All New Who

{{Some nice little tidbits of info in that Malick.

Stumbled on this, new to me fan vid person goes by the name RecklessGirl 100, not short for a fan vid at 11 minutes but beautiful -highly recommended }}}

{{Just looking at the memo written by Who creator Sydney Newman when in the 1980's he was asked by the BBC to come back and give them ideas for refreshing the show.
The bit that caught my eye was this-

'At a later stage, Doctor Who would be metamorphosed into a woman. This requires some considerable thought- mainly because I want to avoid a flashy Hollywood "Wonder Woman" because this kind of hero(ine)  has no flaws- and a character with no flaws is a bore."

This nails for me one of my main concerns for our upcoming female Doctor. There is worrying trend, exemplified in Star Wars Rey character, to portray female characters are always right and always flawless and brilliant at everything. The Doctor being flawed but still always striving for the best is what makes the character interesting, the weight of lifetimes of decisions, not all that went the right way or worked out as intended, gives character depth.
But there seems to be this worrying trend that to show a lead female character as flawed is somehow the same as being sexist and saying she is weak, flawed just because she is a woman, instead of the real reason- that she is flawed because she is a mortal sentient being in a physical universe and we are all flawed and capable of error, misjudgement, anger, envy, desire ect regardless of gender (or in Who planet of origin!).

I hope Chibnal has heeded the words of Newman and kept our beloved Doctor as fallible as the character has always been. }}}

Out tomorrow

"hope Chibnal has heeded the words of Newman and kept our beloved Doctor as fallible as the character has always been."

I hope so too.

This post should not be interpretated in a way that leads you to believe that I might have read or even glanced at your Moffat era posts, one would hate to ruin the inspiraional crabbit flow.

This post should not be interpretated in a way that leads you to believe that I might have read or even glanced at your Moffat era posts, one would hate to ruin the inspiraional crabbit flow. - Amarie

{I should hope not! I'm only going to finish the damn thing out of crabbit spite because no bugger is reading it! (well that and drunken diligence and Scotshobbit bloody single-mindedness of course  )   }}}

{{{ There isn't one! OK given how unusual that is for NuWho it needs a little explanation.
The BBC continued their odd scheduling choices for this series making it unusual by any Who standards. Normally in NuWho you get a series which wraps up around October/November and then a xmas special.

But this series started later than usual, not beginning until September and stopping after 4 episodes in November, as a result the xmas special, rather than being at the end of the series is in the middle and then the series resumed again in the new year.

As a result we have a series with two very distinct halves. The first half concerns the final adventures of the Ponds ending in Angels in Manhattan. The Snowmen xmas special introduces us to a second version of Clara. And the second half of the series introduces modern Clara as the companion and leads into the events of the 50^th Anniversary episode and 11's regeneration which marks the series finale.

Rather than try to link all this with one overarching plot the two halves are distinctly separate.
The first half of the series is a collection of stand alone episodes inspired by different film genres.
So Asylum is our big melodramatic sci-fi blockbuster, Dinosaurs is an action adventure romp, Mercy is a Western, the Power of Three a mystery thriller and Angels 40's detective film noir.
In a sense rather than directly being about memory the first half is a tribute to memory- memories of favourite film genres reimagined in Who form.

That's not to say the subject doesn't come up, its Moffat, who at it should be clear by now that he has a keen interest in memory and how it shapes self, just to say that it is not part of some greater plot element in series 7 as there is no overall arc to the series due to its format and scheduling.



“What do we do?”

“Make them remember you.”

Memories not only crop up here there is a meta-memory element to this episode. In the build up to the series one of the big things the BBC pushed about this episode was it would feature Daleks from different eras of the show (it's a few short scenes in which they cameo and are just sort of there but the BBC marketing made a big deal of it) so the episode before it even aired was being sold on fan memories and nostalgia.

“Do you remember who you were before they emptied you out and turned you into their puppet?

This episode gives us an update on an old idea- the Robo-men, human Dalek slaves. Originally in the 60's they had big metal brace things on their head that controlled them, these days they look like a normal person until activated and have full control of their facilities- except their memories unless needed for cover. Free will of course is gone and they are hooked into the Dalek telepathic web.

