The Name of the Doctor

[Stephen Wilson]

So there we go. Big season finale. We was robbed!!

OK, it had its moments. Not too sure I liked the idea of a web-style
conference call achieved across time simply by falling asleep. And I've no
idea how Strax, Vastra and Jeeny made it to Trenzalore.

But overall this story was about as patchy as the entire 7th series. And
does anyone reckon Moffat delivered on his promise to reveal the Doctor's
name?

[maffster]

Don't know about robbed. Did you really expect Moffat to reveal the Doctor's name? Really?

I liked the flash backs even if the VFX were a bit dodgy here and there.

I was a bit disappointed that they revived Jenny - but I guess her death would have weakened the emotional tension surrounding Clara's sacrifice - that and we also said farewell to Library River.

Or have we? Just wondering if when the Doctor hooked Clara to the psychic-link to the Tardis (with wires? Why, they have already communicated directly in Hide..?) did Library River transfer to the Tardis?

Enjoyed the big reveal at the end.

So is this the Doctor in-between Paul McGann and Christopher Eccleston?
Is it the Valeyard?
Is this the Doctor before he was the Doctor?

However, what about the Doctors after Matt Smith?
Clara said she only saw 11 faces of the Doctor.
Are we to assume that the Great Intelligence only went back in time to kill the Doctor - wouldn't he also have been dispersed into the future as Matt Smith sees it and past as dead Doctor sees it?
In which case, shouldn't Clara also have also seen future Doctors?
If not, then is Matt Smith to be the last ever Doctor?

Ohh the questions!
I wonder if Moffat has actually thought about the answers?

--
Mr Maff

[The Doctor]

In article <c9447c89-873b-47aa...@googlegroups.com>,

My review will be in in about 6 hours.
--
Member - Liberal International This is doc...@nl2k.ab.ca Ici doc...@nl2k.ab.ca
God,Queen and country!Never Satan President Republic!Beware AntiChrist rising!
http://www.fullyfollow.me/rootnl2k Look at Psalms 14 and 53 on Atheism
The false churches will conform themselves to this world's demands, seeing as they do not fear and thus do not obey God. - anon

[Dave Arnold]

On Sat, 18 May 2013 20:18:11 +0100
"Stephen Wilson" <stephen.w...@nospam.ntlworld.com> wrote:

> So there we go. Big season finale. We was robbed!!
>
> OK, it had its moments. Not too sure I liked the idea of a web-style
> conference call achieved across time simply by falling asleep.

I totally agree, the whole "conference call" made no sense however you
examined it. Not only were they are able to somehow connect to an
unconscious mind but also ones from the both the near and far future,
one of which was just a copy in a digital library. I don't think I
would have relied on the Royal Mail to ensure a letter was delivered
intact and on time though :) And I'm impressed with a compound which
is still potent after a hundred years.

> And I've no idea how Strax, Vastra and Jeeny made it to Trenzalore.

That struck me too, there was absolutely no explanation given and was
just accepted as normal.

> But overall this story was about as patchy as the entire 7th series.
> And does anyone reckon Moffat delivered on his promise to reveal the
> Doctor's name?

I'm not sure that he made a promise to reveal the name - just because
it was the title doesn't mean it would appear. I am however curious as
to how it was supposed to be the key to opening the door if the Doctor
was the only one to know it - or did he build his own tomb? And if
he didn't surely the Great Intelligence could have found it out from
whomever did.

And what was with all the techno-babble about why the TARDIS was so
big? I don't recall there being a specific limit on the size of the
external aspect of the TARDIS - the Master's appeared as a space
shuttle in one of the Pertwee stories.

But the worst part is the whole central plot of the story.
Why would the whole of the Doctor's life be encoded as a stream of
light that anyone could become a part of? (Apart from to allow Moffat to
have more of his Timey-Wimey nonsense).
Firstly, did someone have to create it, and if so who did it as there
aren't any more Time-Lords?
Secondly, why would it be put in the tomb with no safeguards except a
door that is voice activated - haven't they heard of explosives?
Thirdly, why would there be any need to "undo" all the things the
Doctor had done? If the timeline can be altered then just kill the
Doctor at the start of his life and problem solved.
Why did Jenny vanish when her life was changed but Strax didn't?
Fourthly, how did the Doctor know about it? Unless he'd already been
there - which he said was the one thing that he wouldn't do. Even if it
was a typical thing to happen to a Time-Lord (which doesn't seem likely
considering it's potential for catastrophe, and previous canon that has
the important Time-Lords lives forming the Matrix) see my first point.

Now obviously all of the inserting of Clara into old footage is a lead
into the anniversary, but they could have tried to make a better job of
it: I've seem better composites done in You-Tube videos.

And that's without included lots of the things I dislike about
New Who: the completely sentient TARDIS, companions that are
extra-ordinary in some way, opening the TARDIS doors in space rather
than using scanners (speaking of which - there was more re-writing of
physics unless the TARDIS has suddenly gone a massive binge), River
Song, and more attempts to de-mystify the Doctor. At least we were
spared the Psychic Paper and Magic Sonic Screwdriver this time.

Which brings us to the ending. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but this
means that Matt Smith is the last incarnation. A Time-Lord has 12
regenerations and Matt is the 10th one if we assume that Hartnell was
the original. We know that the Valeyard is yet to come which just
leaves the last one, now taken by John Hurt. So I guess they're about
to come up with some reason to add extra regenerations when Matt
decides to leave. If Hurt is supposed to be the Valeyard then they
could have got Michael Jayston or at least someone who looked like him.
If Hurt is supposed to be some sort of amalgam or parts of the Doctor
then why would Smith seem to blame him for making a decision?

Dave

[The Laughing Dalek]

On Sat, 18 May 2013 13:32:16 -0700 (PDT), maffster
<m.j....@snhs.sch.im> wrote:

>On Saturday, 18 May 2013 20:18:11 UTC+1, Stephen Wilson wrote:
>> So there we go. Big season finale. We was robbed!!
>>
>>
>>
>> OK, it had its moments. Not too sure I liked the idea of a web-style
>>
>> conference call achieved across time simply by falling asleep. And I've no
>>
>> idea how Strax, Vastra and Jeeny made it to Trenzalore.
>>
>>
>>
>> But overall this story was about as patchy as the entire 7th series. And
>>
>> does anyone reckon Moffat delivered on his promise to reveal the Doctor's
>>
>> name?
>
>Don't know about robbed. Did you really expect Moffat to reveal the Doctor's name? Really?
>
>I liked the flash backs even if the VFX were a bit dodgy here and there.

I suppose if like me you were watching in HD then any VFX based on
sub-SD quality source material will look a little jarring but to be
honest I really don't care, I loved it!

>
>I was a bit disappointed that they revived Jenny - but I guess her death would have weakened the emotional tension surrounding Clara's sacrifice - that and we also said farewell to Library River.

>
>Or have we? Just wondering if when the Doctor hooked Clara to the psychic-link to the Tardis (with wires? Why, they have already communicated directly in Hide..?) did Library River transfer to the Tardis?
>
>Enjoyed the big reveal at the end.
>
>So is this the Doctor in-between Paul McGann and Christopher Eccleston?

seems likely.

>Is it the Valeyard?
No.

>Is this the Doctor before he was the Doctor?

No.

>
>However, what about the Doctors after Matt Smith?
>Clara said she only saw 11 faces of the Doctor.
>Are we to assume that the Great Intelligence only went back in time to kill the Doctor - wouldn't he also have been dispersed into the future as Matt Smith sees it and past as dead Doctor sees it?
>In which case, shouldn't Clara also have also seen future Doctors?
>If not, then is Matt Smith to be the last ever Doctor?

I think we are meant to think that this was the death of the Doctor
and it was the Matt Smith Doctor but the introduction of Clara to the
Doctors timeline will stop Trenzalore being the point at which the
Doctor dies.

[The Laughing Dalek]

On Sat, 18 May 2013 22:40:03 +0100, Dave Arnold
<usene...@HATcaledfwlch.me.uk> wrote:

>On Sat, 18 May 2013 20:18:11 +0100
>"Stephen Wilson" <stephen.w...@nospam.ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
>> So there we go. Big season finale. We was robbed!!
>>
>> OK, it had its moments. Not too sure I liked the idea of a web-style
>> conference call achieved across time simply by falling asleep.
>
>I totally agree, the whole "conference call" made no sense however you
>examined it. Not only were they are able to somehow connect to an
>unconscious mind but also ones from the both the near and far future,
>one of which was just a copy in a digital library. I don't think I
>would have relied on the Royal Mail to ensure a letter was delivered
>intact and on time though :) And I'm impressed with a compound which
>is still potent after a hundred years.
>
>> And I've no idea how Strax, Vastra and Jeeny made it to Trenzalore.
>
>That struck me too, there was absolutely no explanation given and was
>just accepted as normal.

I assumed they were took there by the Wispermen/G.I.

>
>> But overall this story was about as patchy as the entire 7th series.
>> And does anyone reckon Moffat delivered on his promise to reveal the
>> Doctor's name?
>
>I'm not sure that he made a promise to reveal the name - just because
>it was the title doesn't mean it would appear. I am however curious as
>to how it was supposed to be the key to opening the door if the Doctor
>was the only one to know it - or did he build his own tomb? And if
>he didn't surely the Great Intelligence could have found it out from
>whomever did.

The Tomb was the Tardis, that was specifically said as such in the
episode.

>
>And what was with all the techno-babble about why the TARDIS was so
>big? I don't recall there being a specific limit on the size of the
>external aspect of the TARDIS - the Master's appeared as a space
>shuttle in one of the Pertwee stories.

part of the Tardis being damaged was the dimensional circuit failing.

>
>But the worst part is the whole central plot of the story.
>Why would the whole of the Doctor's life be encoded as a stream of
>light that anyone could become a part of? (Apart from to allow Moffat to
>have more of his Timey-Wimey nonsense).
>Firstly, did someone have to create it, and if so who did it as there
>aren't any more Time-Lords?
>Secondly, why would it be put in the tomb with no safeguards except a
>door that is voice activated - haven't they heard of explosives?

it is a tomb, not a prison

>Thirdly, why would there be any need to "undo" all the things the
>Doctor had done? If the timeline can be altered then just kill the
>Doctor at the start of his life and problem solved.

because the GI doesn't just want to kill the Doctor but to inflict the
most amount of damage possible

>Why did Jenny vanish when her life was changed but Strax didn't?

Because the Doctor presumably saved the life of Jenny but not Strax,
he only changed Strax's personality.

>Fourthly, how did the Doctor know about it? Unless he'd already been
>there - which he said was the one thing that he wouldn't do. Even if it
>was a typical thing to happen to a Time-Lord (which doesn't seem likely
>considering it's potential for catastrophe, and previous canon that has
>the important Time-Lords lives forming the Matrix) see my first point.

Perhaps the Doctor found out abut his demise when he was in the Matrix
in Trial or Deadly Assassin

>
>Now obviously all of the inserting of Clara into old footage is a lead
>into the anniversary, but they could have tried to make a better job of
>it: I've seem better composites done in You-Tube videos.
>
>And that's without included lots of the things I dislike about
>New Who: the completely sentient TARDIS, companions that are
>extra-ordinary in some way,

I do hope that the next one is "normal"

>opening the TARDIS doors in space rather
>than using scanners

the force field is still there, been established many times in the new
series

>(speaking of which - there was more re-writing of
>physics unless the TARDIS has suddenly gone a massive binge), River
>Song,

Seems like a natural end to the River Song character's story.

>and more attempts to de-mystify the Doctor. At least we were
>spared the Psychic Paper and Magic Sonic Screwdriver this time.
>
>Which brings us to the ending. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but this
>means that Matt Smith is the last incarnation. A Time-Lord has 12
>regenerations and Matt is the 10th one if we assume that Hartnell was
>the original. We know that the Valeyard is yet to come which just
>leaves the last one, now taken by John Hurt. So I guess they're about
>to come up with some reason to add extra regenerations when Matt
>decides to leave. If Hurt is supposed to be the Valeyard then they
>could have got Michael Jayston or at least someone who looked like him.
>If Hurt is supposed to be some sort of amalgam or parts of the Doctor
>then why would Smith seem to blame him for making a decision?

