Spoilers The Doctor Falls (Grade & Discussion Thread)
- Thread starter TommyR01D
- Start date
I realized that the twelfth doctor not wanting to change doesn't come out of left field if you keep in mind Deep Breath. The whole point of that episode was that the Doctor has changed so many times that he can barely recognize himself. He no longer knows who he is--which would be a running theme throughout Season 8. The Android villain in that story was a metaphor for the Doctor's struggle of losing his sense of self. Even the Android's desire to die is very similar to the Doctor's death wish in this episode. The Doctor is tired of changing and having to figure himself out. He wants a stable identity.
Here's a (barely plausible) explanation: The Doctor somehow set up a personal shield using his sonic screwdriver, and also caused the entire deck to explode except for a small radius around him.
Remember that the Master was originally supposed to die back in the 1970s up until Roger Delgado died before he could film the story where the character died. Everything since then has been gravy. Much as I love Missy, I do kinda hope that this is the end of the line for the Master. That was just such a perfect ending for the character, each one killing the other.
I liked it. I hope we start from the beginning again..
Doing over Troughton you mean, if that is the first doctor form the North pole in the 10th planet, hours before his first regeneration?
Or is 12, just his Watcher?
You have to wonder why boring Timelords who never leave Gallifrey, need Watchers?
Or is 12, just his Watcher?
You have to wonder why boring Timelords who never leave Gallifrey, need Watchers?
I think it would have ended up something like Heinlein's "All You Zombies" -- the Master is pregnant by the Master, and their child is the Master!
So his parents were each a Magnificent Bastard with a pathology for proxy self-sabotage? Explains a lot.
The Heinlein short story was recently adapted as the movie Predestination, well worth checking out if you haven't seen it. It features a great central performance from Sarah Snook and expands the story with a subplot that makes perfect narrative sense. It also manages to treat the central conceit with a certain amount of grace.
So his parents were each a Magnificent Bastard with a pathology for proxy self-sabotage? Explains a lot.
The Heinlein short story was recently adapted as the movie Predestination, well worth checking out if you haven't seen it. It features a great central performance from Sarah Snook and expands the story with a subplot that makes perfect narrative sense. It also manages to treat the central conceit with a certain amount of grace.
Oooh... I haven't seen that one in full. So let me get this right in that movie the main character creates himself via getting a girl preggers.
Pretty much. But there are other dimensions to it.
I must find this film....... Goes off to google.
Did they decide at that time the Master was on his last regeneration? Either way, they could've brought him back just like they ended up doing in The Deadly Assassin.
Then add in all the ways the Ainley Master died and came back without the benefit of regeneration.
It's sci-fi. If they want a character back, the character will come back.
Also remember that 11 lived for over a 1000 years (longest of all incarnations) so the Doctor probably got used to having a stable incarnation. So for him to switch to 12 and then now 12 switching to 13, is not an easy thing for him psychologically.
But surely he'd only remember his last attempt?
I thought the point was that he remembered all those billions and billions of years, even if he didn't actually age that much.
He didn't remember, he had to figure it out each time, otherwise he would have headed straight downstairs as soon as he "entered" the dial.
Later, Clara asked him how long he was at it and he knew then. Maybe only after he was finished?
He worked out how long it had been each time by the positions of the stars, that was one of the clues which made him realise he was repeating the experience.
I think that with Heaven Sent and whether he remembers previous iterations, he probably doesn't remember much, if anything. (He still considers himself to be somewhat more than 2000 years old, he was repeating the same actions as if he had no prior memory of them, and he still remembers life from before the confession dial.) But possibly there are ghosts in the machine, so to speak, and somehow his Time Lord mind retains some inklings. Or perhaps he somehow deletes the relevant memories at frequent intervals. Or perhaps the confession dial is running a simulation and the cumulative subjective time elapsed therein amounts to 4.5 billion years.
Last edited:
Which does beg the question.. Has a Timelord ever actually done THAT?... In the thousands of years, certainly the Doctor and the Master aren't the only ones to have bent the laws of time and space and met themselves... So, since they can also become different genders, it's conceivable that it could happen.. Ugh... Kinda makes me shudder...
Similar threads
