The Doctor Who Club v.4

**THEIRONDONUT** · 5th January 2013, 6:00 PM

yeah that seems to work, thanks for clearing that up.

(PS, have you been officially inducted yet?)

**MasterGohan** · 5th January 2013, 6:41 PM

I don't think so but I think I will be. I've already contributed to the discussion (mainly because I love talking about Doctor Who) so I'm fairly confident I will be. Who decides that?

**THEIRONDONUT** · 5th January 2013, 10:58 PM

Elyvorg I think, and I think the eleventh also is a mod for the club. Well, let me know when you're officially inducted, so I can give you an official welcome!

**marioguy** · 6th January 2013, 7:32 AM

I've known how I wanted the Angels take Manhattan to finish ever since I first saw it:

Spoiler:

**THEIRONDONUT** · 6th January 2013, 10:50 AM

Originally Posted by marioguy

I've known how I wanted the Angels take Manhattan to finish ever since I first saw it:

Spoiler:

I agree so much. I thought it soooo unnecessary to do that to them, also I found it unfair that they had been through so much turmoil, just to be killed off by a race that, really, probably shouldn't have existed. Wait, how did they even get taken back after they fell into the crack of time-wimey stuff? I forgot

**MasterGohan** · 6th January 2013, 5:24 PM

Their farewell did seem a little unnecessary. Their part of season 7 just seemed to have been put there solely to have them there. It didn't even lead up to their departure at all (though I did like those episodes). I like the angels, I have since Blink, but it seems like they really stretched with that particular episode. Plus they made the Statue of Liberty an angel. How do you explain that away?

**THEIRONDONUT** · 7th January 2013, 3:53 PM

I didn't like the concept that all statues are shadows... just kinda killed it for me.

**VampirateMace** · 7th January 2013, 6:28 PM

I think two things were going on there; A, it was funny (not rolling on the floor funny, but 'oh, how did the Americans not notice this?' funny), and B, it wasn't that all the statues were angels, it was that the angels had the ablity to propagate into any statue, meaning that any statue could be an angel. The idea was already discussed lightly back in 'Blink' which is why the closing shots focus on various non-angel statues, because the angels could be anywhere.

...it's supposed to make them scarier.

**MasterGohan** · 7th January 2013, 8:50 PM

I don't think they were trying to imply that angels can propagate into any statue in Blink. They are simply saying that any statue can be an angel so you should watch out for all statues. In none of the 4 angel episodes have they mentioned or hinted that angels can propagate into a statue. The Doctor stresses that they are living stone not beings that switch bodies. They stressed that an image of an angel is itself an angel but not that they can just be in another statue. If you carved a statue that looked EXACTLY like an angel, then it would become an angel since its an image of an angel. But if you carved a statue of a dog, an angel wouldn't be able to become that statue. But I will agree with your first point. It was quite a poke at Americans that our most famous statue has been an angel this whole time an no one noticed. I can appreciate that joke.

**VampirateMace** · 7th January 2013, 9:31 PM

Okay, maybe propagate wasn't the right wording, but the Doctor does make mention of the angels having left the statues in 'TATM' implying they can inhabit or replace current statues, and there is the suggestion that any statue can be an angel in 'Blink'. Maybe he just meant that since the timeline was corrected, that all the statues they'd replaced were never gone to start with. But obviously they can, in some way, look like other statues.

**MasterGohan** · 8th January 2013, 12:03 AM

Yes, I believe he was talking about the timeline being corrected. And of course they can look like other statues. That's what the whole end monologue of Blink was about, that ANY statue, no matter its shape or look, can possibly be an angel. Its what makes them so terrifying. For a while after I first saw that episode, as an adult, I seriously kept my eyes on statues that I was around, just in case. I love it. The angels are quite possibly my favorite Who villain.

**elyvorg** · 9th January 2013, 11:05 PM

Originally Posted by Becoming

I feel like Moffat is purposely targeting DW's more loyal fans with Clara/Oswin. Think about it. Only someone who knew JLC was gonna play the new companion would get extra attached to Oswin, and only someone who had read that the new companion would appear at Christmas would get extra attached to Clara.

I think that's a really odd way of thinking about it. A viewer doesn't necessarily have to have known that Clara was supposedly going to be the next companion in order to have become attached to her through the episode - or, for that matter, to see that she was blatantly shaping up to be perfect companion material and therefore probably was going to end up as the next companion. Saying that Steven Moffat is somehow "deliberately targeting the more dedicated fans" with her death is just... what.

I mean, you could just as easily say that Steven Moffat is deliberately targeting the more dedicated fans with anything sad that happens. Dedicated fans are, almost by definition, likely to be more invested in the characters and their relationships than a viewer who only watches the show casually and doesn't really get into it. So of course those dedicated fans are going to be more affected than the casual ones when, for example, a character dies.