The 12 regeneration limit is an irrelevance, easily got round in any
one of a hundred ways.

>
>Dave

[Agamemnon]

"Stephen Wilson" <stephen.w...@nospam.ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:ZtQlt.8598$MQ7....@newsfe18.iad...

> So there we go. Big season finale. We was robbed!!
>

Nope. This has been the best series since Doctor Who came back in 2005 and
ranks as one as the best ones ever.

> OK, it had its moments. Not too sure I liked the idea of a web-style
> conference call achieved across time simply by falling asleep. And I've no
> idea how Strax, Vastra and Jeeny made it to Trenzalore.
>
> But overall this story was about as patchy as the entire 7th series. And
> does anyone reckon Moffat delivered on his promise to reveal the Doctor's
> name?

He didn't actually promise to reveal the Doctor's name. The title of the
episode meant all that was done in the name of the Doctor.

[Agamemnon]

"The Laughing Dalek" <fuc...@microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:qpsfp89fbgnnn5nhu...@4ax.com...

> On Sat, 18 May 2013 13:32:16 -0700 (PDT), maffster
> <m.j....@snhs.sch.im> wrote:
>
>>On Saturday, 18 May 2013 20:18:11 UTC+1, Stephen Wilson wrote:
>>> So there we go. Big season finale. We was robbed!!
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> OK, it had its moments. Not too sure I liked the idea of a web-style
>>>
>>> conference call achieved across time simply by falling asleep. And I've
>>> no
>>>
>>> idea how Strax, Vastra and Jeeny made it to Trenzalore.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> But overall this story was about as patchy as the entire 7th series. And
>>>
>>> does anyone reckon Moffat delivered on his promise to reveal the
>>> Doctor's
>>>
>>> name?
>>
>>Don't know about robbed. Did you really expect Moffat to reveal the
>>Doctor's name? Really?
>>
>>I liked the flash backs even if the VFX were a bit dodgy here and there.
>
> I suppose if like me you were watching in HD then any VFX based on
> sub-SD quality source material will look a little jarring but to be
> honest I really don't care, I loved it!

I think it was deliberately designed to be grainy. In Tom Baker's section
the colours were flooding everywhere. Only Colin Baker's section was sharp
and even then it was probably too sharp. The scenes on the B/W monitor
looked mostly right. Maybe they should have shrunk the images down to a
fifth of the screen and then used CGI to fill out the background with much
higher definition images, but then the Doctor would have looked tiny, but
they could have put the focus on Clara.

[Agamemnon]

"Dave Arnold" <usene...@HATcaledfwlch.me.uk> wrote in message
news:20130518224003.5d7fa2ac@dave...

> On Sat, 18 May 2013 20:18:11 +0100
> "Stephen Wilson" <stephen.w...@nospam.ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
>> So there we go. Big season finale. We was robbed!!
>>
>> OK, it had its moments. Not too sure I liked the idea of a web-style
>> conference call achieved across time simply by falling asleep.
>
> I totally agree, the whole "conference call" made no sense however you
> examined it. Not only were they are able to somehow connect to an
> unconscious mind but also ones from the both the near and far future,

The mind was no unconscious. It was asleep and in some sort of dream state.

> one of which was just a copy in a digital library. I don't think I
> would have relied on the Royal Mail to ensure a letter was delivered
> intact and on time though :) And I'm impressed with a compound which
> is still potent after a hundred years.

Stephen Moffat has used that idea before in Blink but the letter was kept by
a solicitor and then delivered by hand.

>
>> And I've no idea how Strax, Vastra and Jeeny made it to Trenzalore.
>
> That struck me too, there was absolutely no explanation given and was
> just accepted as normal.

Didn't get how the Doctor and Clara were in a corridor in the dying TARDIS
one second and in the show they were outside of it together with Vastra,
Strax, Jenny and the Great Intelligence.

>
>> But overall this story was about as patchy as the entire 7th series.
>> And does anyone reckon Moffat delivered on his promise to reveal the
>> Doctor's name?
>
> I'm not sure that he made a promise to reveal the name - just because
> it was the title doesn't mean it would appear. I am however curious as

Like I explained to Stephen, the title revealed that the episodes was about
things that were done in the Doctors name, not the Doctor's actual name.

> to how it was supposed to be the key to opening the door if the Doctor
> was the only one to know it - or did he build his own tomb? And if
> he didn't surely the Great Intelligence could have found it out from
> whomever did.
>
> And what was with all the techno-babble about why the TARDIS was so
> big? I don't recall there being a specific limit on the size of the

The technobabble said that with a dying TARDIS when the technology making it
larger on the inside than the outside began to fail it could no longer hold
the inside in so had to grow larger to accommodate it. The only problem is
that the inside of the TARDIS is the size of an entire universe and what
would happen if that leaked out or forced the exterior of the TARDIS to
expend into the size of our own when the TARDIS finally died? The TARDIS
should have been decommissioned properly.

> external aspect of the TARDIS - the Master's appeared as a space
> shuttle in one of the Pertwee stories.
>
> But the worst part is the whole central plot of the story.
> Why would the whole of the Doctor's life be encoded as a stream of
> light that anyone could become a part of? (Apart from to allow Moffat to
> have more of his Timey-Wimey nonsense).

I wasn't encoded into a stream. The white light was the Doctor's time line
which had ripped a hole though space and time along it's path which anyone
could go down after the Doctor was dead.

> Firstly, did someone have to create it, and if so who did it as there
> aren't any more Time-Lords?
> Secondly, why would it be put in the tomb with no safeguards except a
> door that is voice activated - haven't they heard of explosives?
> Thirdly, why would there be any need to "undo" all the things the
> Doctor had done? If the timeline can be altered then just kill the
> Doctor at the start of his life and problem solved.

That would have worked if the GI had know which of the Doctor's
regenerations was the first but it probably didn't, given that they were all
jumbled up in time, so it went for them all.

> Why did Jenny vanish when her life was changed but Strax didn't?

A better question would be how did these event's even happen in the first
place if Jenny wasn't alive to take part in them or Strax had always stayed
evil.

> Fourthly, how did the Doctor know about it? Unless he'd already been
> there - which he said was the one thing that he wouldn't do. Even if it

He knew no other time traveller would go there, so guessed that only he
would.

> was a typical thing to happen to a Time-Lord (which doesn't seem likely
> considering it's potential for catastrophe, and previous canon that has
> the important Time-Lords lives forming the Matrix) see my first point.

The Time Lords probably stopped the time rips it from happening when they
were around.

> Which brings us to the ending. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but this
> means that Matt Smith is the last incarnation. A Time-Lord has 12

Looks like if from the interior of the dying TARDIS, so the time line must
have been changed, but then again wasn't the dying TARDIS still there at the
end? Maybe he decided to go back to his old desktop wallpaper before he
died.

> regenerations and Matt is the 10th one if we assume that Hartnell was
> the original. We know that the Valeyard is yet to come which just
> leaves the last one, now taken by John Hurt. So I guess they're about

That's assuming it's a regeneration and not a psychic projection between
regenerations like the Watcher and the Valeyard.

> to come up with some reason to add extra regenerations when Matt
> decides to leave. If Hurt is supposed to be the Valeyard then they
> could have got Michael Jayston or at least someone who looked like him.
> If Hurt is supposed to be some sort of amalgam or parts of the Doctor
> then why would Smith seem to blame him for making a decision?

Because he saw him do it when he was in his 10th regeneration considering
David Tennant is with both of them in the anniversary special.

>
> Dave
>

[The Doctor]

In article <mq-dnfLIoP6BjwXM...@eclipse.net.uk>,

As we find out in the end of this one.

[Hand-of-Omega]

On May 18, 2:18 pm, "Stephen Wilson"

Did he actually promise to do so, tho? After watching, I found an
interview, and what he said was essentially: "We're calling it The
Name of the Doctor, and we're going to reveal his greatest secret, for
reals!" We assumed those two clauses were connected, but they really
weren't...Still misleading, if the theme is the things done in his
name, then it should more properly be "In the Name of the Doctor", but
whatever...

Probably my favorite episode of the season, which I found pretty weak
all-around. Props for the opening, and we finally see the TARDIS's
canonical True Form! Of all the past Doctor appearances, I'm sure Paul
McGann was probably the most upset, as he's ready, able and willing to
reprise the role, and they gave us barely a second's worth of a bad
glimpse of what might have been someone else done up as him! Bad form,
Moffat...

So Clara's mystery turns out to be a version of what happened to
Scaroth, last of the Jageroth. How many lives was it stated she'd
lived? And one of them was a Time Lady? I'm pretty sure the show will
have her forget all of that, otherwise she'll be the ultimate Mary
Sue. But does she at least remember reading the Doctor's name in the
TARDIS library? I don't blame him for forgetting her when he stole the
TARDIS, he met her for all of a minute and had other things on his
mind, but you'd think he'd have remembered SOME of those other
occasions! This, btw, is a clear instance where the limitations of the
tv show display themselves; Clara's rescue would have played FAR
better in a novel or comic book.

As for the John Hurt Doctor, I'm calling it now: HE was the real 9th
Doctor, who fought in the Time War and ended it by a feat unworthy of
the Doctor's name, before regenerating into Eccleston's Doctor, who we
will learn is actually the 10th. That explains how 11 already knows
him and what he's done. Anyway, he can't be the Valeyard, as he's
gleefully evil and would never do anything for "peace and
sanity"...Nice name check on him, tho!

Dex

[rochrist]

"Dave Arnold" wrote in message news:20130518224003.5d7fa2ac@dave...

>>
>> And I've no idea how Strax, Vastra and Jeeny made it to Trenzalore.
>
>That struck me too, there was absolutely no explanation given and was
>just accepted as normal.

I had the impression that the Whispering Men took them to force the Doctor
to come.

[Hand-of-Omega]

BTW, speaking of the Doctor's body/tomb, I wonder if Lawrence Miles
pitched a fit on seeing this ep!^_^

Does anyone recall which classic episode had the Sixth Doctor
accidently running across his grave? He was also pretty upset by it,
but it turned out to be the lure to a trap...

Dex

[Hand-of-Omega]

On May 18, 10:03 pm, "rochrist" <rochr...@charter.net> wrote:
> "Dave Arnold"  wrote in messagenews:20130518224003.5d7fa2ac@dave...

Yes, they were the bait to lure him to the one place he'd never
willingly go. Wasn't that clear?

Now, it may not be entirely clear how the GI itself can get there and
take others with it, but that's what happened!

Dex

[Your Name]

In article <mq-dnfLIoP6BjwXM...@eclipse.net.uk>, "Agamemnon"
<agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote:

He promised the final episode of the season would reveal the Doctor's
biggest secret, but he never said say that was the Doctor's name.
Everybody simply assumed it from the title of the episode. :-)

[solar penguin]

The Laughing Dalek wrote:

> On Sat, 18 May 2013 22:40:03 +0100, Dave Arnold
> <usene...@HATcaledfwlch.me.uk> wrote:
>
> >On Sat, 18 May 2013 20:18:11 +0100
> >"Stephen Wilson" <stephen.w...@nospam.ntlworld.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >> And I've no idea how Strax, Vastra and Jeeny made it to Trenzalore.
> >
> >That struck me too, there was absolutely no explanation given and was
> >just accepted as normal.
>
> I assumed they were took there by the Wispermen/G.I.

But the Great Intelligence can't time travel. That was an important
plot point in The Web of Fear. (It was trying to steal the Doctor's
knowledge of the secrets of time travel.)

Maybe this was the G.I. from the future, and had somehow learned how
to time travel, and then gone back in time to the 1890s to catch
Vastra and co....?

And since when was the G.I. interested in revenge anyway? As it so
scornfully hissed in The Web of Fear, "Revenge isss a petty human
emotion." (Followed by a long pause during which all the fans shout,
"best served cold!") Seeking revenge like that is totally out of
character.

[AC]

Stephen Wilson wrote:
> So there we go. Big season finale. We was robbed!!
>
> OK, it had its moments. Not too sure I liked the idea of a web-style
> conference call achieved across time simply by falling asleep.

Oh well

> And I've no
> idea how Strax, Vastra and Jeeny made it to Trenzalore.
>

As with previous episodes and your gaps in understanding, try watching it.

> But overall this story was about as patchy as the entire 7th series.

