Doctor Who (again) [SPOILERS]

[Foeofthelance]

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I'm thinking it might be shenanigans regarding the Pandorica. Between time travel, resetting the universe, and basically wishing the Doctor back into existence, its entirely possible Amy at one point thought, "It'd be really nifty if I had the Doctor's kid!" before getting knocked up by Rory. The Universe, now thoroughly confused, decides to split the difference and give her's and Rory's kid time lord powers. Now throw in some random alien race to monkey around with things...

[Androgeus]

Would it be possible

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for a regenerating time lord to change sex? Or for a (seemingly) young female time lord to regenerate into an older male time lord that looks exactly like Matt Smith? Possibly through some wacky Doctor Who science? And then get shot?
Not that I believe this will happen, just an entertaining thought I had.
There's supposed to be a 12th Doctor, right? Or does 11 really go 300 or so years without dying?

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You mean you've never seen Curse of a Fatal Death?
On a more serious note, 11 does initially think he's a girl after his regen for a few seconds, so the Doctor doesn't think that it's an impossibility.

[Starscream]

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You mean you've never seen Curse of a Fatal Death?
On a more serious note, 11 does initially think he's a girl after his regen for a few seconds, so the Doctor doesn't think that it's an impossibility.

There's also this. Non-canonical, of course.

[small pumpkin m]

Watch this and tell me there isn't an air of insufferable smugness around this man.

There is not an air of insufferable smugness around that man.

[Sanguine]

Watch this and tell me there isn't an air of insufferable smugness around this man.

I am going to have to agree with everyone else and say there is not an air of insufferable smugness around the man. His interviewer however...

[Drolyt]

Would it be possible

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for a regenerating time lord to change sex? Or for a (seemingly) young female time lord to regenerate into an older male time lord that looks exactly like Matt Smith? Possibly through some wacky Doctor Who science? And then get shot?
Not that I believe this will happen, just an entertaining thought I had.
There's supposed to be a 12th Doctor, right? Or does 11 really go 300 or so years without dying?

Although a Time Lord regenerating into the opposite gender has never happened in canon so far as I am aware, it did happen in that one spoof episode, and some producers have entertained the idea, so I wouldn't rule it out.
Edit: Um, ninjas are out to get me. Also the Doctor thinking he might be a girl pretty much says "yes, it is possible", unless the Doctor was asleep in regen class or something (Romana implies that his mastery of regeneration is poor).

[chiasaur11]

Although a Time Lord regenerating into the opposite gender has never happened in canon so far as I am aware, it did happen in that one spoof episode, and some producers have entertained the idea, so I wouldn't rule it out.
Edit: Um, ninjas are out to get me. Also the Doctor thinking he might be a girl pretty much says "yes, it is possible", unless the Doctor was asleep in regen class or something (Romana implies that his mastery of regeneration is poor).

Romana implies he's barely above a high school dropout at one point.

[Drolyt]

Romana implies he's barely above a high school dropout at one point.

Yes, but I got the impression he was a genius who skipped class or something.

[chiasaur11]

Yes, but I got the impression he was a genius who skipped class or something.

Well, he flunked his finals.

About, three times.

[Triscuitable]

There's also this. Non-canonical, of course.

Funny how David Tennant was working on that. 3 years later, he's the Doctor.

[Kato]

Would it be possible

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There's supposed to be a 12th Doctor, right? Or does 11 really go 300 or so years without dying?

Yeah, enough people commented on the sex change. regarding a 12th doctor, I think the... damn, what's the name? Valeyard? He said he was an incarnation of the Doctor after the 12th (or possibly 13th) which means there will be more incarnations, unless they will retcon that and I don't think they would. 11 is not the last.

As for regenerating... uh.... Romana could regenerate at will into whatever shape she wanted, couldn't she? So, yeah, the Doctor sucks at it. But maybe he can still sex change.

[The Big Dice]

I am going to have to agree with everyone else and say there is not an air of insufferable smugness around the man. His interviewer however...