"Pulling the same trick twice" is an odd way to put it, as well - clearly, having Oswin/Clara die more than once is vital to her plotline in some way, so obviously Steven Moffat has a plan with it and wasn't just unimaginatively reusing the fate he gave Oswin because he couldn't think of anything better.

Also, while I'm willing to admit that the snowmen plot wasn't necessarily the most exciting and interesting plot there could have been, I also don't feel like it matters that much because (despite it being the title) it was never really the main point of the episode. The main point was CHARACTERS being adorable and fun - and so personally I don't feel that anyone should lower their opinion of the episode as a whole too much if they liked the characters just fine and the only thing they didn't particularly care for was the plot.

Re: your character title - ha. Um. Well, for now, because it's all very confusing, and because all versions of her have the same name anyway as far as I can tell so that'll just make everything even more confusing, I'm going to say that every version of Clara counts as the same character for the purposes of character titles in this club. Therefore, having originally claimed Oswin, you now have every version of Clara. You can, if you like, change your title from "Oswin Oswald" to "Clara Oswin Oswald" or something like that, as part of the thing in this new club where one is allowed to use any of the various names/titles their character has been called in-universe (like how I'm "Amelia Pond", not "Amy Pond").

(And I've already changed your name to Becoming in the list. I notice when regular posters here have name-changes. =P)

As for the discussion that's been going on about whether or not Clara and Oswin are the same person and what this might mean in a paradoxical, timey-wimey sense - what you've got to realise is that there's different ways you can define "the same person". If you mean "the same person" in the sense that they're physically the same entity, just at different points in their timeline, then no, I don't think Clara and Oswin are the same person. They couldn't be; they both had completely different upbringings in different time periods, and neither of them had any prior memory of the Doctor before they met him in their respective episodes. And they both died, which is kind of impossible for the same person, in this sense of "same person", to do twice.

On the other hand, if you mean "the same person" in the sense that they both have the same name, and physical appearance, and personality, then it looks like they are indeed the same person, allowing for slight differences in their personalities due to the different time periods they're from. There is nothing timey-wimily weird about two people who are only the same person in this sense to have both died. The only weird thing about her is how on earth the same appearance, name and personality ended up in at least three entirely separate entities spread out across space and time.

Think about it like... like the Gangers. I know apparently nobody except me liked those episodes, but remember how they worked? Someone's Ganger was the same person as them in the sense that they had the same personality and appearance as their original, if allowing for the fact that the Ganger was incidentally capable of doing gooey creepy Fleshy stuff. But a person and their Ganger were still separate, individual entities, with their own personal sets of memories after the point where they diverged and each with their own right to life - nothing weird and paradoxical happened with one touching the other or even killing the other, and both versions could potentially die. It's something along these lines that I believe is going on with the multiple Claras, albeit obviously with a cause that has nothing to do with the Flesh, and on a much greater, universal scale. And I doubt more than one Clara will ever meet - although, hey, wouldn't that actually be a rather interesting scenario that could potentially happen?

MasterGohan: Hi, and welcome to the club! I'd give my usual line about how I hope you'll enjoy contributing to discussion, but I see you've already started. =P Which is fine, of course, as your joining post was easily long enough for me to let you in once I got around to posting.

Yes, you're right: the Doctor has not been claimed yet but is perfectly available. I suppose the reason no-one else has claimed him is that they don't feel worthy of having him as a character title (that's certainly why I didn't even though I had first pick and he is my favourite character ever), but if you're okay with it then I can't stop you.

You have a nice point about about all the companions' families during the Tenth Doctor's run; I definitely also grew rather attached to them and all their messed-up dynamics. But you shouldn't forget that Amy and Rory, too, were part of a companion-family in an admittedly very abnormal but certainly no less dysfunctional way - the only really big difference for them is that the Doctor eventually became part of that family rather than just looking in from the outside like the Tenth Doctor used to. I think that's at least as interesting as the RTD companion families, though it's fine to personally prefer one kind to the other based on one's preferences in fictional characters. I myself have to admit my favourite is the Pond family, largely because I find it absolutely heartmelting how the Doctor becomes part of it, almost like he's Amy and Rory's adopted son, in series 7 part 1.

Speaking of which, it makes me sad to see some people talking almost as if they don't understand why series 7 part 1 even exists. It did serve a purpose (even aside from introducing Oswin which I don't think anyone is disputing the importance of) - it gave us a real sense of Amy and Rory's "ordinary" family life at home in between being dragged off on adventures with the Doctor, which is a really interesting Doctor-companion arrangement that I don't think there's ever been before. It also, very importantly, served to make the Doctor grow even more attached to Amy and Rory than he already was, such that he completely could not cope with losing them and therefore became the way we saw him in the beginning of The Snowmen. Apparently the whole "the Doctor retires" storyline is actually something Steven Moffat had been wanting to tell for quite a while, ever since the beginning of the Eleventh Doctor's run when he realised that this is a Doctor that that storyline might work with, and I think the first half of the series was pretty necessary to make that possible from a character development perspective.