No. You just don't bother watching carefully. If you did, the patches
would be filled.

> And
> does anyone reckon Moffat delivered on his promise to reveal the Doctor's
> name?
>
>

He didn't promise that at all. Again, its only you not paying attention.

Its funny, you demand longer shows, or weekly serials, but cant follow
or comprehend 45mins. Is it that you can only concentrate for 30 mins?
Looks that way.

--
AC

[Stephen Wilson]

"Agamemnon" <agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote in message
news:mq-dnfLIoP6BjwXM...@eclipse.net.uk...

>
> "Stephen Wilson" <stephen.w...@nospam.ntlworld.com> wrote in message
> news:ZtQlt.8598$MQ7....@newsfe18.iad...
>> So there we go. Big season finale. We was robbed!!
>>
>
> Nope. This has been the best series since Doctor Who came back in 2005 and
> ranks as one as the best ones ever.

In your opinion. Not in mine.

>> OK, it had its moments. Not too sure I liked the idea of a web-style
>> conference call achieved across time simply by falling asleep. And I've
>> no idea how Strax, Vastra and Jeeny made it to Trenzalore.
>>
>> But overall this story was about as patchy as the entire 7th series. And
>> does anyone reckon Moffat delivered on his promise to reveal the Doctor's
>> name?
>
> He didn't actually promise to reveal the Doctor's name. The title of the
> episode meant all that was done in the name of the Doctor.

Um, yes, he did. At Comic-Con last year, Moffat was asked if he knew the
Doctor's name, to which he replied, "We find out the truth, but I cannot
pass it on." After a bit of back-and-forth with Matt Smith about withholding
the Doctor's name from him, Moffat confirmed that he knew the Doctor's name
and then said, ".you'll see."

[The Doctor]

In article <a1de818a-e2f5-47ef...@m2g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>,

IF the G.I. is dead so must be the Yeti.

[The Doctor]

In article <Ay3mt.8893$MQ7....@newsfe18.iad>,

Good old Moffat for you.

[Stephen Wilson]

"Your Name" <Your...@YourISP.com> wrote in message
news:YourName-190...@203-118-187-209.dsl.dyn.ihug.co.nz...

So what was the Doctor's biggest secret?

[jgharston]

Your Name wrote:
> He promised the final episode of the season would reveal the Doctor's
> biggest secret, but he never said say that was the Doctor's name.
> Everybody simply assumed it from the title of the episode.  :-)

The Doctor's greatest secret isn't his name, it's that he, the Doctor
- in the John Hurt incarnation - is a genocidal murderer.

JGH

[Stephen Wilson]

"AC" <x...@xxx.xxx> wrote in message news:oM2mt.6568$9X5....@newsfe31.iad...

Oh here we go again. Nobody but you is allowed to express any kind of
opinion.

Please don't presume to know what I'm thinking. And please don't put words
into my mouth. That's one wild imagination you've got.

No, it's not funny that I demand longer shows. I never have. No, it's not
funny that I've demanded weekly serials. I never have.

[The Doctor]

In article <6374b907-5f83-43ee...@q8g2000vbl.googlegroups.com>,

jgharston <j...@mdfs.net> wrote:
>Your Name wrote:
>> He promised the final episode of the season would reveal the Doctor's
>> biggest secret, but he never said say that was the Doctor's name.

>> Everybody simply assumed it from the title of the episode. =A0:-)

>
>The Doctor's greatest secret isn't his name, it's that he, the Doctor
>- in the John Hurt incarnation - is a genocidal murderer.
>
>JGH

Could be.

[solar penguin]

The Yeti robots, maybe, but not the natural wild Yeti.

But what does that have to do with whether or not the G.I. can time
travel and want revenge!?!

[Dave Arnold]

On Sat, 18 May 2013 23:33:10 +0100
The Laughing Dalek <fuc...@microsoft.com> wrote:

> On Sat, 18 May 2013 22:40:03 +0100, Dave Arnold
> <usene...@HATcaledfwlch.me.uk> wrote:
>
> >On Sat, 18 May 2013 20:18:11 +0100
> >"Stephen Wilson" <stephen.w...@nospam.ntlworld.com> wrote:
> >
> >> So there we go. Big season finale. We was robbed!!
> >>
> >> OK, it had its moments. Not too sure I liked the idea of a
> >> web-style conference call achieved across time simply by falling
> >> asleep.
> >
> >I totally agree, the whole "conference call" made no sense however
> >you examined it. Not only were they are able to somehow connect to an
> >unconscious mind but also ones from the both the near and far future,
> >one of which was just a copy in a digital library. I don't think I
> >would have relied on the Royal Mail to ensure a letter was delivered
> >intact and on time though :) And I'm impressed with a compound which
> >is still potent after a hundred years.
> >
> >> And I've no idea how Strax, Vastra and Jeeny made it to Trenzalore.
> >
> >That struck me too, there was absolutely no explanation given and was
> >just accepted as normal.
>
> I assumed they were took there by the Wispermen/G.I.

They hadn't been shown to posses the ability to travel through time up
to that point though, or take others with them. In fact as someone else
pointed out, the Great Intelligence wanted the Doctor's mind to find
out how to do it in the original stories.

> >
> >> But overall this story was about as patchy as the entire 7th
> >> series. And does anyone reckon Moffat delivered on his promise to
> >> reveal the Doctor's name?
> >
> >I'm not sure that he made a promise to reveal the name - just because
> >it was the title doesn't mean it would appear. I am however curious
> >as to how it was supposed to be the key to opening the door if the
> >Doctor was the only one to know it - or did he build his own tomb?
> >And if he didn't surely the Great Intelligence could have found it
> >out from whomever did.

> The Tomb was the Tardis, that was specifically said as such in the
> episode.

Which doesn't explain why the Doctor's name would be used as the key to
opening the door.

> >
> >And what was with all the techno-babble about why the TARDIS was so
> >big? I don't recall there being a specific limit on the size of the
> >external aspect of the TARDIS - the Master's appeared as a space
> >shuttle in one of the Pertwee stories.

> part of the Tardis being damaged was the dimensional circuit failing.

But only so that it grew a few times in size? Still doesn't make a lot
of sense except to have a big TARDIS for the sake of it.

> >
> >But the worst part is the whole central plot of the story.
> >Why would the whole of the Doctor's life be encoded as a stream of
> >light that anyone could become a part of? (Apart from to allow
> >Moffat to have more of his Timey-Wimey nonsense).
> >Firstly, did someone have to create it, and if so who did it as there
> >aren't any more Time-Lords?
> >Secondly, why would it be put in the tomb with no safeguards except a
> >door that is voice activated - haven't they heard of explosives?

> it is a tomb, not a prison

You put bodies into a tomb not portals to someones timeline. If it had
to be kept safe then why provide a means to get to it in the form of a
key, and if it wasn't to be kept safe then why have the key?

> >Thirdly, why would there be any need to "undo" all the things the
> >Doctor had done? If the timeline can be altered then just kill the
> >Doctor at the start of his life and problem solved.

> because the GI doesn't just want to kill the Doctor but to inflict the
> most amount of damage possible

Damage on who? The Doctor is dead at that point so it can't be him. And
killing the Doctor would stop all of the changes he'd made in one go
which would amount to the same thing.

> >Why did Jenny vanish when her life was changed but Strax didn't?

> Because the Doctor presumably saved the life of Jenny but not Strax,
> he only changed Strax's personality.

But not having changed his personality he would no longer have been a
companion and so wouldn't have been in his current situation - in fact
he would probably have been killed along with other Sontarans in some
war or other.

> >Fourthly, how did the Doctor know about it? Unless he'd already been
> >there - which he said was the one thing that he wouldn't do. Even if
> >it was a typical thing to happen to a Time-Lord (which doesn't seem
> >likely considering it's potential for catastrophe, and previous
> >canon that has the important Time-Lords lives forming the Matrix)
> >see my first point.

> Perhaps the Doctor found out abut his demise when he was in the Matrix
> in Trial or Deadly Assassin

But the Time War changed everything about the Doctor's life after that
point so unless the Matrix knew about the Time War it couldn't have
been in there.

> >Now obviously all of the inserting of Clara into old footage is a
> >lead into the anniversary, but they could have tried to make a
> >better job of it: I've seem better composites done in You-Tube
> >videos.
> >
> >And that's without included lots of the things I dislike about
> >New Who: the completely sentient TARDIS, companions that are
> >extra-ordinary in some way,

> I do hope that the next one is "normal"

> >opening the TARDIS doors in space rather
> >than using scanners

> the force field is still there, been established many times in the new
> series

Exactly, in the *new* series.

> >(speaking of which - there was more re-writing of
> >physics unless the TARDIS has suddenly gone a massive binge), River
> >Song,

> Seems like a natural end to the River Song character's story.

> >and more attempts to de-mystify the Doctor. At least we were
> >spared the Psychic Paper and Magic Sonic Screwdriver this time.
> >
> >Which brings us to the ending. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but this
> >means that Matt Smith is the last incarnation. A Time-Lord has 12
> >regenerations and Matt is the 10th one if we assume that Hartnell was
> >the original. We know that the Valeyard is yet to come which just
> >leaves the last one, now taken by John Hurt. So I guess they're about
> >to come up with some reason to add extra regenerations when Matt
> >decides to leave. If Hurt is supposed to be the Valeyard then they
> >could have got Michael Jayston or at least someone who looked like
> >him. If Hurt is supposed to be some sort of amalgam or parts of the
> >Doctor then why would Smith seem to blame him for making a decision?
>
> The 12 regeneration limit is an irrelevance, easily got round in any
> one of a hundred ways.

It may be "an irrelevance" but it's a well established part of the
canon. It gave a definite limit to the life of the Doctor, who New
Who seems to be trying to turn into some form of god-like being ala
Omega. It's this sort of thing that stops me from enjoying programs:
it's the old joke of having had the same broom all my life, I've just
replaced the brush and the handle a few times.

Dave.

[Dave Arnold]

On Sun, 19 May 2013 01:47:03 +0100
"Agamemnon" <agam...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote:

>
> "Dave Arnold" <usene...@HATcaledfwlch.me.uk> wrote in message
> news:20130518224003.5d7fa2ac@dave...
> > On Sat, 18 May 2013 20:18:11 +0100
> > "Stephen Wilson" <stephen.w...@nospam.ntlworld.com> wrote:
> >
> >> So there we go. Big season finale. We was robbed!!
> >>
> >> OK, it had its moments. Not too sure I liked the idea of a
> >> web-style conference call achieved across time simply by falling
> >> asleep.
> >
> > I totally agree, the whole "conference call" made no sense however
> > you examined it. Not only were they are able to somehow connect to
> > an unconscious mind but also ones from the both the near and far
> > future,
>
> The mind was no unconscious. It was asleep and in some sort of dream
> state.

Umm, I'm pretty sure that Strax told the person he was fighting to
knock him out - that's a pretty good definition of unconscious.

> > one of which was just a copy in a digital library. I don't think I
> > would have relied on the Royal Mail to ensure a letter was delivered
> > intact and on time though :) And I'm impressed with a compound which
> > is still potent after a hundred years.
>
> Stephen Moffat has used that idea before in Blink but the letter was
> kept by a solicitor and then delivered by hand.

Which would have been a far better approach, see also Back to the
Future III, if the actual conference wasn't a dumb concept in the
first place.

Exactly. It shouldn't have just stopped at that size. And I'm sure that
originally it was explained that the outward appearance of the TARDIS
wasn't related to the interior anyway, it was more of a three
dimensional doorway which the chameleon circuit reconfigured to blend
into the surroundings. So if anything it should be the chameleon
circuit that was failing.

> > external aspect of the TARDIS - the Master's appeared as a space
> > shuttle in one of the Pertwee stories.
> >
> > But the worst part is the whole central plot of the story.
> > Why would the whole of the Doctor's life be encoded as a stream of
> > light that anyone could become a part of? (Apart from to allow
> > Moffat to have more of his Timey-Wimey nonsense).
>
> I wasn't encoded into a stream. The white light was the Doctor's time
> line which had ripped a hole though space and time along it's path
> which anyone could go down after the Doctor was dead.

Hmmm, OK but surely the death would be the thing that stopped the tear
rather than exposing it?
It's still another one of those Timey-Wimey nonsense concepts that
Moffat seems to love.

