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The Doctor spend 900 years on Trenzalore, then got a whole new of regeneration. The beginning of the season made clear he was confused about things, and the questions he had are not all answered yet. So yes, it was obvious he was still finding his way back, and in the last few episodes we started seeing more and more of the Doctor as we knew him, aspects of his character that remained throughout all regenerations.
But that line.... THAT line showed me he's back. Sure, every regeneration has his own unique way of doing things, but at the core, he is always the same man. And that was it.
Thinking about it again, by far the most disturbing thing for me is that your soul goes to some kind of "afterlife", and, far worse, that you feel cremation. The actually did freak me out a bit. I bet at least one person out there changes to a burial after watching this.
lol I actually had a weird dream based on this story about the don't cremate me thing but instead of Doctor Who characters I was Batman and my companion was Rogue or Jubilee from X-Men. :P And I think Batman was played by Keano Reeves and at some point after changing the universe or something Batman was this guy with whiteish long blonde hair and sunglasses lol. A random dream just thought I'd share it.....
Someone earlier asked the question: "Don't Blink! Don't Breathe! What's next?" Don't cremate, obviously. A bit more of an adult terror there, isn't it?
I was engrossed with this episodes. It reminded me of Philip K. Dick's "Ubik", and the 6th Doctor's episode where Davros decided to run a funeral home. Except this was done considerably better than the Davros episode, of course. (Although, to be honest, I liked the Rock N' Roll DJ.)
When Missy said that she was a Timelord, my first thought was Susan. So I laughed when it turned out to be the Master -- I knew there were going to be a ton of angry complaints online. I think Doctor Who fans are starting to feel Franchise Fatigue (TM) after having so many seasons of Doctor Who on the air again.
So, yes, I really found the episode engrossing. It gave you time to think, and absorb in the atmosphere. Hopefully this will give what happens in the next part more weight -- instead of like the "The Wedding of River Song", where it was just crazy stuff happening for an hour straight. If it turns out the second episode sucks I won't be disappointed with this episode.
Thinking about it again, by far the most disturbing thing for me is that your soul goes to some kind of "afterlife", and, far worse, that you feel cremation. The actually did freak me out a bit. I bet at least one person out there changes to a burial after watching this.
Well that, and obviously the Doctor Who universe is not making some kind of weird theory about death - Missy is clearly trapping people's consciousness in the Nethersphere at the point of death, as she is in need to the bodies intact, having them scream back "don't cremate me" is actually pretty sensible.
Crikey, the BBC isn't going to stick its neck out THAT far, especially given what an important market America is these days.
The cremated deadl's souls would just be in eternal agony; sort of like the guy screaming out cause he had donated his body to science. I guess the pain would stop once your body was ash; though why would Missy keep you in the system if you had no body to put your-reprogrammed--self back into.
Was that really true or just a cover? The person could have been in agony because he was being turned into a Cyberman. Obviously, cremation would be bad for that too. They could be telling you "hey, you're being cremated right now" when they're really being turned into a Cyberman.
Given the modern day setting, that's the only one that really makes sense to me. It's not a perfect fit, but it fits better. It's just an elaborate presentation for the Doctor.
Thinking about it again, by far the most disturbing thing for me is that your soul goes to some kind of "afterlife", and, far worse, that you feel cremation. The actually did freak me out a bit. I bet at least one person out there changes to a burial after watching this.
That was the moment I realized it couldn't be the actual afterlife. It it were, they wouldn't say something that disturbed so many people who have had their loved ones cremated. Thankfully, it wasn't, so no need to worry about it and enjoy the episode.
I enjoyed this episode a lot, but I'm not blind to its flaws. Frankly, it seems quite a bit unoriginal is some of its elements, reusing bits from previous season-finale multi-parters.
* The bad guy team up (Master+Cybermen) reminded me of "Doomsday" (Daleks v Cybermen).
* So does the use of Time Lord technology (the Genesis Ark v the Nethersphere).
* You think people are dead but they're really just raw materials for rebuilding an evil army is the same as "Bad Wolf" / "Parting of the Ways"
* Guest character turns out to be the Master in disguise is from "Utopia"
* Companion's boyfriend is "dead" but then he comes back but then he's really a robot ("The Pandorica Opens")
Also there's the aforementioned completely forgetting about clicking the fingers, which both the Doctor and Clara have been seen to do so they both know about it. If Missy was actually in London all along, and has been since at least "Bells of Saint John", then how did the Doctor not just "sense" her as both 9 and 10 said they would? (10 only missed him because he was chameleon-arch transformed and then hidden by the Archangel network.) I guess maybe Missy's TARDIS (if she has one) wasn't in London all the time? Especially if she had to pick up soldiers from a future Dalek battle. Plus if Missy was in the real world and Seb was in the virtual world, how did we see them together in "The Caretaker"? If the idea is to save both the bodies to be upgraded and the minds to be uploaded, then what was the point of saving the policeman from "The Caretaker", whose body was completely obliterated by the Skovox Blitzer?
