What the series 9 arc should've been...

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Since we're waiting, here's a pointless (or academic, either one) thread for ya:

If Moffat had wanted Jenna Coleman back, bring her back... as one of her splinters from Name of the Doctor! Preserve the original Clara's death in Last Christmas (maybe the greatest exit for a character Moffat had ever written) and also possibly explore the existence of these splinters. Also, by having her follow him, the Doctor also wonder if the Great Intelligence will figure into this... and he does!

So basically, the same series, with a splinter Clara, and no Hell Bent, instead replaced with an episode where the Great Intelligence is behind the Hybrid, having retroactively implanted it in the Doctor's mind since entering his time stream in order to confuse him and weaken him. No Gallifrey or Time Lords, naturally, just a big confrontation between the Doctor, Clara and the Great Intelligence - possibly played by Sir Ian McKellen himself again, in the flesh even!

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Clara fragmenting herself through time and space is one of the great dangling threads Moffat left. It's something that fundamentally alters the nature of the Doctor Who universe; no matter where the Doctor goes and what the Doctor does, past, present, and future, there's a Clara there. Doctor Who Magazine used the idea for a comic strip story; the Doctor and Clara encountered one, and she was very weirded out by the experience.

That would have been an interesting story angle for Moffat to play -- instead of traveling with Clara-Prime, the Doctor is traveling with a Clara fragment. How would the Doctor treat her? How would she differ from Clara? Could she have different interests? Would he try to fit the fragment into the role Clara had played in his life, and would he have unrealistic expectations of her because of that? Would she be aware that there are duplicates of her through time and space, and if she wasn't, how would she react when she realized the Doctor knew and didn't tell her?

In short, I see the potential in the concept.

However, I fear that Moffat would have treated such a dynamic like something out of Coupling. What I mean by this -- he'd conceive it in terms of, "The Doctor is now dating someone who looks exactly like his dead ex, and that's not weird for him!"

The other comparison I'm thinking of is early 80s X-Men; Scott Summers meets someone who looks and acts exactly like his dead girlfriend, Jean Grey. He marries her, has a child, and when Jean comes back from the dead, Scott abandons his wife and she turns into a super-villain. I could see Moffat going in that direction, too -- the Clara fragment ends up becoming the season's Big Bad, and the Doctor and Clara-Prime have to defeat her.

 

[The Wormhole]

The Clara splinters definitely could have used more attention on the show. And it goes without saying that anything would have been an improvement over the Hybrid nonsense we actually got in season 9.

 

[TommyR01D]

It goes without saying that anything would have been an improvement over the Hybrid nonsense we actually got in season 9.

Hear, Hear!

That must go down in Doctor Who history as the flimsiest, stupidest, laziest story arc we've ever been sold. In forums, reviews and comment sections as far as I can read it's very difficult to find anyone with the slightest investment in it.

 

[captainkirk]

If they had made it that the Hybrid was what Timelord Daleks like it first seemed and that they're preparing for the return of Gallifrey, it could have been epic. Could someone explain why Clara was so special that even though there have been so many other more interesting companions, some cool enough to get their own spin-offs, Clara was the greatest one in the universe?

 

[TommyR01D]

Could someone explain why Clara was so special that even though there have been so many other more interesting companions, some cool enough to get their own spin-offs, Clara was the greatest one in the universe?

Steven Moffat said so.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

What offended me about the Hybrid as a concept, is how it was posited as the reason the Doctor had left Gallifrey in the first place! Which after the arc was over, makes no sense at all!

 

[Romulan_spy]

What offended me about the Hybrid as a concept, is how it was posited as the reason the Doctor had left Gallifrey in the first place! Which after the arc was over, makes no sense at all!

It was also completely unnecessary. I think it was Tennant's Doctor in Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords that explains that he and the Master looked into the Time Vortex as children and it drove the Master mad but made the Doctor freak out and want to run away. And I think OldWho explained that the Doctor was a rebel that hated all the rules and how stiff and boring the Time Lords were so he ran away to explore the universe. So we already got a perfectly good explanation for why the Doctor ran away. There was no reason to make up some brand new super mysterious reason for why the Doctor really left. Sometimes, I think writers try to be too clever when they come up with the mystery behind the mystery behind the mystery rather than just stick with the simple explanation.

 

[TommyR01D]

It was also completely unnecessary. I think it was Tennant's Doctor in Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords that explains that he and the Master looked into the Time Vortex as children and it drove the Master mad but made the Doctor freak out and want to run away. And I think OldWho explained that the Doctor was a rebel that hated all the rules and how stiff and boring the Time Lords were so he ran away to explore the universe. So we already got a perfectly good explanation for why the Doctor ran away. There was no reason to make up some brand new super mysterious reason for why the Doctor really left. Sometimes, I think writers try to be too clever when they come up with the mystery behind the mystery behind the mystery rather than just stick with the simple explanation.

Is this not what happened with the Star Wars prequels?