> > Firstly, did someone have to create it, and if so who did it as
> > there aren't any more Time-Lords?
> > Secondly, why would it be put in the tomb with no safeguards except
> > a door that is voice activated - haven't they heard of explosives?
> > Thirdly, why would there be any need to "undo" all the things the
> > Doctor had done? If the timeline can be altered then just kill the
> > Doctor at the start of his life and problem solved.
>
> That would have worked if the GI had know which of the Doctor's
> regenerations was the first but it probably didn't, given that they
> were all jumbled up in time, so it went for them all.

Even if that were true, the Great Intelligence should have known
that the first Doctor that it encountered was in a prior period of the
timeline so could have just killed him. In fact it would just have
killed any of them - so why the nonsense about undoing stuff?

> > Why did Jenny vanish when her life was changed but Strax didn't?
>
> A better question would be how did these event's even happen in the
> first place if Jenny wasn't alive to take part in them or Strax had
> always stayed evil.

That is of course always the problem with time-travel based plots which
revolve around changes being made to the timelines.

> > Fourthly, how did the Doctor know about it? Unless he'd already been
> > there - which he said was the one thing that he wouldn't do. Even
> > if it
>
> He knew no other time traveller would go there, so guessed that only
> he would.

But how did he know that what he was going to was something that no
other time traveller would go to unless he knew what was there? In
which case the original question stands.

> > was a typical thing to happen to a Time-Lord (which doesn't seem
> > likely considering it's potential for catastrophe, and previous
> > canon that has the important Time-Lords lives forming the Matrix)
> > see my first point.
>
> The Time Lords probably stopped the time rips it from happening when
> they were around.

With all the different kinds of rifts that they seem to have been
keeping from happening why exactly were they continuing with using it
as a basis of their society?
So did they stop the rifts and funnel the information into the Matrix
somehow?

> > Which brings us to the ending. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but this
> > means that Matt Smith is the last incarnation. A Time-Lord has 12
>
> Looks like if from the interior of the dying TARDIS, so the time line
> must have been changed, but then again wasn't the dying TARDIS still
> there at the end? Maybe he decided to go back to his old desktop
> wallpaper before he died.
>
> > regenerations and Matt is the 10th one if we assume that Hartnell
> > was the original. We know that the Valeyard is yet to come which
> > just leaves the last one, now taken by John Hurt. So I guess
> > they're about
>
> That's assuming it's a regeneration and not a psychic projection
> between regenerations like the Watcher and the Valeyard.

Was the Valeyard a projection? I'd always had the impression from the
series that he was a future incarnation. The Watcher was formless
though.

> > to come up with some reason to add extra regenerations when Matt
> > decides to leave. If Hurt is supposed to be the Valeyard then they
> > could have got Michael Jayston or at least someone who looked like
> > him. If Hurt is supposed to be some sort of amalgam or parts of the
> > Doctor then why would Smith seem to blame him for making a decision?
>
> Because he saw him do it when he was in his 10th regeneration
> considering David Tennant is with both of them in the anniversary
> special.

But he implied that it was a decision that had been made by the Doctor
which had been un-Doctor-like. So whoever made the decision had to be
an incarnation of the Doctor.

Dave.

[Hand-of-Omega]

But, errr...Didn't we already know that?

Dex

[Hand-of-Omega]

On May 19, 7:27 am, "Stephen Wilson"
<stephen.wilson2...@nospam.ntlworld.com> wrote:
> "Agamemnon" <agamem...@hello.to.NO_SPAM> wrote in message

>
>
> > He didn't actually promise to reveal the Doctor's name. The title of the
> > episode meant all that was done in the name of the Doctor.
>
> Um, yes, he did. At Comic-Con last year, Moffat was asked if he knew the
> Doctor's name, to which he replied, "We find out the truth, but I cannot
> pass it on." After a bit of back-and-forth with Matt Smith about withholding
> the Doctor's name from him, Moffat confirmed that he knew the Doctor's name
> and then said, ".you'll see."

I don't see, in anything you've written, where Moffat says that this
episode would reveal the Doctor's name. At most, he implies that he
knows what it is...

Dex

[Hand-of-Omega]

Character growth/development; it said that it had been foiled by the
Doctor sooo many times (most presumably in unseen adventures; note
that the Doctor never does learn that it was behind the Spoonheads)
that it learned the concept of revenge...and wants to hurt him in the
worst possible way, even if it was destroyed in the process. There was
also a time when the Daleks couldn't time travel, but they worked it
out, too.

I'd like to know just how Clara survived leaping into the Time Winds
and being shredded across time, when everyone was sure she couldn't.
Is her mystery not over yet??

Dex

[Hand-of-Omega]

On May 18, 9:46 pm, Hand-of-Omega <dexte...@gmail.com> wrote:
.
>
> As for the John Hurt Doctor, I'm calling it now: HE was the real 9th
> Doctor, who fought in the Time War and ended it by a feat unworthy of
> the Doctor's name, before regenerating into Eccleston's Doctor, who we
> will learn is actually the 10th. That explains how 11 already knows
> him and what he's done. Anyway, he can't be the Valeyard, as he's
> gleefully evil and would never do anything for "peace and
> sanity"...Nice name check on him, tho!

Ok, rewatched, and Clara does specify that she saw 11 faces and that
MS is the 11th Doctor, so that theory's out. BTW, if the Time Scar
showed ALL the Doctor's travels, *including the ones he hasn't had
yet*, then shouldn't the GI and Clara have started at the last/13th
Doctor and went backwards to the first (relative to Trenzalore's
time)? She should be in ALL of his lives, which could have led to cool
guest appearances by her in future Doctor eps!

Dex

[The Doctor]

In article <e594c3a1-c87b-4261...@v3g2000vbr.googlegroups.com>,

G.I. was in control of those things.

[Your Name]

In article <8E3mt.6300$CG1...@newsfe21.iad>, "Stephen Wilson"

No idea - we're a couple of weeks behind here in New Zealand (last week
was the Mr Sweet episode), so I haven't seen the season final episode yet.

[The Doctor]

In article <YourName-200...@203-118-187-22.dsl.dyn.ihug.co.nz>,

Next the cybermen come knocking in NZ

[Your Name]

"Stephen Wilson" <stephen.w...@nospam.ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
> And I've no idea how Strax, Vastra and Jeeny made it to Trenzalore.

You also don't know what they had for breakfast, what colour underwear
they're wearing, and a bazillion other idiotically pointless minutiae. Why
do some people have to be spoonfed *every* tiny little detail. :-\

[Your Name]

In article
<6374b907-5f83-43ee...@q8g2000vbl.googlegroups.com>,
jgharston <j...@mdfs.net> wrote:

> Your Name wrote:
> >
> > He promised the final episode of the season would reveal the Doctor's
> > biggest secret, but he never said say that was the Doctor's name.

> > Everybody simply assumed it from the title of the episode. =A0:-)

>
> The Doctor's greatest secret isn't his name, it's that he, the Doctor
> - in the John Hurt incarnation - is a genocidal murderer.

Nah. His greatest secret is that he really thinks bow ties and fez hats
are utter crap. ;-)

[Stephen Wilson]

"The Doctor" <doc...@doctor.nl2k.ab.ca> wrote in message
news:knbckb$p4d$1...@gallifrey.nk.ca...

So you're saying that the G.I. could travel through time and space (and also
transport other people with him) because he controlled the Yeti robots.

And how did you work that out?

[Agamemnon]

"Hand-of-Omega" <dext...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:8aa9cfbb-bb4b-43bb...@v9g2000yqo.googlegroups.com...

Revelation of the Daleks

>
> Dex
>

[Stephen Wilson]

"Your Name" <Your...@YourISP.com> wrote in message

news:YourName-200...@203-118-187-22.dsl.dyn.ihug.co.nz...

The Great Intelligence has never before managed to snap its fingers and
magic itself and others from one place and time to another.

We know how the Doctor and Clara got to Trenzalore. They went in the TARDIS.
So unless the Great Intelligence also had access to a TARDIS, the way it and
the trio turned up on Tranzalore is not a tiny little detail. It's a
whopping great detail.

[Your Name]

In article <Qpbmt.6920$uT3....@newsfe20.iad>, "Stephen Wilson"

They took the number 13 bus, and then swapped to the number 15 train at
planet Gorgonzola, and then it was just a short walk from the train
station.

[The Doctor]

In article <xgbmt.2439$EM6...@newsfe04.iad>,

Well given that entity is all over the place
one might not know where to expect it to show up.

BTW on imdb.com 656 users rate Name of the Doctor 9.3/10

I still say 8/10 .

[The Doctor]

In article <YourName-200...@203-118-187-22.dsl.dyn.ihug.co.nz>,
Your Name <Your...@YourISP.com> wrote:

So how did the Great Intelligence travel through time?

[The Laughing Dalek]

John Hurt's incarnation of the Doctor.

[Your Name]

The colour of his underwear ... well, has it ever even been mentioned
anywhere? Nope, that's because it's a secret. ;-)

[Ross]

On May 18, 5:40 pm, Dave Arnold <usenetY...@HATcaledfwlch.me.uk>

wrote:
> On Sat, 18 May 2013 20:18:11 +0100
>

> I'm not sure that he made a promise to reveal the name - just because
> it was the title doesn't mean it would appear. I am however curious as

> to how it was supposed to be the key to opening the door if the Doctor
> was the only one to know it - or did he build his own tomb? And if
> he didn't surely the Great Intelligence could have found it out from
> whomever did.
>

Given the nature of the "tomb", it seems likely the Doctor just
crawled back to the TARDIS, pushed the "I'm dying, so lock all the
doors and move the console out of the way" button, and expired.

And yeah, it amazes me that there was a single person on the planet
who thought that Moffat was going to reveal the Doctor's birth name in
this episode. In fact, he came closer to actually doing it than I
expected by having the Doctor reveal, in effect, that his "real name"
is 'The Doctor' because he doesn't consider himself to be the man that
his birth name refers to.

The title doesn't mean "This story is about the Doctor's birth name,"
it means "This story is about what it means that he calls himself 'The
Doctor'" -- the phrase itself is the last line of dialogue in the
episode: Eleven implicitly agrees that the Elephant Man did what he
did "without choice, for the sake of peace and sanity", but "Not in
*the name of The Doctor*"

> And what was with all the techno-babble about why the TARDIS was so
> big? I don't recall there being a specific limit on the size of the

> external aspect of the TARDIS - the Master's appeared as a space
> shuttle in one of the Pertwee stories.
>

But the Master's TARDIS could change its outward appearance as a
matter of course

> But the worst part is the whole central plot of the story.
> Why would the whole of the Doctor's life be encoded as a stream of
> light that anyone could become a part of? (Apart from to allow Moffat to
> have more of his Timey-Wimey nonsense).

> Firstly, did someone have to create it, and if so who did it as there
> aren't any more Time-Lords?

It's the Doctor's corpse. The only someone who "created" it was
whoever killed the Doctor.

> Secondly, why would it be put in the tomb with no safeguards except a
> door that is voice activated - haven't they heard of explosives?

And clearly explosives would have worked and the Intelligence just
didn't think of them? It's 100% clear that the tomb was impenetrable
without knowing The Name, a thing which only two people in the
universe knew, *both of whom were dead at the time*.

> Thirdly, why would there be any need to "undo" all the things the
> Doctor had done? If the timeline can be altered then just kill the
> Doctor at the start of his life and problem solved.

Sadism. The GI wasn't trying to thwart the Doctor or stop the Doctor
from beating him or accomplish some great plan without the Doctor
standing in his way; the GI was *destroyed* when it jumped into the
Doctor's timeline. The whole *point* was revenge. The GI was angry and
hateful and wanted the Doctor to suffer.

> Why did Jenny vanish when her life was changed but Strax didn't?

Strax eventually did disappear. (I know you think Vastra shot him, but
watch the scene and listen to the dialogue. She reaches for her
weapon, but Strax evaporates *before* she can shoot it) Changes like
that to the timeline don't propagate instantly.