Plus, if we hadn't had series 7 part 1 and had just left Amy and Rory at home permanently after The God Complex, there would be no Clara right now - and I don't just mean because there would have been no Oswin. Without the Angels forcing him to, the Doctor would never have let Amy and Rory go. In the 194 years of his timeline between The God Complex and Closing Time, and even in the time after The Wedding of River Song where he no longer had the excuse that he thought he was going to die, the Doctor never took on a new companion, despite all the travelling alone he'd done and how many potential companions he must have met along the way. Instead, he dealt with his loneliness by continuing to cling to Amy and Rory in every possible way except actually visiting them. He'd have just kept on doing that without end if circumstances (by which I mean Madge Arwell) hadn't conspired to reunite the Doctor with his Ponds, kick off series 7 part 1 and ultimately result in the Weeping Angels separating them from him for good.

As for the Angels themselves, my opinion is that they're not just living stone, no. "The image of an Angel is itself an Angel" - that's a pretty abstract way for a creature to work, so I'm sure the Angels are more than just simply living physical statues. It seems to me, from the one or two lines in TATM from the Doctor or River mentioning them "taking over" statues, that they're something like incorporeal, eldritch beings that inhabit existing statues, of any shape, and thereby make that statue an Angel. Admittedly it seems that there's limits to them switching between statues as they're never implied to be doing that - maybe they're stuck in the statue they first choose to inhabit until timey-wimey stuff changes things, or something like that.

-elyvorg/Amelia

**VampirateMace** · 10th January 2013, 2:55 AM

I'm not sure Clara/Oswin will be comparable to the Gangers (though they might be). Gangers are forced to carry the memories of humans, but were alive in some sense of the word before the manipulation, and are aware of it. Clara and Oswin on the other hand, appear to be humans sharing some deep natural physical/mental connection, possibly a soul…

Of course that is a question of whether or not you believe there are souls, and whether or not you believe them relevant, but it would seem Clara/Oswin is being reincarnated in some manner (If a Time Lord can be the same person in multiple bodies, why can’t a Human be the same person in multiple versions of their body?). I know the Doctor asked, “What is life, but nature’s way of keeping meat fresh?” suggesting a lack of soul. However the Doctor is also purposely looking for her to ‘come back’ a third time, which suggests he doesn’t think it’s just a coincidence of nature.

Of course there’s a ton of Possibilities (including yours):
* All versions are coincidence/product of nature
* All versions are copies of Dalek Oswin
* All versions are copies of Clara or an earlier version.
* All versions share a soul/mind/toda almas
* All versions are immortal and come back (similar to Jack, but with amnesia)
* All versions are not human, and have some method of preserving themselves
* All versions contain a non-human parasite that is being passed through gens
* All versions are just relatives

**MasterGohan** · 10th January 2013, 4:10 PM

elyvorg: Let me start by saying thank you for my official induction into the club. It has already been extremely enjoyable to come on here and have meaningful discussions with other Doctor Who fans that love the show just as much as I do and I plan to continue to post regularly to contribute to this club as much as possible. Also let me defend my character choice. I wasn't trying to be pretentious I just really like the Doctor and he wasn't chosen. But I agree that he is much too important to be tied down to one single member so I will request my second choice of "Micky the Idiot" as my character title. I don't want to be seen as the guy that took the Doctor.

As for your responses to things I have previously written, let me say how AWESOME it is to be able to even have this conversation! I've never really spent much time discussing Doctor Who with people since many of my friends are only casual fans of the show if they watch it at all, so this forum is a welcome treat to me. Also, I love everything that you wrote. I may not agree with every little bit of it but but I can totally understand your views and accept them on the common ground of love of this show. All that aside, let's get into it!

I'll start with this: I love the Ponds. They work well against the Doctor and I like that they make an internal family group. What I miss, though, is that external family. I miss that link that grounded the series to Earth. Amy never has a family in the traditional sense. When we first meet Amelia she is alone though being raised by an aunt. Well we never see said aunt until the end of season 5 when Amelia is going to the museum and even then she's more of a stand in like the adults in the Peanuts cartoon. I don't even know if we're told her name since we only see her in one episode. Rory eventually has a father but not until the beginning of season 7. (I loved Rory's dad, he was fantastic and surprisingly well fleshed out.) Now don't misunderstand me, that setup worked well for the Ponds (though it always kind of bugged me that she had no visible parental units). It made the focus more on the growing of a family than on the separation of a family and I liked that. But to me, and this is just my opinion, it made the adventures less real, less grounded, because they weren't for anyone specific. Let me explain. When the Doctor has the reboot the universe or save the planet from the Atraxi it is for the planet as a whole or the universe as a whole. There is no specific reason other that it will save everyone. When the Doctor and Micky and Rose go to stop the Cybermen it is for the purpose of saving Jackie (even though that Jackie wasn't technically Rose's mom). Or when the Doctor and Martha have to stop Lazarus (I know, not a threat to the whole Earth) they fought to save Martha's family from being killed. What I'm trying to sai s that the conflicts seemed a bit more grounded to home to me.

