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AncalagonTheBlack

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19 minutes ago, Filippa Eilhart said:

after today’s episode *my* theory makes a lot more sense ;)

It would be a simple explanation for the Doctors not recognising each other, although it does raise the question of why the Timelords from this Universe seem to be hunting her.

I thought it was a good episode overall, the Judoon aren't the most exciting of villains, but they're not the main focus of the episode. It did have two genuine surprises in it, maybe I haven't been paying attention but they seem to have done a good job of hiding Barrowman's return to the show. Captain Jack didn't really have much to do with the main plot here, but I'm assuming he'll play a more significant role in later episodes.

I was amused by the coincidence of both Doctor Who and Star Trek having plotlines this week about a character living a seemingly ordinary life being 'activated' when aliens try to apprehend them.

I definitely wasn't expecting the Doctor to unearth another Tardis. It's an intriguing twist, and hopefully they'll do a good job of explaining it in the future episodes. I did like the irony of The Doctor having the Tardis explained to her.

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I mean,

Spoiler

The obvious rejoinder to the parallel universe theory is that nobody appears to realise they’re from a parallel universe. The Master, who was the initial alternate candidate, seems to share a Gallifrey with our Doctor, whereas these other guys seem to have a fully functioning Gallifrey. Still like the theory though.

Good episode. There’s been a general upward trend after the episode 2 slump.

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There's some pretty major spoilers on Reddit that were posted months ago and correctly predicted the events of the first few episodes (including the Master's return). Suffice to say that Chibnall appears to be going all-in on exploring the backstory of everything, which is a bold choice. Interesting to see if it pays off (apparently episodes 8 and 9, the finale and the Christmas Special are important for that).

That said, the alternate theory for this mystery Doctor is more interesting but a bit more of a deep dive: the "Season 6B Theory". In the original show, the Second Doctor was captured by the Time Lords and put on trial for interfering in the affairs of other worlds. Found guilty, he is effectively executed - forced to regenerate - and then live in exile on Earth. We last see the Second Doctor spinning away into blackness and then, in the first episode of Season 7, the Third Doctor stumbles out of the TARDIS after it materialises on Earth.

Because the tie-in material at the time, most notably the comics, didn't know who was playing the new Doctor yet, they created a new bridging storyline where a special investigative unit of the Time Lords secretly spirit the Doctor away before he can regenerate and force him to work for them as a deniable agent. After several months of doing this, the Doctor balks at an order that would have gotten a lot of innocent people killed and refuses to obey the Time Lords and tries to escape. They complete the order for him to regenerate, leading into the new adventures. "Season 6B" was then canonised (to a certain extent) in The Five Doctors when the Second Doctor visits the Brigadier on Earth after his trial and losing his companions Jamie and Zoe. The later novels also feature some stories set in this period. There's also a string of stories (like The Deadly Assassin) which establish the amusingly-named CIA (Celestial Intervention Agency) as a Time Lord special unit and confirm that the Doctor has worked for them several times.

It's long been a fan contention that not only is "Season 6B" a thing, but you could also fit an extra regeneration there between the Second and Third Doctors. The Ruth Doctor may be from this period. It's unlikely - tying into a storyline from 1969 is a bit of a deep dive - but not impossible. The main complication is to the numbering system, since it means Ten's aborted regeneration would have been his last one and when he regenerated into Eleven he should have died, but there are various ways around that (the aborted regeneration not counting after all, or the CIA gave the Doctor a bonus regeneration as part of her credible deniability). It would tie in with the Ruth Doctor doing work for the Time Lords and then being chased around by them after going AWOL, and it also explains her TARDIS (which resembles both the First and Second Doctor's).

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That's got to be the whammiest episode in the history of new Who. And that's combined with all the wham moments we got in Spyfall. Complete opposite to the last season which was fairly consistent but kept things safe.

I feel like RuthDoctor has to be a parallel because the Gallifreyans- well, Gat- are too different to be 'our' Gallifreyans if nothing else. And never having had a sonic screwdriver means she'd have to be either a 0th Doctor or before the second, right?  But why they're in our universe without knowing is a question. It's honestly impossible to say at this stage whether this mystery ties into the Timeless Child, and whether Jack and the lone Cyberman ties into either.