 

[Romulan_spy]

Is this not what happened with the Star Wars prequels?

Yes, same thing.

 

[captainkirk]

What offended me about the Hybrid as a concept, is how it was posited as the reason the Doctor had left Gallifrey in the first place! Which after the arc was over, makes no sense at all!

Wow, I don't remember that part. That's such a ridiculous and self-important idea.

Sometimes, I think writers try to be too clever when they come up with the mystery behind the mystery behind the mystery rather than just stick with the simple explanation.

Moffat has done some great stuff, but sometimes I feel that after finishing a script he sits back, looks at it and goes, "Boy am I good."

 

[The Wormhole]

What offended me about the Hybrid as a concept, is how it was posited as the reason the Doctor had left Gallifrey in the first place! Which after the arc was over, makes no sense at all!

That's where the whole thing falls apart. The legend of the Hybrid has obviously been part of Time Lord lore for a long time if it's what supposedly drove the Doctor into running away. Yet it's not until now, 1000+ years later that the Time Lords are taking notice and starting to shit their pants over this legendary Hybrid when they should be worrying themselves over the far more tangible threat of the fact that every spacefaring race in the universe is willing to form an alliance and work together simply for the purpose of eradicating the Time Lords.

I guess the Time Lords just don't want to face the responsibility that those races actually have very legitimate reasons to eradicate the Time Lords, given that the entire Panopticon minus two voted to eradicate all life in the universe just because they were losing the Time War. Damn, that could actually have been an interesting direction to take the story, trying to hide from the fact that he's a colossal douche, Rassilon gets the Time Lords worked up over an abstract concept from ancient Gallifreyan legend, hoping it'll distract everyone from the fact he forced a decision which resulted in everyone else now hating the Time Lords.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

That's where the whole thing falls apart. The legend of the Hybrid has obviously been part of Time Lord lore for a long time if it's what supposedly drove the Doctor into running away. Yet it's not until now, 1000+ years later that the Time Lords are taking notice and starting to shit their pants over this legendary Hybrid when they should be worrying themselves over the far more tangible threat of the fact that every spacefaring race in the universe is willing to form an alliance and work together simply for the purpose of eradicating the Time Lords.

I guess the Time Lords just don't want to face the responsibility that those races actually have very legitimate reasons to eradicate the Time Lords, given that the entire Panopticon minus two voted to eradicate all life in the universe just because they were losing the Time War. Damn, that could actually have been an interesting direction to take the story, trying to hide from the fact that he's a colossal douche, Rassilon gets the Time Lords worked up over an abstract concept from ancient Gallifreyan legend, hoping it'll distract everyone from the fact he forced a decision which resulted in everyone else now hating the Time Lords.

If that last part was worked into Hell Bent, it'd have somewhat redeemed the arc for me. And even given Rassilon one last act of douchiness before his exit.

 

[Lonemagpie]

I guess the Time Lords just don't want to face the responsibility that those races actually have very legitimate reasons to eradicate the Time Lords, given that the entire Panopticon minus two voted to eradicate all life in the universe just because they were losing the Time War. Damn, that could actually have been an interesting direction to take the story, trying to hide from the fact that he's a colossal douche, Rassilon gets the Time Lords worked up over an abstract concept from ancient Gallifreyan legend, hoping it'll distract everyone from the fact he forced a decision which resulted in everyone else now hating the Time Lords.

Well, it works for our papers and government over Brexit...

 

[The Wormhole]

If that last part was worked into Hell Bent, it'd have somewhat redeemed the arc for me. And even given Rassilon one last act of douchiness before his exit.

The Hybrid would still have been a pointless mess, but at least in-universe it fits Rassilon's MO perfectly.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Yeah, the Hybrid was rubbish. I try to ignore it whenever possible. Which is easy enough since "Hell Bent" is the only episode where it really matters and I just ignore it to focus on the emotional stuff with Clara and the badass stuff of the Doctor calling out Rassilon.

I never thought a plot thread could confuse me more than the inconsistent depiction of the "Silence" in season 6. (If the Silence is really a religious order and not a species, then what are those aliens that you can't remember when you're not looking at them?)

 

[The Wormhole]

never thought a plot thread could confuse me more than the inconsistent depiction of the "Silence" in season 6. (If the Silence is really a religious order and not a species, then what are those aliens that you can't remember when you're not looking at them?)

The Silence is the religious order, the alien species are the Silents. But since there's no way to differentiate between the two when you hear the words being spoken, it really does make things unnecessarily confusing.

 

[UncleRogi]

A nice twist would have been making Ashilde and Clara the Hybrid, what with one being immortal and
Created by 12, the other being fragmented out of concern for 11 and spread throughout time
and space.

I do agree that the Clara situation must be dealt with a some point. I won't hold my breath
on that happening, though.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Since Chibnall is taking over, I keep imagining him bring back Captain John Hart from Torchwood and having the Time Lords hire him as a bounty hunter to track down Clara and her stolen TARDIS.