His interviewer was a fairly typical BBC interviewer. But there was no need for Moffat's smirks, his self satisfied expression, his constant assertations that he knows exactly what children want (complete with implication that Who is a children's and not a family show) or his attempts to justify what is, given the way the BBC works, obviously an executive decision that was made way above his pay grade.

Romana implies that his mastery of regeneration is poor.

Romana regenerated of her own volition in a highly dubious scene written by Douglas Adams. A man who also assumed the Daleks were robots in the very same story and was responsible for some of the worst indulgences of Tom Baker and his comic touches that the show had seen.

Admittedly, H2G2 had just exploded at the time and he was pretty much splitting his time and attention between the two, so a fair amount of crossover was almost inevitable.

Romana implies he's barely above a high school dropout at one point.

She says he graduated the Academy with 51% at his second try. A reminder that sends the Doctor into an indignant outburst. BUt in Britain at the time, it was important to the character of the Doctor that he was seen as an underacheiver and a rebel against the system.

Yeah, enough people commented on the sex change. regarding a 12th doctor, I think the... damn, what's the name? Valeyard? He said he was an incarnation of the Doctor after the 12th (or possibly 13th) which means there will be more incarnations, unless they will retcon that and I don't think they would. 11 is not the last.

The Valeyard was an echo from between the Doctor's 12 and 13th incarnations. Much like the Watcher was an inbetween stage for the 4th and 5th Doctors. He was a distillation of all the negative aspects of the Doctor's character, but wasn't actually a being in his own right.

Of course, the current regime with their apparent preference for change for the sake of change might alter that. But that's how he was described in the closing episodes of the Trial of a Time Lord.

Where coincidentally, the Doctor was accused of committing genocide. An accusation he reacted to with regret and sorrow, rather than the relish he shows after doing the same thing in last week's episode.

As for regenerating... uh.... Romana could regenerate at will into whatever shape she wanted, couldn't she? So, yeah, the Doctor sucks at it. But maybe he can still sex change.

That was Douglas Adams trying to justify casting Lalla Ward, who had played Princess Astra in the previous story. Mary Tamm quit the part, Lalla Ward was cast and some excuse for the change was needed.

Watching Destiny of the Daleks, not only is the story itself a bit iffy, the whole Romana Regenerates thing was extremely dodgy, played purely for laughs. Though it did result in Lalla dressed in a pink and girly version of Tom Baker's costume, so not everything about it was bad...

[Dienekes]

His interviewer was a fairly typical BBC interviewer. But there was no need for Moffat's smirks, his self satisfied expression, his constant assertations that he knows exactly what children want (complete with implication that Who is a children's and not a family show) or his attempts to justify what is, given the way the BBC works, obviously an executive decision that was made way above his pay grade.

You must really dislike this guy mate. All I see is a guy enjoying himself and talking about something he seems to be interested in. And he mentions kids like once.

[Eldan]

I'm still wondering, and I don't think anyone reacted to my question:

What harm where the Silents actually doing to humanity? They "rule" apparently, but what is that even supposed to mean?

[Kobold-Bard]

I'm still wondering, and I don't think anyone reacted to my question:

What harm where the Silents actually doing to humanity? They "rule" apparently, but what is that even supposed to mean?

They used Post Hypnotic Suggestion to take free will away from humanity. The Dr. is pretty big on free will and quite fond of humanity. Ergo, the Silence must DIE!!

[Thufir]

Also, while we may not know the details of what they've done, "You should kill us all on sight" is not a line you would expect from benevolent ruling aliens.

[Serpentine]

There was also some mention of all the suffering humanity has gone through, with the implication at least of the Doctor's assumption that they are responsible for all our wars and so on, or at the very least that they could have stopped us from doing that - directing us in a nice direction - and chose not to do so.

I couldn't understand what that one alien was saying, even when they slowed it down and repeated it...

Also, someone probably already mentioned it, but: Slenderman, much?

[chiasaur11]

They murdered an innocent woman right in front of Pond for no reason beyond spite.