The Ponds were different. They were the first married companions and so they were just starting as a family and so the family dynamic was contained within the adventure instead of strained by it and it worked. Both make for great adventures but I guess since my own large extended family is so dysfunctional, I could see myself having more Tennant-like adventures as opposed to Smith-like adventures.

One thing that has bothered me about the 11th Doctor's time is the lack of tie-ins to the previous Doctors (except for the 4th Doctor). Everyone on Earth seemed to have forgotten all the Doctor's previous shenanigans and they never really explained why. Yeah there were cracks in the skin of the universe and people forgot stuff but once the Doctor rebooted the universe and Amy willed him back into existence shouldn't that have been fixed? There are potentially people living on Earth that should remember the Doctor's exploits. Martha and her family, Micky, and Donna's family to name a few. And what about Captain Adelaide Brooke? It was the Daleks who killed her parents and the theft of the Earth by the Daleks that inspired her to go into space which in turn led to a fixed point in time with the destruction of Bowie Base One. It always irked me that all of that was just written off as forgotten by everyone when it was integral to so many people.

But I have enjoyed the adventures he's been on and he does mention his previous incarnations though only in passing. So all in all I enjoy the 11th Doctor but the 10th will always be my favorite. I will admit that I had not thought about a lot of the things you said especially about the beginning of season 7. I'll have to rewatch those episodes with new eyes which wont be hard since those are some of my favorite Matt Smith episodes.

One more thing that you might be able to answer. Where the heck did Strax come from and how did he come back? I know he was in the episode where we find out that River is Amy and Rory's daughter, but he's never seen before that and he died in that episode. It's as if he was just made into an important character lately simply to have one. If anyone could clear that up for me, I would be grateful.

MasterGohan/Micky the Idiot

**VampirateMace** · 10th January 2013, 7:35 PM

MasterGohan: I’m not sure where Strax came from either. Though my initial though was oh, 'The Poison Sky', but he’s not one of the Sontarans specifically names in it, or ‘The Sontaran Stratagem’… and their ship got blown up. And little web searching isn’t bringing anything up either.

Some ‘friend’ of the Doctor brought him back, which as long as the body is still fresh isn’t really a problem in the Doctor Who universe (life is just to keep meat fresh). I admit it’s still a little awkward, but he was entertaining enough, and as is the case with many minor characters his reincarnation didn’t get much attention (or wasn’t seen as an inconvenience to the show’s general flow. Like Kenny on “South Park”).

They did this on “Invader Zim” too:
“I thought the Tallest killed you”
“They didn’t try hard enough, I’m okay now.”
Of course they killed him again… which is what usually seems to happen to those sorts of characters, so Strax probably isn’t destine to be around long…

**MasterGohan** · 10th January 2013, 7:50 PM

Oh I love Strax. He's absolutely hilarious. His play with the memory worm was excellent. I just thought that it was a little odd that he was suddenly a major character after only appearing in one previous episode. His death and subsequent resurrection didn't bother me as much as it probably should have. It will be interesting to see what they do with him in the rest of the series.

**THEIRONDONUT** · 13th January 2013, 9:18 AM

Hmm.... I like Strax. XD that is my contribution

**MasterGohan** · 18th January 2013, 6:46 PM

So here's a question. How did Matt Smith "rebuild" the TARDIS console if it is a living thing? I thought only it could change itself.

**fitzy909** · 19th January 2013, 4:16 PM

Strax was awesome. I liked the part with the grenade. I wonder how he will be involved in the series. Also, (it might just be me) i think the new console looks quite similar to the console the first doctor had, except with the column or time rotor. maybe it does maybe it doesn't, but it looks great. It matches the doctor's new attitude.

**VampirateMace** · 21st January 2013, 3:33 AM

Originally Posted by MasterGohan

So here's a question. How did Matt Smith "rebuild" the TARDIS console if it is a living thing? I thought only it could change itself.

He didn't rebuild it in the constrution sense, he more selected some options... as mentioned in the doctor's wife you can change the 'desktop' (and the TARDIS was keeping an archive of control rooms he hadn't yet created, O.O), rooms can be created and destroyed with no trouble at all.

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