> Fourthly, how did the Doctor know about it? Unless he'd already been
> there - which he said was the one thing that he wouldn't do. Even if it

> was a typical thing to happen to a Time-Lord (which doesn't seem likely
> considering it's potential for catastrophe, and previous canon that has
> the important Time-Lords lives forming the Matrix) see my first point.
>

How did he know about what? That he'd form a time scar when he died?
Why would he have to have known? He doesn't mention it until we see
it, at which point he'd know what it was just by looking at it.

> Now obviously all of the inserting of Clara into old footage is a lead
> into the anniversary, but they could have tried to make a better job of
> it: I've seem better composites done in You-Tube videos.
>

That was clearly intentional. They were trying to make it look like
she really was part of the old footage, and that meant inserting her
in a period-appropriate way, such as "Cheaply done 1970s CSO"

> Which brings us to the ending. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but this
> means that Matt Smith is the last incarnation. A Time-Lord has 12

> regenerations and Matt is the 10th one if we assume that Hartnell was
> the original. We know that the Valeyard is yet to come which just
> leaves the last one, now taken by John Hurt. So I guess they're about

> to come up with some reason to add extra regenerations when Matt
> decides to leave. If Hurt is supposed to be the Valeyard then they
> could have got Michael Jayston or at least someone who looked like him.
> If Hurt is supposed to be some sort of amalgam or parts of the Doctor
> then why would Smith seem to blame him for making a decision?
>

Far as I'm concerned, the Doctor has 507 regenerations. That's what he
said on-screen.

Anyway, except for the four or five times that people in the
production have gotten confused, "twelve regenerations" is taken to
mean "thirteen incarnations". (That said, the TVM is the only time
they explicitly phrase it as "Thirteen lives"; all the other times,
they say "twelve regenerations", and in other contexts "a
regeneration" is taken to be synonymous with "one of a time lord's
lives". So it would be entirely valid to interpret the evidence
outside the TVM as meaning that time lords have 12 lives, it's just
that tradition for the last 30 years or so has been to interpret it as
12 *changes*)

The Valeyard is explicitly *not* described as an incarnation of the
Doctor; he's said to be "somewhere between your twelfth and final
regeneration," which would just be a bizarre thing to say unless he
was something different from a normal regeneration.

[Ross]

On May 19, 5:24 am, solar penguin <solar.peng...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The Laughing Dalek wrote:
> > On Sat, 18 May 2013 22:40:03 +0100, Dave Arnold

> > <usenetY...@HATcaledfwlch.me.uk> wrote:
>
> > >On Sat, 18 May 2013 20:18:11 +0100

> > >"Stephen Wilson" <stephen.wilson2...@nospam.ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
> > >> And I've no idea how Strax, Vastra and Jeeny made it to Trenzalore.
>

> > >That struck me too, there was absolutely no explanation given and was
> > >just accepted as normal.
>
> > I assumed they were took there by the Wispermen/G.I.
>
> But the Great Intelligence can't time travel.  That was an important
> plot point in The Web of Fear.  (It was trying to steal the Doctor's
> knowledge of the secrets of time travel.)
>

So... In the past, the Great Intelligence couldn't time travel, and
was deliberately seeking the knowledge of how to time travel, and from
that you conclude that the Great Intelligence many years in the future
does not know how to time travel?

It seems way more likely that hte Web of Fear establishes that the GI
wants to learn how to Time Travel, so *eventually it does*.

(All that said, what evidence do you have that the Great Intelligence
did any time travel in this episode? We're never told the temporal
location of Trenzalore)

> Maybe this was the G.I. from the future, and had somehow learned how
> to time travel, and then gone back in time to the 1890s to catch
> Vastra and co....?
>
> And since when was the G.I. interested in revenge anyway?  As it so
> scornfully hissed in The Web of Fear, "Revenge isss a petty human
> emotion."  (Followed by a long pause during which all the fans shout,
> "best served cold!")  Seeking revenge like that is totally out of
> character.

Yes, totally out of character for a character to change over time!

(That said, the GI this season bears so little a resemblance to the
one from the Troughton era that I actually suspect that that the one
we saw in the Troughton era was really Clara-style re-bakings of the
"original recipe" from when it jumped into the Doctor's timestream.
Just like Future-Oswin and Victorian-Clara, Troughton-Era Intelligence
has the same name and uses a few of the same motifs (Snowmen becoming
Yeti, the World Wide Web becoming physical webbing etc), but doesn't
remember its existence as the Simeon-Intelligence

[Ross]

That's hardly a secret, is it?

(That's the biggest part of why Hurt can't be the "Time War Doctor".
THe Doctor couldn't have rejected him for ending the Time War by
destroying both sides, because *the Doctor doesn't reject having done
that*. Even if he were the Time War Doctor, the rejection is about
SOMETHING ELSE. Remember the one time before that the Eleventh Doctor
has said that if he did something he "Wouldn't be The Doctor any more?"

[David J Richardson]

In article
<c00502ad-da20-4c78...@r3g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>,

Hand-of-Omega <dext...@gmail.com> wrote:

> > As for the John Hurt Doctor, I'm calling it now: HE was the real
> > 9th Doctor, who fought in the Time War and ended it by a feat
> > unworthy of the Doctor's name, before regenerating into Eccleston's
> > Doctor, who we will learn is actually the 10th. That explains how
> > 11 already knows him and what he's done. Anyway, he can't be the
> > Valeyard, as he's gleefully evil and would never do anything for
> > "peace and sanity"...Nice name check on him, tho!
>
> Ok, rewatched, and Clara does specify that she saw 11 faces and that
> MS is the 11th Doctor, so that theory's out.

No, Clara said she'd seen ALL of him, and nominated him as the 11th. So
she could have gone "forwards".

--
David J Richardson -- work...@davidj.richardson.name
http://davidj.richardson.name/ - Dr Who articles/interviews/reviews
http://www.boomerang.org.au/ - Boomerang Association of Australia

[~consul]

'tis on this 5/18/2013 5:40 PM, wrote Dave Arnold thus to say:

> "Stephen Wilson" <stephen.w...@nospam.ntlworld.com> wrote:
>> So there we go. Big season finale. We was robbed!!

>> OK, it had its moments. Not too sure I liked the idea of a web-style
>> conference call achieved across time simply by falling asleep.

> I totally agree, the whole "conference call" made no sense however you
> examined it. Not only were they are able to somehow connect to an
> unconscious mind but also ones from the both the near and far future,

> one of which was just a copy in a digital library. I don't think I
> would have relied on the Royal Mail to ensure a letter was delivered
> intact and on time though :) And I'm impressed with a compound which
> is still potent after a hundred years.

Varda said it, it's easier to time travel in dreams than IRL. Time does seem fluid when I am dreaming. It must be one dimension that is interlinked and directed, like the Amy/Rory episode that had the Dream Master in it.

>> And I've no idea how Strax, Vastra and Jeeny made it to Trenzalore.
> That struck me too, there was absolutely no explanation given and was
> just accepted as normal.

I was confused as well, at first I thought they were just the Dream Constructs, as Jenny and Strax poofed away like when they woke up from the dream conference. But I suppose the Doctor went back to them and picked them up.

>> But overall this story was about as patchy as the entire 7th series.

>> And does anyone reckon Moffat delivered on his promise to reveal the
>> Doctor's name?

> I'm not sure that he made a promise to reveal the name - just because
> it was the title doesn't mean it would appear. I am however curious as
> to how it was supposed to be the key to opening the door if the Doctor
> was the only one to know it - or did he build his own tomb? And if
> he didn't surely the Great Intelligence could have found it out from
> whomever did.

The first thing I thought of when I saw the title was the Umberto Eco novel, the Name of the Rose. Just familiar I suppose. Murder mystery, suicide, the post modern idea in the book that every story tells a story that has already been told, etc. The book ends also with confusion and inconclusiveness, much like the Doctor does.

Of particular, in the postscript for that novel, the author says that he chose the title of the book "because the rose is a symbolic figure so rich in meaning that by now it hardly has any meaning left". Sounds like the Doctor's name as well. :D

> And what was with all the techno-babble about why the TARDIS was so
> big? I don't recall there being a specific limit on the size of the
> external aspect of the TARDIS - the Master's appeared as a space
> shuttle in one of the Pertwee stories.

There wasn't a limit, but there is presumably a finite number of rooms, even if the TARDIS can make them on demand and remake them again and again.

> But the worst part is the whole central plot of the story.
> Why would the whole of the Doctor's life be encoded as a stream of
> light that anyone could become a part of? (Apart from to allow Moffat to
> have more of his Timey-Wimey nonsense).
> Firstly, did someone have to create it, and if so who did it as there
> aren't any more Time-Lords?

I feel that its is just the final regeneration, but without a body.

I snipped the rest, I agree. :D
--
"... respect, all good works are not done by only good folk. For here, at the end of all things, we shall do what needs to be done."
--till next time, consul -x- <<poetry.dolphins-cove.com>>

[~consul]

'tis on this 5/18/2013 8:47 PM, wrote Agamemnon thus to say:
> "Dave Arnold" <usene...@HATcaledfwlch.me.uk> wrote in message

>> one of which was just a copy in a digital library. I don't think I
>> would have relied on the Royal Mail to ensure a letter was delivered
>> intact and on time though :) And I'm impressed with a compound which
>> is still potent after a hundred years.

> Stephen Moffat has used that idea before in Blink but the letter was kept by
> a solicitor and then delivered by hand.

Was this by Royal Mail or just put in the pile with the other mail? I don't recall seeing a postmark stamp on it.

> Didn't get how the Doctor and Clara were in a corridor in the dying TARDIS
> one second and in the show they were outside of it together with Vastra,
> Strax, Jenny and the Great Intelligence.

Some of it was flashbacks of the salvage episode?

>> I'm not sure that he made a promise to reveal the name - just because
>> it was the title doesn't mean it would appear. I am however curious as

> Like I explained to Stephen, the title revealed that the episodes was about
> things that were done in the Doctors name, not the Doctor's actual name.

That make more sense than my shoehorn of "The Name of the Rose" :D

[~consul]

'tis on this 5/20/2013 3:05 AM, wrote Your Name thus to say:
> On Sun, 19 May 2013 13:33:04 +0100, "Stephen Wilson"

>> "Your Name" <Your...@YourISP.com> wrote in message

>>> In article <mq-dnfLIoP6BjwXM...@eclipse.net.uk>, "Agamemnon"

>>> He promised the final episode of the season would reveal the Doctor's
>>> biggest secret, but he never said say that was the Doctor's name.
>>> Everybody simply assumed it from the title of the episode. :-)
>> So what was the Doctor's biggest secret?
> The colour of his underwear ... well, has it ever even been mentioned
> anywhere? Nope, that's because it's a secret. ;-)

That's not his secret, it's Victorias.

[The Doctor]

In article <sfgjp8pp27hg4t3ie...@4ax.com>,

That can be revealed.

[Dave Arnold]

On Mon, 20 May 2013 05:06:10 -0700 (PDT)
Ross <rras...@trenchcoatsoft.com> wrote:

> On May 18, 5:40 pm, Dave Arnold <usenetY...@HATcaledfwlch.me.uk>
> wrote:
> > On Sat, 18 May 2013 20:18:11 +0100
> >
> > I'm not sure that he made a promise to reveal the name - just
> > because it was the title doesn't mean it would appear. I am however
> > curious as to how it was supposed to be the key to opening the door
> > if the Doctor was the only one to know it - or did he build his own
> > tomb? And if he didn't surely the Great Intelligence could have
> > found it out from whomever did.
> >
>
> Given the nature of the "tomb", it seems likely the Doctor just
> crawled back to the TARDIS, pushed the "I'm dying, so lock all the
> doors and move the console out of the way" button, and expired.

People keep saying it's because it was the TARDIS without answering the
question. WHY WAS HIS NAME USED AS THE KEY?
By his own admission he doesn't think of himself as his original name
so it is highly unlikely that he would have decided to routinely use it
for the key. If he chose it as the final key because no-one knows what
it is then he can't have expected anyone to use it - so there is no
point in having it. If he had to have a key then just use some random
garbage since no-one will ever say it.

