ageing - she must have hoped that this was what a special gift-from-the-Time-Lords regeneration was like, a reboot of the current version rather than a replacement.

But it hasn't gone as she expected; she's got a middle-aged madman who can't remember her name. (I don't think he's forgotten who she is, exactly - or rather, he remembers what she is - he can come up with descriptions like "the not-me" and "the one who asks questions", but that could be any companion, and it takes a while before he can see her in focus and recall her as Clara.)

I can think of various reasons why this regeneration has deviated from the norm. Something about the transmission of the Time Lords' energy through the crack. The Doctor diverting some of that energy to destroy the Dalek fleet. The Doctor's current body being centuries older than usual when the regeneration began. None of these factors would be Clara's fault, but I could understand it if, at some level, she thinks "This was my regeneration and I messed it up."

And I think it takes her most of the episode to convince herself that she hasn't messed it up, and this is just as good a Doctor as the ones she knew before. The big step is her act of faith when she reaches out hoping to find his hand; she's nearly there when her face lights up as she hears the TARDIS returning to Vastra's house; and the phone call from the Doctor she knows finally gets her over the line (specifically, the moment when the Twelfth Doctor says he didn't need to listen in - he remembers the call - and she thanks him because that's the moment when she knows she's talking to the same person).

[kalypso]

Oh, and "I'm not your boyfriend" - as well as echoing "You're my boyfriend" in The Time of the Doctor, it's obviously looking forward to the following scene in which someone else claims the Doctor as her boyfriend.

[vilakins]

I was annoyed by Clara not accepting him, but maybe it was because he'd forgotten her? And does he have all the memories of fragmented Claras; if so, I'm amazed she's sane!

I don't mind if the Doctor pushed the robot out, not after the number of people he killed to get all that skin. EWWWW!

I thought Missy might be a female Master, but don't think it makes sense that she'd get Clara and the Doctor together originally and via the newspaper ads. I hope they tell us how the robot got to Missy's garden (or whatever it is).

[kerravonsen]

I was annoyed by Clara not accepting him, but maybe it was because he'd forgotten her?

That makes more sense... apart from the fact that she didn't indicate that that was why she was upset... 8-/

not after the number of people he killed to get all that skin. EWWWW!
Ewwww indeed.

I thought Missy might be a female Master, but don't think it makes sense that she'd get Clara and the Doctor together originally and via the newspaper ads.

Agreed that it doesn't make sense. IMHO, what makes more sense is if the person who gave Clara the help-line number and the person who put the ads in the newspaper are different people. Why? Because the apparent motives are different. The telephone number got Clara and the Doctor together. The newspaper ads did not have the purpose of getting them together; no, the purpose of the ads was to send them both into a trap. So I think the first person is an ally (for example, River), and the second person is an enemy (probably Missy).

[vilakins]

Yes, that makes sense; River could travel in time too, and Missy is obviously connected with the robot somehow.

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it depends on the ginosaur> He could speak to the Aggador of Peladon and that was dinosaurish.

It did seem very OOC for Clara.

Now if Missy had introduced herself as Idris I'd understand, after all the android must have some sort of transferable consciousness to survive so long swapping out body parts - nothing of the original would remain.

As for the Promised Land - if it was a colony ship that would make sense.

[kerravonsen]

As for the Promised Land - if it was a colony ship that would make sense.

(nods)
Though again that makes me roll my eyes even more that the Doctor didn't ask what the android meant... because if it was a colony world...he could have taken them there... except that it would be rather pointless since the colonists were all dead... which gets back to his original assertion that the Promised Land didn't exist. So I guess it makes sense after all.