Right nasty pieces of work, and no mistake.

[Sanguine]

They murdered an innocent woman right in front of Pond for no reason beyond spite.

Right nasty pieces of work, and no mistake.

True, but none of the characters remember that.

[Eleanor_Rigby]

I'm still wondering, and I don't think anyone reacted to my question:

What harm where the Silents actually doing to humanity? They "rule" apparently, but what is that even supposed to mean?

My sister asked me the same question after this weekend's episode and I wasn't sure I knew either. We came up with the reasons that have been posted in the end, but it still feels pretty undoctor like to condone genocide like that even indirectly. It was a fairly controversial move considering how keen he is on pacifist methods but it's not like it's without precedent, in NuWho at the very least (The time war, the Doctor's reaction to the first "last Dalek" in "Dalek", Tennant's first Christmas special, the Doctor's decision to let over 100 Ood die in preference of a single human, Donna's first Christmas special, Pompeii, putting the entire universe and all of space and time in direct jeapordy because Rory was cut up about Amy...) Most of the examples that come to mind are more cases of the doctor letting things play out with a degree of discomfort but the inevitable end of series reversals tend to play havoc with non finale-episodes' internal logic. Also should be noted that many of the examples I actually listed were very tricky situations and the doc's decisions in those instances usually came back to bite him.

They murdered an innocent woman right in front of Pond for no reason beyond spite.

Right nasty pieces of work, and no mistake.

Whilst I agree with this and so did my sister we were both uncomfortably aware of the fact that he only ever encountered evidence of an extremely small minority of the Silents and condemned their species on the word of one individual - he could have been a psychopath, plus it seems overkill to have them all killed for being opportunists - that's one of the very reasons he has his love/hate relationship with humanity in the first place, the fact they're very resourceful. I didn't find it out of character though just... unfortunate.
Wondered if they weren't trying to imply Prof/Doc Song may be a very corrupting influence on our boy too. I found her much less grating in this series though.
One can also hope that if there's a peaceful and benevolent part of their society then those individuals will just stay their distance and flee when weaponry is collected. I imagine the parallels with his own meddling race would have made the existence of the Silent a very sore point.

[BRC]

Some thoughts on the episode

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1: I saw lots of Trailerbait. Shots used in the trailer/as a cliffhanger that did not amount to very much in the actual episode. Like Amy shooting the little girl, then having missed.
2: The three months we didn't see, it seems like they wanted certain things from this episode, but rather than make a good transition they just said "And then there were three months, in which things happened that led to this stuff" Like, for example, why was it necessary to have Amy, River, and Rory be chased by the government for a couple months? If the goal was to use their tally-mark system to determine the extent of the Silence invasion, then why do so while being chased around by the feds? It was a nice cinematic "Gotcha", but it made no sense.
Also, they conveniently didn't show us the point where Team Doctor learns about the Silence. The whole point is that you forget they exist when not looking at them. At some point Team Doctor managed to circumvent that, hence the Silence-Seeing Tour of the lower 48. But we don't know how. That SHOULD have been a big moment, but instead we're just told "It happened".


That said, while violent, the Doctor's solution to the Silence, turning their own tricks against them, was classic Doctor. And the idea of turning humanity into a subliminally implanted army of silence-killers is the type of thing Moffat is good at.

Also, teleporting Hyper Nixon solves problems with Patriotism.

And for the record, this is hardly the first time the Doctor has killed, or aided in the killing of, plenty of aliens over the years. Mind you it's rarely his first recourse. The usual pattern is
Doctor: Stop what you're doing/You don't need to do this, I can help you solve your problem without killing people!"
Alien Menace: Nope. We're just going to keep killing people if that's okay with you.
Doctor: No, it's not, (Pushes Button, activates plot device, aliens get killed/shut down/sent to an alternate universe/erased from existence).


The thing is, usually the things he encounters have some clear agenda, "We're out of food, so we're eating humans", "Our world was destroyed, so we're coming here".