> And yeah, it amazes me that there was a single person on the planet
> who thought that Moffat was going to reveal the Doctor's birth name in
> this episode. In fact, he came closer to actually doing it than I
> expected by having the Doctor reveal, in effect, that his "real name"
> is 'The Doctor' because he doesn't consider himself to be the man that
> his birth name refers to.
>
> The title doesn't mean "This story is about the Doctor's birth name,"
> it means "This story is about what it means that he calls himself 'The
> Doctor'" -- the phrase itself is the last line of dialogue in the
> episode: Eleven implicitly agrees that the Elephant Man did what he
> did "without choice, for the sake of peace and sanity", but "Not in
> *the name of The Doctor*"
>
>
> > And what was with all the techno-babble about why the TARDIS was so
> > big? I don't recall there being a specific limit on the size of the
> > external aspect of the TARDIS - the Master's appeared as a space
> > shuttle in one of the Pertwee stories.
> >
>
> But the Master's TARDIS could change its outward appearance as a
> matter of course

So can the Doctor's when the Chameleon circuit is working. There was no
mention of this in the techno-babble even though that is what is used
to control the external appearance of a TARDIS. Why not just say the
Chameleon circuit must be faulty?

> > But the worst part is the whole central plot of the story.
> > Why would the whole of the Doctor's life be encoded as a stream of
> > light that anyone could become a part of? (Apart from to allow
> > Moffat to have more of his Timey-Wimey nonsense).
> > Firstly, did someone have to create it, and if so who did it as
> > there aren't any more Time-Lords?
>
> It's the Doctor's corpse. The only someone who "created" it was
> whoever killed the Doctor.

So do all Time-Lords create time-rifts when they die? Must have been an
awful lot of them around before the Time War. Or are we just back to
the fascination of having the Doctor being some sort of extra-special
Time Lord rather than just someone who ran away because he was bored?

> > Secondly, why would it be put in the tomb with no safeguards except
> > a door that is voice activated - haven't they heard of explosives?
>
> And clearly explosives would have worked and the Intelligence just
> didn't think of them? It's 100% clear that the tomb was impenetrable
> without knowing The Name, a thing which only two people in the
> universe knew, *both of whom were dead at the time*.

See my earlier point about the key. The only reason for the key being
his name is so that Moffat can drag out the oh so subtle twisting of
the episode title. The TARDIS has also been shown to be less than
impregnable on multiple occassions.

> > Thirdly, why would there be any need to "undo" all the things the
> > Doctor had done? If the timeline can be altered then just kill the
> > Doctor at the start of his life and problem solved.
>
> Sadism. The GI wasn't trying to thwart the Doctor or stop the Doctor
> from beating him or accomplish some great plan without the Doctor
> standing in his way; the GI was *destroyed* when it jumped into the
> Doctor's timeline. The whole *point* was revenge. The GI was angry and
> hateful and wanted the Doctor to suffer.

Umm, what sort of Great Intelligence commits suicide to make someone
suffer? It's hardly a well thought out plan. How did it know that it
would have any control over where in time it would end up and in what
state (bearing in mind that the Great Intelligence doesn't have a
physical form). Come to think of it, how did it even know that the rift
would be there and needed the Doctor to open the door to get there?

> > Why did Jenny vanish when her life was changed but Strax didn't?
>
> Strax eventually did disappear. (I know you think Vastra shot him, but
> watch the scene and listen to the dialogue. She reaches for her
> weapon, but Strax evaporates *before* she can shoot it) Changes like
> that to the timeline don't propagate instantly.

But aren't Vastra, Jenny and Strax all in the same point in the
timeline - why would one change take so much longer to take effect than
the other?

> > Fourthly, how did the Doctor know about it? Unless he'd already been
> > there - which he said was the one thing that he wouldn't do. Even
> > if it was a typical thing to happen to a Time-Lord (which doesn't
> > seem likely considering it's potential for catastrophe, and
> > previous canon that has the important Time-Lords lives forming the
> > Matrix) see my first point.
> >
>
> How did he know about what? That he'd form a time scar when he died?
> Why would he have to have known? He doesn't mention it until we see
> it, at which point he'd know what it was just by looking at it.

But he does mention it: he says his grave is potentially the most
dnagereous place in the universe as soon as they land. Why would he
think that?

> > Now obviously all of the inserting of Clara into old footage is a
> > lead into the anniversary, but they could have tried to make a
> > better job of it: I've seem better composites done in You-Tube
> > videos.
> >
>
> That was clearly intentional. They were trying to make it look like
> she really was part of the old footage, and that meant inserting her
> in a period-appropriate way, such as "Cheaply done 1970s CSO"
>
> > Which brings us to the ending. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but this
> > means that Matt Smith is the last incarnation. A Time-Lord has 12
> > regenerations and Matt is the 10th one if we assume that Hartnell
> > was the original. We know that the Valeyard is yet to come which
> > just leaves the last one, now taken by John Hurt. So I guess
> > they're about to come up with some reason to add extra
> > regenerations when Matt decides to leave. If Hurt is supposed to be
> > the Valeyard then they could have got Michael Jayston or at least
> > someone who looked like him. If Hurt is supposed to be some sort of
> > amalgam or parts of the Doctor then why would Smith seem to blame
> > him for making a decision?
> >
>
> Far as I'm concerned, the Doctor has 507 regenerations. That's what he
> said on-screen.

Despite numerous past mentions in the canon that there are only twelve.

> Anyway, except for the four or five times that people in the
> production have gotten confused, "twelve regenerations" is taken to
> mean "thirteen incarnations". (That said, the TVM is the only time
> they explicitly phrase it as "Thirteen lives"; all the other times,
> they say "twelve regenerations", and in other contexts "a
> regeneration" is taken to be synonymous with "one of a time lord's
> lives". So it would be entirely valid to interpret the evidence
> outside the TVM as meaning that time lords have 12 lives, it's just
> that tradition for the last 30 years or so has been to interpret it as
> 12 *changes*)

Yes a regeneration is one of the Time Lord's lives. He has his first
life and then 12 additional ones. I don't know of anyone that seems to
confuse that with only having 12 lives.

> The Valeyard is explicitly *not* described as an incarnation of the
> Doctor; he's said to be "somewhere between your twelfth and final
> regeneration," which would just be a bizarre thing to say unless he
> was something different from a normal regeneration.

Maybe this is a difference of comprehension. "Sometime between your
twelfth and final regeneration" I would assume to mean that
something happened within that timeframe that caused him to assume the
name of the Valeyard, not that some extra physical form was created
then.
If someone said you'd lose your arm sometime between your 40th and
50th birthdays you wouldn't think they were talking about some
alternate physical form would you?

[Ross]

On May 20, 11:19 am, Dave Arnold <usenetY...@HATcaledfwlch.me.uk>
wrote:

> On Mon, 20 May 2013 05:06:10 -0700 (PDT)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Ross <rrasz...@trenchcoatsoft.com> wrote:
> > On May 18, 5:40 pm, Dave Arnold <usenetY...@HATcaledfwlch.me.uk>
> > wrote:
> > > On Sat, 18 May 2013 20:18:11 +0100
>
> > > I'm not sure that he made a promise to reveal the name - just
> > > because it was the title doesn't mean it would appear. I am however
> > > curious as to how it was supposed to be the key to opening the door
> > > if the Doctor was the only one to know it - or did he build his own
> > > tomb? And if he didn't surely the Great Intelligence could have
> > > found it out from whomever did.
>
> > Given the nature of the "tomb", it seems likely the Doctor just
> > crawled back to the TARDIS, pushed the "I'm dying, so lock all the
> > doors and move the console out of the way" button, and expired.
>
> People keep saying it's because it was the TARDIS without answering the
> question. WHY WAS HIS NAME USED AS THE KEY?
> By his own admission he doesn't think of himself as his original name
> so it is highly unlikely that he would have decided to routinely use it
> for the key. If he chose it as the final key because no-one knows what
> it is then he can't have expected anyone to use it - so there is no
> point in having it. If he had to have a key then just use some random
> garbage since no-one will ever say it.
>
>

He used his name as the key because he knew that one day the Great
Intelligence was going to kidnap his friends and force him to let them
in, and that River would save them by opening the doors. Do TRY to pay
attention.

>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > And yeah, it amazes me that there was a single person on the planet
> > who thought that Moffat was going to reveal the Doctor's birth name in
> > this episode. In fact, he came closer to actually doing it than I
> > expected by having the Doctor reveal, in effect, that his "real name"
> > is 'The Doctor' because he doesn't consider himself to be the man that
> > his birth name refers to.
>
> > The title doesn't mean "This story is about the Doctor's birth name,"
> > it means "This story is about what it means that he calls himself 'The
> > Doctor'" -- the phrase itself is the last line of dialogue in the
> > episode: Eleven implicitly agrees that the Elephant Man did what he
> > did "without choice, for the sake of peace and sanity", but "Not in
> > *the name of The Doctor*"
>
> > > And what was with all the techno-babble about why the TARDIS was so
> > > big? I don't recall there being a specific limit on the size of the
> > > external aspect of the TARDIS - the Master's appeared as a space
> > > shuttle in one of the Pertwee stories.
>
> > But the Master's TARDIS could change its outward appearance as a
> > matter of course
>
> So can the Doctor's when the Chameleon circuit is working. There was no
> mention of this in the techno-babble even though that is what is used
> to control the external appearance of a TARDIS. Why not just say the
> Chameleon circuit must be faulty?
>

Why should they? Why is it better to spew out some meaningless
technobabble instead of just saying "The TARDIS is dying and therefore
breaking down and one of the side effects is it getting bigger"?

> > > But the worst part is the whole central plot of the story.
> > > Why would the whole of the Doctor's life be encoded as a stream of
> > > light that anyone could become a part of? (Apart from to allow
> > > Moffat to have more of his Timey-Wimey nonsense).
> > > Firstly, did someone have to create it, and if so who did it as
> > > there aren't any more Time-Lords?
>
> > It's the Doctor's corpse. The only someone who "created" it was
> > whoever killed the Doctor.
>
> So do all Time-Lords create time-rifts when they die? Must have been an
> awful lot of them around before the Time War. Or are we just back to
> the fascination of having the Doctor being some sort of extra-special
> Time Lord rather than just someone who ran away because he was bored?
>

I would imagine only the ones who had traveled as extensively as the
Doctor would have time-scars that remained manifest after their
deaths, and there aren't any time lords who have traveled as
extensively as the Doctor. And I imagine only time-travelers who died
in such a way as to leave a scar and not a corpse would have left a
scar and not a corpse.

And I imagine that it someone was dying and had any choice in the
matter of how their earthly remains would manifest, they'd only choose
to leave a time scar if they happened to know that there was a
predestination paradox in their past that required one.

> > > Secondly, why would it be put in the tomb with no safeguards except
> > > a door that is voice activated - haven't they heard of explosives?
>
> > And clearly explosives would have worked and the Intelligence just
> > didn't think of them? It's 100% clear that the tomb was impenetrable
> > without knowing The Name, a thing which only two people in the
> > universe knew, *both of whom were dead at the time*.
>
> See my earlier point about the key. The only reason for the key being
> his name is so that Moffat can drag out the oh so subtle twisting of
> the episode title. The TARDIS has also been shown to be less than
> impregnable on multiple occassions.
>
> > > Thirdly, why would there be any need to "undo" all the things the
> > > Doctor had done? If the timeline can be altered then just kill the
> > > Doctor at the start of his life and problem solved.
>
> > Sadism. The GI wasn't trying to thwart the Doctor or stop the Doctor
> > from beating him or accomplish some great plan without the Doctor
> > standing in his way; the GI was *destroyed* when it jumped into the
> > Doctor's timeline. The whole *point* was revenge. The GI was angry and
> > hateful and wanted the Doctor to suffer.
>
> Umm, what sort of Great Intelligence commits suicide to make someone
> suffer? It's hardly a well thought out plan. How did it know that it
> would have any control over where in time it would end up and in what
> state (bearing in mind that the Great Intelligence doesn't have a
> physical form). Come to think of it, how did it even know that the rift
> would be there and needed the Doctor to open the door to get there?
>

One who is VERY VERY cross. And he didn't "control where in time it
would end up and in what state" -- it was sprayed all over the
Doctor's timeline.

And it discovered the Doctor's fate the same was as it discovered the
location of Trenzalore. It's the "Great Intelligence". Knowing things
is *PRETTY MUCH WHAT IT DOES*.