 

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1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

I feel like RuthDoctor has to be a parallel because the Gallifreyans- well, Gat- are too different to be 'our' Gallifreyans if nothing else. And never having had a sonic screwdriver means she'd have to be either a 0th Doctor or before the second, right?  But why they're in our universe without knowing is a question. It's honestly impossible to say at this stage whether this mystery ties into the Timeless Child, and whether Jack and the lone Cyberman ties into either.

 

 

Spoiler

The Sonic Screwdriver was originally just a screwdriver; the Doctor used it to remotely unscrew things. It was only later in the Third Doctor's run that it started becoming the catchall, "solve all problems instantly" device it ended up being. So it might be that the Ruth Doctor knows what a sonic screwdriver is, she has no idea when Thirteen's magic, solve-all-problems instantly thing is.

 

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3 hours ago, mormont said:

The 'three of you? I had a dream about this' line from Jack struck me as extremely risque for a Sunday evening family program.

Not complaining, just observing. ;)

Wasn’t Jack like that most of the time anyway, or is this going further than he did before?

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6 hours ago, Werthead said:

There's some pretty major spoilers on Reddit that were posted months ago and correctly predicted the events of the first few episodes (including the Master's return). Suffice to say that Chibnall appears to be going all-in on exploring the backstory of everything, which is a bold choice. Interesting to see if it pays off (apparently episodes 8 and 9, the finale and the Christmas Special are important for that).

That said, the alternate theory for this mystery Doctor is more interesting but a bit more of a deep dive: the "Season 6B Theory". In the original show, the Second Doctor was captured by the Time Lords and put on trial for interfering in the affairs of other worlds. Found guilty, he is effectively executed - forced to regenerate - and then live in exile on Earth. We last see the Second Doctor spinning away into blackness and then, in the first episode of Season 7, the Third Doctor stumbles out of the TARDIS after it materialises on Earth.

Because the tie-in material at the time, most notably the comics, didn't know who was playing the new Doctor yet, they created a new bridging storyline where a special investigative unit of the Time Lords secretly spirit the Doctor away before he can regenerate and force him to work for them as a deniable agent. After several months of doing this, the Doctor balks at an order that would have gotten a lot of innocent people killed and refuses to obey the Time Lords and tries to escape. They complete the order for him to regenerate, leading into the new adventures. "Season 6B" was then canonised (to a certain extent) in The Five Doctors when the Second Doctor visits the Brigadier on Earth after his trial and losing his companions Jamie and Zoe. The later novels also feature some stories set in this period. There's also a string of stories (like The Deadly Assassin) which establish the amusingly-named CIA (Celestial Intervention Agency) as a Time Lord special unit and confirm that the Doctor has worked for them several times.

It's long been a fan contention that not only is "Season 6B" a thing, but you could also fit an extra regeneration there between the Second and Third Doctors. The Ruth Doctor may be from this period. It's unlikely - tying into a storyline from 1969 is a bit of a deep dive - but not impossible. The main complication is to the numbering system, since it means Ten's aborted regeneration would have been his last one and when he regenerated into Eleven he should have died, but there are various ways around that (the aborted regeneration not counting after all, or the CIA gave the Doctor a bonus regeneration as part of her credible deniability). It would tie in with the Ruth Doctor doing work for the Time Lords and then being chased around by them after going AWOL, and it also explains her TARDIS (which resembles both the First and Second Doctor's).

The Two Doctors also almost canonises season 6b due to referrences made. Also, the 2nd Dr has grey hair compared to his darker hair a year earlier in The Five Doctors. Also he has a recall device for the TARDIS that the 6th Dr envies.

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7 hours ago, Werthead said:

The Ruth Doctor may be from this period. It's unlikely - tying into a storyline from 1969 is a bit of a deep dive - but not impossible.

Even more unlikely - she's the Other from the New Adventures. On the plus side, it doesn't mess with numbering or require convoluted explanations for why she's been missed out every single time when past Doctors have been shown. On the negative side, why is her TARDIS a police box? Hartnell was expecting it to change in An Unearthly Child, but maybe it was stuck before that and he mistakenly thought he'd fixed it. And the Doctor on the run from Rassilon himself would have been a bigger deal before RTD resurrected him and Moffat turned him into a feeble old man.

