S13E03 "Once, Upon Time" BBC1 6.30-7.20pm 14th November

[YellowSubmarine]

Speculation: the Chibbers Masterplan: reboot the entire universe.

A splendid idea. They haven't done since their second to last regeneration!

The alliance with the Weeping Angels I've been sensing to come since Episode 1 is one good thing that could come out of the set-up so far. The Weeping Angels having more sense than the Cybermen, Daleks and Sontarans at the end of the universe? I can totally see that.

Oh, and not to diss the idea of a “reboot” too much: While I've been disappointed with the execution of the Timeless Child idea, if the Doctor has her memory wiped again at the end of the series (after discovering her true past), and the 14th series starts with a Doctor who thinks they are the first one, that would be a good, er, I mean, average pay-off.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Oh, and not to diss the idea of a “reboot” too much: While I've been disappointed with the execution of the Timeless Child idea, if the Doctor has her memory wiped again at the end of the series (after discovering her true past), and the 14th series starts with a Doctor who thinks they are the first one, that would be a good, er, I mean, average pay-off.

Will the Doctor get a winning lottery ticket as well?

 

[Mr Awe]

Not for the last time - just the last time as we knew them.

We're going to wind up with a newly regenerated Doctor in a brand new universe that has never heard of him/her - continuity slate wiped completely clean, his/her mind permanently erased of everything we've seen over the last 58 years. Just him/her, a blue police box he/she doesn't have the first clue how to fly, and (maybe) a buzzing wand-like thing in his/her hand. Ultra-hard reboot and reformatting, all the way back to 1963 specs.

I don't think so. RTD wants an empire and he'll need more of the DW Universe toys to play with to do that--spinoff series of things established during its run. Can't do that if it's all wiped clean.

 

[Mr Awe]

Only that, as of the moment Vinder was put into the timestorm by Swarm, Yaz was the only member of Team TARDIS he had actually met.

Or he might fancy her. Take your pick.

That's a good point and possibly a bit of a plot hole because why would Yaz be able to do that? Unless this is something that will be addressed later.

And, he's too into Bel to think about Yaz!

 

[matthunter]

DenOfGeek have addressed the "Are Vinder and Bel the Doctor's parents?" thing. I'm still not convinced Chibbers would go this route, but the most relevant information is that Vinder logged over 20,000 reports from Outpost Rose and, even if that was 10 reports a day, he's been there over 5 years. If it's daily, that's 54 years. And he looks like that. So a long-lived species. And his wife/GF is still carrying his baby after that long (admittedly, she might have used IVF).

 

[YellowSubmarine]

Will the Doctor get a winning lottery ticket as well?

The scratch-off ticket revealed: “You win £1. Your TARDIS resets itself to its original cylindrical form, and parks itself on Gallifrey.”

 

[ThreeEdgedSword]

DenOfGeek have addressed the "Are Vinder and Bel the Doctor's parents?" thing. I'm still not convinced Chibbers would go this route, but the most relevant information is that Vinder logged over 20,000 reports from Outpost Rose and, even if that was 10 reports a day, he's been there over 5 years. If it's daily, that's 54 years. And he looks like that. So a long-lived species. And his wife/GF is still carrying his baby after that long (admittedly, she might have used IVF).

I think Vinder said "over 21000 cycles," which is why I suggested the baby might not be a baby anymore. I'll only assume 1 report per cycle. Now whether those are days, weeks, months, years... Admittedly I didn't think of IVF (or their pregnany terms could be ages), I'm thinking timey-wimey flux stuff. (E.g: Is what we see of Bel in the past, shortly after Vinder left, and the Flux has retroactively destroyed her planet?)

 

[DigificWriter]

With the exception of the scene where she's sitting by a campfire talking to holo-Vinder, everything that we saw happening with Bel was in the post-Flux present.

 

[ThreeEdgedSword]

With the exception of the scene where she's sitting by a campfire talking to holo-Vinder, everything that we saw happening with Bel was in the post-Flux present.

It could be that the Flux "bleeds" into the past.
But, I didn't notice that the campfire scene was different (in the past?), that would certainly make more sense! Will have to check it again.

 

[The Wormhole]

My mind immediately went to the Woman that appeared in "The End of Time" two-parter, when the Woman popped up at the end of the episode. I know it's been 10+ years, but I started to wonder, if we were finally going to get an ID on the character.

The Woman from TEOT is the Doctor's mother.

 

[Jax]

That was an awful incoherent & boring mess of an episode. Undid all the goodwill of the first two episodes and brought the fake Doctor back to boot. I can't wait for RTD to undo this entire era and fix the origin of the Doctor and show.

Also the CGI for those mite things were 1980's levels of Computer generated effects.

We're going to wind up with a newly regenerated Doctor in a brand new universe that has never heard of him/her - continuity slate wiped completely clean, his/her mind permanently erased of everything we've seen over the last 58 years. Just him/her, a blue police box he/she doesn't have the first clue how to fly, and (maybe) a buzzing wand-like thing in his/her hand. Ultra-hard reboot and reformatting, all the way back to 1963 specs.

I'd rather the BBC just cancelled the show after Capaldi. Chris seems intent on pissing on literally everything the show came from. I was so excited for the first female Doctor and poor Jo had to land this showrunner.

 

[ThreeEdgedSword]

I highly doubt RTD will "undo" this era. He'll probably ignore the TC stuff, just like most of us ignore the "Doctor is half human" thing.

 

[diankra]

The Woman from TEOT is the Doctor's mother.

Well, possibly. It was deliberately left ambiguous.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Sooo many angry, self-righteous posts.

Fandom going to fandom, I suppose.

I, for one, am still really enjoying series 13 and much of the Chibnall run in general, but I'll admit that it has its flaws. But more than Davies and Moffat? Nah, not really.

 

[DigificWriter]

It could be that the Flux "bleeds" into the past.
But, I didn't notice that the campfire scene was different (in the past?), that would certainly make more sense! Will have to check it again.

The campfire scene is set when Vinder is still in purgatory serving on Outpost Rose, because he references the decision he made that landed him there.

Also, the Flux is a spatial catastrophe, not a temporal one, as revealed/emphasized by Awsok.

 

[Starkers]

Jo Martin is not a fake Doctor. Jo Martin is The Doctor.

RTD is not going to rewrite history to the extent that the Fugitive Doctor ceases to exist, any more than he'll airbrush the War Doctor out.

 

[David cgc]

The campfire scene is set when Vinder is still in purgatory serving on Outpost Rose, because he references the decision he made that landed him there.

No, it's anytime after that. It's a recording, not a live message, and Bel specifically says to the baby that they'll break it if they keep playing it over it over again, so it's been a while since she got that and hadn't heard anything since.

 

[Starkers]

Can't be that long unless she isn't human and therefore her species' have a much longer gestation period, or else relied on artificial insemination rather than Vinder!

There might be some time dilation going on of course

 

[ThreeEdgedSword]

Well, now I'm thoroughly confused. And didn't Swarm say that time was a bit wonky now?

 

[Mr. Adventure]

The baby can take as long as it needs because it's a TIMELESS CHILD mu ha ha ha ha. Seriously though, the pregnancy time is odd and she isn't really showing so what's going on there I don't know but it's conspicuous.