Admittedly we have one episode left and maybe these questions will be answered then, or maybe they'll just be skipped over like so many from 11's time were. I guess we'll just have to see.
Whereas 11's era was pretty much nothing but timey-wimey shenanigans, 12's has been mercifully free of same so far. BUT...
If Missy is responsible for bringing The Doctor and Clara together, and if she did it so that Clara would convince the Doctor to save Gallifrey instead of destroy it, and Missy needed that because she was on Gallifrey and wanted to save herself...
...then in fact 12's era has been just as much a timey-wimey as 11's.
Michelle Gomez does a wonderful job as the Mistress, I loved how she channelled Simm. Or was it Simm, because I haven't seen much of any Masters other than his and Robert's? Either way, I had to watch a second and third time just to confirm how eerily obvious she is the Master.
Well my main questions is will Capaldi appearing before in the show be answered? Moffat kept hinting it'll be a main theme throughout the series and it was hinted at a little bit in Deep Breath but other than that it seems to be completely forgotten, overshadowed by Missy and the promised land. Maybe it'll all be revealed in the finale and tie into Missy's arc, or maybe it'll drag on for all of Capaldi's era.
It doubly hacks me off that the early parts include a line or two that at least two people I know really will get a major psychological reassurance/revelation out of, and one of them will then be utterly turned against it because of that last line.
I could understand a future incarnation of Susan turning out to be mentally disturbed. She would have been a Gallifreyan among humans, remaining young while her husband and everyone else she knew grew old and died, and her beloved grandfather never kept his promise to return.
And then when she said she was the one he abandoned my mind again went wild. Romana in E Space? Susan? His ex-wife? His mother? While I was perhaps a little disappointed it was the obvious choice, I'm still very excited about it. Particularly the Master in command of an army of Cybermen!
Romana wasn't abandoned. She chose to stay in E-Space of her own free will, because otherwise she would have had to return to Gallifrey - and she definitely didn't want to. Staying in E-Space with Biroc and the Tharils was her only way of avoiding that.
I agree with what someone said above, though, about this being The Master...again. Can't the new series have its own recurring villains by now? Can't we meet another clever nemesis that's not the same character from 40 years ago?
For those of us who remember Roger Delgado and Anthony Ainley, the modern incarnations of the Master are so far from the suave, debonair villain of the '70s and '80s, that they are practically different people. Delgado and Ainley's portrayals were of a villain who could be utterly charming while being utterly ruthless, but ever since the TV movie, the Master has just been portrayed as a creepy, disgusting caricature.
I agree that Missy (And Simm) are nothing like Delgado version of The Master. However, I think she is pretty reminiscent of The Ainley Master.
I didn't actually believe the guesses/rumors that she was going to be The Master, but, there has been something in her performance all season long, that has made me think of Anthony Ainley in drag, femming it up, LOL. I could just imagine The Doctor saying "I don't get it" and Missy replying back "You never do Doctor, you never do"
Can anybody explain to me what was the deal at the beginning with Clara and the yellow sticky notes and her conversation with Danny Pink? She was acting weird and i don't understand why or what that scene was suppose to be about (eg she has trouble communicating? She's shy? etc?). What's the deal with what was written on the yellow notes and why? Why does she have yellow notes like that? I'm confused.
The notes are filled with references to her recent adventures with The Doctor.
I actually think the explanation is that…..she's pregnant. She was trying to work out how long it'd been since her last period, and it was a bit tricky, because she'd spent time outside the normal timeline with The Doctor, so she was trying to work out how long it'd been for her own body clock, using the sticky notes to help work it out.
That then explains why she was being all serious with Danny, and had to tell him that she loved him. She was leading up to the big news, when he got hit by a car.
"Before all of that, before all of the stuff I did wrong..."
Nice try, and I admit I thought the same at first too. But no. She was simply going to open up to him (in detail for the first time) about everything she'd been up to in her off-hours with the Doctor, and she's gut-scared that the big reveal's going to prove the breaking point as far as Danny's concerned. He'd told her last episode to "go home, do your marking (which she did with the post-it notes), think about it, then tell me." So we're picking up right where 'In The Forest of the Night' left off with them.
Plus if Missy was in the real world and Seb was in the virtual world, how did we see them together in "The Caretaker"? If the idea is to save both the bodies to be upgraded and the minds to be uploaded, then what was the point of saving the policeman from "The Caretaker", whose body was completely obliterated by the Skovox Blitzer?
It stands to reason, that the Mistress has a way to interface with the Nethersphere herself in a virtual reality kind of way with a digital avatar.
I don't think she handpicks the dead like that. I think the Mistress snatches up whatever dying people she can get.
As we've seen with Danny, it's part of the interview to determine if they are Cyberman material or not.
That's how I rationalize it so far.
Which reminds me. Missed opportunity. When Clara is on the lava planet and the Doctor reveals they're not really there... it would have been better if he used his natural hypnotic power (which is almost never mentioned) rather than a technical gizmo.