> > > Why did Jenny vanish when her life was changed but Strax didn't?
>
> > Strax eventually did disappear. (I know you think Vastra shot him, but
> > watch the scene and listen to the dialogue. She reaches for her
> > weapon, but Strax evaporates *before* she can shoot it) Changes like
> > that to the timeline don't propagate instantly.
>
> But aren't Vastra, Jenny and Strax all in the same point in the
> timeline - why would one change take so much longer to take effect than
> the other?
>

Why did the rest of the universe vanish "instantly" and Earth hang on
for two thousand years? Why did little amy vanish but not the others?
Why did the time gremlins eat everywhere on earth except the church?
Because temporal mechanics are COMPLICATED.

Jenny's human, and the Doctor had saved her life only a few weeks
earlier in her own timeline. Strax is a Sontaran from the future, and
from a race which has time travel technology. Vastra is millions of
years old. Do you really need boring exposition to explain how these
things might have affected how resistant they were to changes in the
timeline?

> > > Fourthly, how did the Doctor know about it? Unless he'd already been
> > > there - which he said was the one thing that he wouldn't do. Even
> > > if it was a typical thing to happen to a Time-Lord (which doesn't
> > > seem likely considering it's potential for catastrophe, and
> > > previous canon that has the important Time-Lords lives forming the
> > > Matrix) see my first point.
>
> > How did he know about what? That he'd form a time scar when he died?
> > Why would he have to have known? He doesn't mention it until we see
> > it, at which point he'd know what it was just by looking at it.
>
> But he does mention it: he says his grave is potentially the most
> dnagereous place in the universe as soon as they land. Why would he
> think that?
>
>

Really? Really? You don't understand why THE DOCTOR would think that
the ONE PLACE IN ALL THE UNIVERSE where there was something that
actually SUCCEEDED in killing HIM might be pretty dangerous? You don't
think that the man who survived the Time War, the Reality Bomb, the
end of the universe and his own predestined death in utah might look
down at the scary ball of rock where he knows he will someday get into
something so bad that he WON'T survive it, and say "Yep. I'm thinking
this place is not pleasant."

>
> Yes a regeneration is one of the Time Lord's lives. He has his first
> life and then 12 additional ones. I don't know of anyone that seems to
> confuse that with only having 12 lives.

Except the people who wrote the TV Movie (Watch McGann's lips. They
dubbed over it in post.). Actually, I think EVERYONE assumed they
meant it was a TOTAL of 12 until the 80s.

>
> Maybe this is a difference of comprehension. "Sometime between your
> twelfth and final regeneration" I would assume to mean that
> something happened within that timeframe that caused him to assume the
> name of the Valeyard, not that some extra physical form was created
> then.
> If someone said you'd lose your arm sometime between your 40th and
> 50th birthdays you wouldn't think they were talking about some
> alternate physical form would you?

He doesn't say "Twelfth and final regeneration". He says "Twelfth and
final *incarnation*"

[solar penguin]

Ross wrote:

> On May 19, 5:24 am, solar penguin <solar.peng...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > The Laughing Dalek wrote:
> > > On Sat, 18 May 2013 22:40:03 +0100, Dave Arnold
> > > <usenetY...@HATcaledfwlch.me.uk> wrote:
> >
> > > >On Sat, 18 May 2013 20:18:11 +0100
> > > >"Stephen Wilson" <stephen.wilson2...@nospam.ntlworld.com> wrote:
> >
> > > >> And I've no idea how Strax, Vastra and Jeeny made it to Trenzalore.
> >
> > > >That struck me too, there was absolutely no explanation given and was
> > > >just accepted as normal.
> >
> > > I assumed they were took there by the Wispermen/G.I.
> >
> > But the Great Intelligence can't time travel.  That was an important
> > plot point in The Web of Fear.  (It was trying to steal the Doctor's
> > knowledge of the secrets of time travel.)
> >
>
> So... In the past, the Great Intelligence couldn't time travel, and
> was deliberately seeking the knowledge of how to time travel, and from
> that you conclude that the Great Intelligence many years in the future
> does not know how to time travel?

No, I actually mention the possibility that the G.I. may have learnt
how to time travel in the (relative) future, in the bit you quoted
below.

Try and pay attention to the messages you're replying to. You don't
want to look like Yads, do you?

>
> > Maybe this was the G.I. from the future, and had somehow learned how
> > to time travel, and then gone back in time to the 1890s to catch
> > Vastra and co....?
> >
> > And since when was the G.I. interested in revenge anyway?  As it so
> > scornfully hissed in The Web of Fear, "Revenge isss a petty human
> > emotion."  (Followed by a long pause during which all the fans shout,
> > "best served cold!")  Seeking revenge like that is totally out of
> > character.
>
> Yes, totally out of character for a character to change over time!
>
> (That said, the GI this season bears so little a resemblance to the
> one from the Troughton era that I actually suspect that that the one
> we saw in the Troughton era was really Clara-style re-bakings of the
> "original recipe" from when it jumped into the Doctor's timestream.
> Just like Future-Oswin and Victorian-Clara, Troughton-Era Intelligence
> has the same name and uses a few of the same motifs (Snowmen becoming
> Yeti, the World Wide Web becoming physical webbing etc), but doesn't
> remember its existence as the Simeon-Intelligence

Hang on... If you're suggesting that the Troughton-era Great
Intelligence was post-Trenzalore, then that means the Doctor has only
defeated the pre-Trenzalore G.I. in The Snowmen (and possibly also The
Bells of St John, although that's probably post-Trenzalore too)

Hardly enough of a defeat for the Intelligence to have developed such
an elaborate taste for the petty human emotion of revenge.

I think it's simpler to assume that Moffat just plain forgot about
that line in The Web of Fear. (IIRC he's not a big fan of sixties six-
parters.)

[Dave Arnold]

Sorry but that's why I hate Moffat's Timey-Wimey stories. You can't
just say something stupid is done because that's what has to happen,
especially as we've had it drummed into us that the timelines can all
be changed at a whim. it was only there to try and spin out Moffat
trying to be clever with the show title.

Umm, because they didn't just say that, there was talk of leaking
dimensions. When use new techno-babble when you have existing
techno-babble to explain it. It's what keeping to the established
universe is for in story telling, otherwise you end up with people just
making stuff up to fit the plots - oh, hold on I see what you are
saying now :)

> > > > But the worst part is the whole central plot of the story.
> > > > Why would the whole of the Doctor's life be encoded as a stream
> > > > of light that anyone could become a part of? (Apart from to
> > > > allow Moffat to have more of his Timey-Wimey nonsense).
> > > > Firstly, did someone have to create it, and if so who did it as
> > > > there aren't any more Time-Lords?
> >
> > > It's the Doctor's corpse. The only someone who "created" it was
> > > whoever killed the Doctor.
> >
> > So do all Time-Lords create time-rifts when they die? Must have
> > been an awful lot of them around before the Time War. Or are we
> > just back to the fascination of having the Doctor being some sort
> > of extra-special Time Lord rather than just someone who ran away
> > because he was bored?
> >
>
> I would imagine only the ones who had traveled as extensively as the
> Doctor would have time-scars that remained manifest after their
> deaths, and there aren't any time lords who have traveled as
> extensively as the Doctor. And I imagine only time-travelers who died
> in such a way as to leave a scar and not a corpse would have left a
> scar and not a corpse.
>
> And I imagine that it someone was dying and had any choice in the
> matter of how their earthly remains would manifest, they'd only choose
> to leave a time scar if they happened to know that there was a
> predestination paradox in their past that required one.

Again with the Timey-Wimey paradox stuff I dislike. Either the Doctor
knew that he was creating all these scars in time and just carried on
regardless or else he didn't before but somehow did when he got there.
The former seems to make a mockery of all that the Time Lords stood
for, since they were trying to stop issues with time travel.

But it doesn't explain why an entity that when we originally met it was
cold and deliberating and happy to spend a long period of time doing
things, suddenly turned into this very cross emotional being just
because his plans were thwarted a couple of times.
And being sprayed was my point. The Doctor has lived a very long life,
so was the Great Intelligence at every single millisecond of it all at
once, or did it go to specific parts and live onwards as Clara seems to
have. If it is there before things happened then why is it referred
to as "undoing"? And does that mean that Clara is fixing the things the
Great Intelligence is "undoing" or stopping him from breaking them? But
since the Doctor knows that Clara has done this why all the fuss about
trying to stop her.
I think I'm going to bow out of this since the whole concept doesn't
make a slight bit of sense to me. Other tears that we've seen lead to
specific points in time not to all points in the lifetime of whatever
cuases it, which at least makes a kind of sense.

> And it discovered the Doctor's fate the same was as it discovered the
> location of Trenzalore. It's the "Great Intelligence". Knowing things
> is *PRETTY MUCH WHAT IT DOES*.

But again it's the timing that I don't understand. Unless the Great
Intelligence can time travel, or has access to information in the
future then it can't know about the Doctor's death. If it can time
travel then why go to all of the bother of trying to get into a tear
and commit suicide when it can go back to the Doctor's birth and stop
it from happening?
If if has knowledge from the future then it should be able to use it to
thwart the Doctor's attempts to thwart its plans.

> > > > Why did Jenny vanish when her life was changed but Strax didn't?
> >
> > > Strax eventually did disappear. (I know you think Vastra shot
> > > him, but watch the scene and listen to the dialogue. She reaches
> > > for her weapon, but Strax evaporates *before* she can shoot it)
> > > Changes like that to the timeline don't propagate instantly.
> >
> > But aren't Vastra, Jenny and Strax all in the same point in the
> > timeline - why would one change take so much longer to take effect
> > than the other?
> >
>
> Why did the rest of the universe vanish "instantly" and Earth hang on
> for two thousand years? Why did little amy vanish but not the others?
> Why did the time gremlins eat everywhere on earth except the church?
> Because temporal mechanics are COMPLICATED.

No, it's because temporal mechanics change to fit the current plot -
another reason I dislike Timey-Wimey stuff.

> Jenny's human, and the Doctor had saved her life only a few weeks
> earlier in her own timeline. Strax is a Sontaran from the future, and
> from a race which has time travel technology. Vastra is millions of
> years old. Do you really need boring exposition to explain how these
> things might have affected how resistant they were to changes in the
> timeline?

No, but it served no purpose in the story for them to be separated by
such a big gap since the reason for them being there was because they
met at the same point in time.

> > > > Fourthly, how did the Doctor know about it? Unless he'd already
> > > > been there - which he said was the one thing that he wouldn't
> > > > do. Even if it was a typical thing to happen to a Time-Lord
> > > > (which doesn't seem likely considering it's potential for
> > > > catastrophe, and previous canon that has the important
> > > > Time-Lords lives forming the Matrix) see my first point.
> >
> > > How did he know about what? That he'd form a time scar when he
> > > died? Why would he have to have known? He doesn't mention it
> > > until we see it, at which point he'd know what it was just by
> > > looking at it.
> >
> > But he does mention it: he says his grave is potentially the most
> > dnagereous place in the universe as soon as they land. Why would he
> > think that?
> >
> >
>
> Really? Really? You don't understand why THE DOCTOR would think that
> the ONE PLACE IN ALL THE UNIVERSE where there was something that
> actually SUCCEEDED in killing HIM might be pretty dangerous? You don't
> think that the man who survived the Time War, the Reality Bomb, the
> end of the universe and his own predestined death in utah might look
> down at the scary ball of rock where he knows he will someday get into
> something so bad that he WON'T survive it, and say "Yep. I'm thinking
> this place is not pleasant."

But he isn't supposed to know how he dies. Do you know many people that
have a grave in the exact place that they died? Usually if something
nasty happened, e.g a nuclear explosion, the grave is a ceremonial one
nowhere near the site of actual death.

> >
> > Yes a regeneration is one of the Time Lord's lives. He has his first
> > life and then 12 additional ones. I don't know of anyone that seems
> > to confuse that with only having 12 lives.
>
> Except the people who wrote the TV Movie (Watch McGann's lips. They
> dubbed over it in post.). Actually, I think EVERYONE assumed they
> meant it was a TOTAL of 12 until the 80s.

We'll have to agree to disagree on that one since I didn't know anyone
that made that assumption.