Also, consider the situation. If he no longer wants the Silence running around subliminally manipulating humanity and vaporising people.There are too many of them for him to just pick up and put elsewhere, plus they don't really want to leave. Was there really a peaceful way to get rid of them?

[Kato]

Some thoughts on the episode

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2: The three months we didn't see, it seems like they wanted certain things from this episode, but rather than make a good transition they just said "And then there were three months, in which things happened that led to this stuff" Like, for example, why was it necessary to have Amy, River, and Rory be chased by the government for a couple months? If the goal was to use their tally-mark system to determine the extent of the Silence invasion, then why do so while being chased around by the feds? It was a nice cinematic "Gotcha", but it made no sense.

Well...

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Thing is, they didn't have much of a choice. I guess the Silent got a bit suspicious after whatever they found out so they used the government to hunt them for some reason. And they needed (apparently) the governments help to get the... prison thing built to hold the silent hostage for a while. It's nor perfectly fine but overall I think it makes sense.

Okay, I'll not put that in spoilers: Concerning the genocide: They are free to leave. Humanity is merely given the mean to defend itself. He never said 'go around and hunt them down'. It's not perfect but it#s not exactly genocide given the enemy. I guess it would be like trying to talk to an Angel...

[BRC]

Well...

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Thing is, they didn't have much of a choice. I guess the Silent got a bit suspicious after whatever they found out so they used the government to hunt them for some reason. And they needed (apparently) the governments help to get the... prison thing built to hold the silent hostage for a while. It's nor perfectly fine but overall I think it makes sense.

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Okay, so why didn't they show us that. They just kind of jumped to "Canton is killing the Companions/the Doctor has been trapped", then "The Companions are not really dead/Canton was working with the Doctor the whole time".

They just kind of cooked up some problems, then solved them five minutes later with no real explanation of why they existed in the first place. They could just of easily had shown Amy calmly being driven through Utah, counting the marks on her arms, River peering into alleyways in New York, then Rory sightseeing on the dam, all with marks all over them. Then they all regroup at Area 51 where the Doctor has been helping the government design a prison capable of holding a Silence.

The rest of the episode could have been pretty much identical, they would have reached the same conclusions, and there wouldn't be this giant 'Trust us, things happened" hanging over everything.

[Drolyt]

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Okay, so why didn't they show us that. They just kind of jumped to "Canton is killing the Companions/the Doctor has been trapped", then "The Companions are not really dead/Canton was working with the Doctor the whole time".

They just kind of cooked up some problems, then solved them five minutes later with no real explanation of why they existed in the first place. They could just of easily had shown Amy calmly being driven through Utah, counting the marks on her arms, River peering into alleyways in New York, then Rory sightseeing on the dam, all with marks all over them. Then they all regroup at Area 51 where the Doctor has been helping the government design a prison capable of holding a Silence.

The rest of the episode could have been pretty much identical, they would have reached the same conclusions, and there wouldn't be this giant 'Trust us, things happened" hanging over everything.

Rule of cool?

[BRC]

Rule of cool?

Okay, you've got me there.

[Eldan]

Interesting idea:

Last season, we saw the Silent Tardis in the present, roughly forty years after humanity started killing them. So it seem at least some of them survived.

[Mauve Shirt]

I forget, in what episode did we see a Silent Tardis?

[Tiger Duck]

The Lodger

[Kobold-Bard]

Interesting idea:

Last season, we saw the Silent Tardis in the present, roughly forty years after humanity started killing them. So it seem at least some of them survived.

If the little girl is Time Lord, and the Silence are parasites that mooch technology from other races, could it not be her Tardis?

I had a point to go with this random question, but for the life of me I can't remember what it was. Damn

[Sanguine]

If the little girl is Time Lord, and the Silence are parasites that mooch technology from other races, could it not be her Tardis?

Ah, but in The Lodger the Doctor said it was not in fact a true Tardis. He even gos so far as to insinuate he would overload it to disastrous results.