Parallel universe is much more likely.

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19 hours ago, felice said:

Even more unlikely - she's the Other from the New Adventures. On the plus side, it doesn't mess with numbering or require convoluted explanations for why she's been missed out every single time when past Doctors have been shown. On the negative side, why is her TARDIS a police box? Hartnell was expecting it to change in An Unearthly Child, but maybe it was stuck before that and he mistakenly thought he'd fixed it. And the Doctor on the run from Rassilon himself would have been a bigger deal before RTD resurrected him and Moffat turned him into a feeble old man.

Parallel universe is much more likely.

The Cartmel Masterplan is really dead. The new show has shown the Doctor and the Master as kids, Clara even met the Doctor as a kid, so the whole cosmic loom thing is dust.

In an interview in The Mirror Chibnall also ruled out the parallel universe theory.

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That episode started off really promisingly, with an epic scope and some nice location filming, and then plummeted off the quality cliff faster than a lemming strapped to a rocket pack. The microplastic thing was "on the nose" with all the subtlety of an anvil and the "everybody lives!" ending was kind of undercut by forgetting about all the people who rather graphically died earlier on.

Bit of a mess, altogether.

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The episode wasn't that bad. It wasn't subtle, but it was a lot better put together and more original than the last-but-one episode, and I think it benefited also from much more charismatic and interesting side characters. I'd watch an episode that featured Gabriela and Jake again - they had real companion potential, IMHO. Suki was a fun foil for the Doctor too. Poor Jamila got the shortest of shrifts, Aramu got little to do and Adam was a little bland for an astronaut, but you can't expect to put that number of side characters in an episode that already splits up the Doctor and her companions and still have time to do everyone justice in one episode, I guess. 

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Yeah, it wasn't a classic, but my only problem with it really was Gabriela not referencing Jamilla at all at the end and just immediately pouncing on the next opportunity to vlog- made her seem like a bit of a psychopath. Otherwise it was an unsubtle, but much better put together than some previous (and I didn't even see Orphan 55) message episode.

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I've seen some interesting articles expressing frustration at the current number of companions. Having 3 companions - so 4 leads - worked in the Hartnell and Davison eras because you had longer (and in the Hartnell era, much longer) stories so you could give each character something to do and break up the story between them. With single 45-minute episodes that's pretty much impossible (especially if the episode has a lot of guest stars, as this one did). In most of these last two seasons the companions have also ended up in teams, which seems to eliminate the point of having three companions if they're moving around in one or two units.

This may not be a problem for long though:

Spoiler

The actor who plays Ryan has gotten a lead role in a US procedural due to start airing this autumn, so presumably he'll be written out of Who in the Christmas special, which they've already filmed.

 

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Interesting episode. Fairly solid, although I'm a bit uncertain why they namechecked the Guardians and the Eternals and then have these two ultra-powerful beings come from a totally new group of super-powerful beings. That felt awkward.

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7 minutes ago, Werthead said:

a totally new group of super-powerful beings. That felt awkward.

 

I haven't watched this ep yet, but talk of super-powerful beings makes me want someone to take a plot thread Moffatt left (clearly by accident) and clear who exactly it is that's so powerful that a stray puddle of engine oil makes the Tardis seem like a child's toy.

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Well I do like Supernatural, so if they’re going to do a Supernatural type episode of DW that’s ok with me. I was expecting the retort from the Doctor that they aren’t Gods they’re just overly powerful aliens who think they’re Gods but it never happened. I also thought the Doctor would’ve sent them back out the universe, not locked them up. Not a very Doctor thing to do. More mention, or implication, of other universes though.

In general, I quite like how ambitious the show is these days but it does seem a bit all over the place.

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I thought it was a good episode, and made better use of the three companions than some of the other episodes this season since the exploration of their fears does allow for some character development and doesn't just have them run around all the time. The defeat of the villains did seem a bit easy, since the male villain had clearly been observing the Doctor he should have anticipated her escape.

12 minutes ago, john said:

I also thought the Doctor would’ve sent them back out the universe, not locked them up. Not a very Doctor thing to do.

She may well not know how to send them out of the Universe, and even if she could could she prevent them from returning.

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