> >
> > Maybe this is a difference of comprehension. "Sometime between your
> > twelfth and final regeneration" I would assume to mean that
> > something happened within that timeframe that caused him to assume
> > the name of the Valeyard, not that some extra physical form was
> > created then.
> > If someone said you'd lose your arm sometime between your 40th and
> > 50th birthdays you wouldn't think they were talking about some
> > alternate physical form would you?
>
> He doesn't say "Twelfth and final regeneration". He says "Twelfth and
> final *incarnation*"

Irrespective of the actual wording, you snipped the point I was
replying to, which was that it doesn't mean that the Valeyard is
something other than one of his incarnations.

[Your Name]

In article <kndbqk$o54$5...@dont-email.me>, ~consul

<con...@dolphinsTAKEAWAY-cove.com> wrote:
> 'tis on this 5/20/2013 3:05 AM, wrote Your Name thus to say:
> > On Sun, 19 May 2013 13:33:04 +0100, "Stephen Wilson"
> >> "Your Name" <Your...@YourISP.com> wrote in message
> >>> In article <mq-dnfLIoP6BjwXM...@eclipse.net.uk>, "Agamemnon"
> >>>
> >>> He promised the final episode of the season would reveal the Doctor's
> >>> biggest secret, but he never said say that was the Doctor's name.
> >>> Everybody simply assumed it from the title of the episode. :-)
> >>
> >> So what was the Doctor's biggest secret?
> >
> > The colour of his underwear ... well, has it ever even been mentioned
> > anywhere? Nope, that's because it's a secret. ;-)
>
> That's not his secret, it's Victorias.

Not really much of a "secret" when it's splashed all over the fashion
magazines and has a runway event attended by celebrities. ;-)

[The Doctor]

In article <YourName-210...@203-118-187-144.dsl.dyn.ihug.co.nz>,

I think you missed consul's obvious joke.

[Your Name]

In article <knebk6$g5l$1...@gallifrey.nk.ca>, doc...@doctor.nl2k.ab.ca (The

Doctor) wrote:

> In article <YourName-210...@203-118-187-144.dsl.dyn.ihug.co.nz>,
> Your Name <Your...@YourISP.com> wrote:
> >In article <kndbqk$o54$5...@dont-email.me>, ~consul
> ><con...@dolphinsTAKEAWAY-cove.com> wrote:
> >> 'tis on this 5/20/2013 3:05 AM, wrote Your Name thus to say:
> >> > On Sun, 19 May 2013 13:33:04 +0100, "Stephen Wilson"
> >> >> "Your Name" <Your...@YourISP.com> wrote in message
> >> >>> In article <mq-dnfLIoP6BjwXM...@eclipse.net.uk>,
"Agamemnon"
> >> >>>
> >> >>> He promised the final episode of the season would reveal the Doctor's
> >> >>> biggest secret, but he never said say that was the Doctor's name.
> >> >>> Everybody simply assumed it from the title of the episode. :-)
> >> >>
> >> >> So what was the Doctor's biggest secret?
> >> >
> >> > The colour of his underwear ... well, has it ever even been mentioned
> >> > anywhere? Nope, that's because it's a secret. ;-)
> >>
> >> That's not his secret, it's Victorias.
> >
> >Not really much of a "secret" when it's splashed all over the fashion
> >magazines and has a runway event attended by celebrities. ;-)
>
> I think you missed consul's obvious joke.

I think you missed getting your brain inserted. :-(

[The Doctor]

In article <YourName-210...@203-118-187-193.dsl.dyn.ihug.co.nz>,

Your Name <Your...@YourISP.com> wrote:
>In article <knebk6$g5l$1...@gallifrey.nk.ca>, doc...@doctor.nl2k.ab.ca (The
>Doctor) wrote:
>
>> In article <YourName-210...@203-118-187-144.dsl.dyn.ihug.co.nz>,
>> Your Name <Your...@YourISP.com> wrote:
>> >In article <kndbqk$o54$5...@dont-email.me>, ~consul
>> ><con...@dolphinsTAKEAWAY-cove.com> wrote:
>> >> 'tis on this 5/20/2013 3:05 AM, wrote Your Name thus to say:
>> >> > On Sun, 19 May 2013 13:33:04 +0100, "Stephen Wilson"
>> >> >> "Your Name" <Your...@YourISP.com> wrote in message
>> >> >>> In article <mq-dnfLIoP6BjwXM...@eclipse.net.uk>,
>"Agamemnon"
>> >> >>>
>> >> >>> He promised the final episode of the season would reveal the Doctor's
>> >> >>> biggest secret, but he never said say that was the Doctor's name.
>> >> >>> Everybody simply assumed it from the title of the episode. :-)
>> >> >>
>> >> >> So what was the Doctor's biggest secret?
>> >> >
>> >> > The colour of his underwear ... well, has it ever even been mentioned
>> >> > anywhere? Nope, that's because it's a secret. ;-)
>> >>
>> >> That's not his secret, it's Victorias.
>> >
>> >Not really much of a "secret" when it's splashed all over the fashion
>> >magazines and has a runway event attended by celebrities. ;-)
>>
>> I think you missed consul's obvious joke.
>
>I think you missed getting your brain inserted. :-(

You missed your brain surgeon trying to rid you of brain rot Your Name!

[~consul]

'tis on this 5/20/2013 11:19 AM, wrote Dave Arnold thus to say:

> Ross <rras...@trenchcoatsoft.com> wrote:
>>> Why did Jenny vanish when her life was changed but Strax didn't?
>> Strax eventually did disappear. (I know you think Vastra shot him, but
>> watch the scene and listen to the dialogue. She reaches for her
>> weapon, but Strax evaporates *before* she can shoot it) Changes like
>> that to the timeline don't propagate instantly.
> But aren't Vastra, Jenny and Strax all in the same point in the
> timeline - why would one change take so much longer to take effect than
> the other?

They were are all currently in the same timezone, but wasn't Strax from our current time, I think most recently the Sontarians were working in that gas episode with the kid geniuses, right?
In fact, I forget thought how he got to end up with Jenny and Vastra, I know I remember some dialogue about penance or restitution.

[solar penguin]

On Tue, 21 May 2013 09:39:42 -0700, Siri Cruise wrote:

>
> Sontarans and Rutans have showed up in Earth's past, in the Dark Ages,
> Horror at Fang Rock

The Time Warrior.

[The Laughing Dalek]

I somehow think the 50th Anniversary special is not going to be a
sequel to The Beast Below!

[Ross]

Well no, but it hints at what sort of thing the Hurt Doctor would have
to have done to lose his name. (Hint: It's *not* ending the time war
by wiping out the Daleks and the Time Lords. Even if he *is* the "Time
War Doctor", that isn't the thing that cost him his name)

[The Doctor]

In article <mj8pp89pios31flen...@4ax.com>,

The Laughing Dalek <fuc...@microsoft.com> wrote:

Doubtful.

[The Doctor]

In article <db647803-90e4-4ccb...@d6g2000yqi.googlegroups.com>,
Ross <rras...@trenchcoatsoft.com> wrote:

>On May 22, 6:49=A0am, The Laughing Dalek <fuck...@microsoft.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, 20 May 2013 05:17:35 -0700 (PDT), Ross
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> <rrasz...@trenchcoatsoft.com> wrote:
>> >On May 19, 8:33 am, jgharston <j...@mdfs.net> wrote:
>> >> Your Name wrote:

>> >> > He promised the final episode of the season would reveal the Doctor'=

>s
>> >> > biggest secret, but he never said say that was the Doctor's name.
>> >> > Everybody simply assumed it from the title of the episode. :-)
>>
>> >> The Doctor's greatest secret isn't his name, it's that he, the Doctor
>> >> - in the John Hurt incarnation - is a genocidal murderer.
>>
>> >> JGH
>>
>> >That's hardly a secret, is it?
>>
>> >(That's the biggest part of why Hurt can't be the "Time War Doctor".
>> >THe Doctor couldn't have rejected him for ending the Time War by
>> >destroying both sides, because *the Doctor doesn't reject having done

>> >that*. =A0Even if he were the Time War Doctor, the rejection is about
>> >SOMETHING ELSE. =A0Remember the one time before that the Eleventh Doctor

>> >has said that if he did something he "Wouldn't be The Doctor any more?"
>>
>> I somehow think the 50th Anniversary special is not going to be a
>> sequel to The Beast Below!
>
>Well no, but it hints at what sort of thing the Hurt Doctor would have
>to have done to lose his name. (Hint: It's *not* ending the time war
>by wiping out the Daleks and the Time Lords. Even if he *is* the "Time
>War Doctor", that isn't the thing that cost him his name)

Something costed his name.

[�G�l�k Z.L.F Buday AKA The Black Jester AKA The Voltairian]

On Sat, 18 May 2013 20:18:11 +0100, in rec.arts.drwho "Stephen Wilson" <stephen.w...@nospam.ntlworld.com> wrote:

�So there we go. Big season finale. We was robbed!!
�
�OK, it had its moments. Not too sure I liked the idea of a web-style
�conference call achieved across time simply by falling asleep. And I've no

�idea how Strax, Vastra and Jeeny made it to Trenzalore.

�
�But overall this story was about as patchy as the entire 7th series. And
�does anyone reckon Moffat delivered on his promise to reveal the Doctor's
�name?
�
�

Maybe he realized it was already done.

[TB]

On Saturday, May 18, 2013 12:18:11 PM UTC-7, Stephen Wilson wrote:
> So there we go. Big season finale. We was robbed!!
>
>
>
> OK, it had its moments. Not too sure I liked the idea of a web-style
>
> conference call achieved across time simply by falling asleep. And I've no
>
> idea how Strax, Vastra and Jeeny made it to Trenzalore.
>
>
>
> But overall this story was about as patchy as the entire 7th series. And
>
> does anyone reckon Moffat delivered on his promise to reveal the Doctor's
>
> name?

Early in the episode, the Doctor's Sontaran friend must ask his human sparring partner to knock him out so that he can attend a weird conference. The Sontaran says that it might take a while to knock him out. Why doesn't the Sontaran just ask his partner to hit him on his probic vent on the back of his head?

[Pudentame]

Hadn't really thought about it before, but I can think of two reasons
...

1. It's possible that the probic vent is a blind spot in the Sontaran
psyche and he doesn't realize it's there. That's why you can knock
them out that way, they don't know that weakness exists.

2. If Strax had just had Archie pop him on the probic vent, you
wouldn't have the comic value of the single blow from the shovel
sending Strax off to never never land.

[Siri Crews]

In article <psckv9922bkg23sq3...@4ax.com>,

Pudentame <no....@no.where.invalid> wrote:

> 1. It's possible that the probic vent is a blind spot in the Sontaran
> psyche and he doesn't realize it's there. That's why you can knock
> them out that way, they don't know that weakness exists.

A long while past a Sontaran points out that it makes them brave: because of it
they must always face their enemies.

--
:-<> Siri Seal of Disavowal #000-001. Disavowed. Denied. Deleted.
'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.'
Icke's razor: Given two equally plausible explanations, choose the weirder.

[TB]

Why was a single shovel blow able to knock Strax out?

[Tim Bruening]

Near the end, Clara tells the First Doctor which TARDIS to steal. As the Doctor flies off, his new TARDIS is SPINNING!

[Tim Bruening]

Clara rampages all through the Doctor's life, saving him over and over. Yet she had never seen the War Doctor.

[Tim Bruening]

Animals: A horse stature, a lion stature, and a bird.

Later, a Zygon horse.

The TARDIS is being carried in a helicopter's grappler. Why can't the Doctor dematerialize the TARDIS?

[The Doctor]

In article <23ddf83b-e6fb-48c5...@googlegroups.com>,

Tim Bruening <tsbr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Near the end, Clara tells the First Doctor which TARDIS to steal. As
>the Doctor flies off, his new TARDIS is SPINNING!

That cylinder?
--
Member - Liberal International This is doctor@@nl2k.ab.ca Ici doctor@@nl2k.ab.ca
Yahweh, Queen & country!Never Satan President Republic!Beware AntiChrist rising!

http://www.fullyfollow.me/rootnl2k Look at Psalms 14 and 53 on Atheism

BC Keep your province Healthy!! Vote Liberal.

[The Doctor]

In article <fdf84731-4910-4f71...@googlegroups.com>,

Tim Bruening <tsbr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Clara rampages all through the Doctor's life, saving him over and over.
>Yet she had never seen the War Doctor.

Until the end.