This separation of self and memory even though both are technically preserved is an interesting new facet Moffat explores and exploits for the uncomfortable horror of it. When the Doctor reminds the Dalek puppet that she was captured in a desperate attempt to save her daughter from a Dalek prison camp the matter-of-fact reply is the rather chilling and cold -

“I know. I've read my file.”

Here memory is just something to look up in a computer file, detached from self. And the result? Loss of humanity. If as Moffat says memory defines self, then it is the memory of pain, love, loss, joy, tragedy the breadth of human experience we remember- but when our self becomes detached from that we lose the compassion and humanity it teaches becoming cold, indifferent, detached and uncaring and unfeeling. In short we become a Dalek, and as Clara says all that's left to do to complete the process is “add hatred”.

Clara of course is the opposite of this, she has remained firmly and stubbornly and resolutely attached to her memories and keeps them firmly associated with self; she makes soufflé's in memory of her mother, she talks of her time aboard her crashed starship and how it was her first time out, she defines her self by her memories and so retains her humanity despite being fully converted.

We also see this use of detachment from memory for one of Moffats favourite things- scaring the little uns! The zombie versions of the Robo-men they encounter is the prime example of it here. With them all being rotted away corpses bar one who seems when first encountered a normal, lucky survivor of the ship crash like Clara, right up until he says the following-

“No, of course. Stupid me. I died outside, and the cold preserved my body. I forgot about dying.”

Again we have this notion of memory detached from self and the horror in that.

Another very interesting scene here concerns Amy who is being converted by the nano-cloud into a robo-slave. But the way this manifests is curious. Is very like an accelerated form of dementia, she starts by losing short term memory and repeating herself-

What comes first? How does it start?

With your mind. Your feelings, your memories, and I'm sorry but it's started already.

How do you know?

Because we've had this conversation four times.

Okay, scared now.

This very quickly accelerates until Amy's perception of the world also starts to change, where there is a room full of Daleks, she in a dreamlike state, sees people in a variety of clothing from formal wear to a child in a ballet tutu and all from different eras, there is not not only a dislocation between her self and memories but between herself and reality now.

This again is very like some forms of late stage dementia (as a careworker I once looked after a little old blind lady with dementia, she spend most of her afternoons having a lovely time in a her favourite Glasgow cafe chatting happily with her best friend, none of which existed, she was in a care home, the cafe had long been demolished and the friend many years dead, but rather than try to convince her otherwise I used to just insert myself into the scenario when interacting, as the waiter or some such ). Amy's experience of being Daleked is to have her memories stripped from her then her sense of self by dislocating her from a fixed reality. This could be a description of dementia.

And then we have the Daleks in Intensive care- these are the really insane ones, so insane they've been de-weaponised and chained to the walls. And what's so special about these particular Daleks?

Basically they all have PTSD, they all suffer and were driven mad by traumatic experiences in particular wars, wars whose names might be familiar to very long term fans, or as the Doctor puts it-

“These are the Daleks who survived me.”

But as I mentioned the main carrier of the memory theme in this is Clara. She relies on memory to retain her idea of self, she has suppressed all memory of what the Daleks did do her or even of her capture, and she has constructed from her memories a scenario she believes to be real- that she is tapped in a crashed spaceship.

But she also affects memory- in particular Dalek memory, being Dalek now herself she can hack and delete information in the Dalek telepathic web, and does so, removing all information about the Doctor.

“You made them forget me?”

Another interesting aspect here comes in this exchange between Dalek Clara and the Doctor-

Why do they hate you? So much? They hate you so much. Why?

I fought them many, many times.

We have grown stronger in fear of you.

I know.

This is memory as evolution, survival of the fittest, every time the Doctor defeats them they revise, reassess their strategies and try to find a defence against him, out of fear, a fear based on their memories of past encounters with him. Touching again on the same thing brought up by River at Demons Run in the previous series.

Memory and the weight of the Doctors own actions bearing down on him, shaping his self which is still questioning his over all value in the universe.

And lastly of course, as if Moffat was just making sure you know that that memory is going to be staying about as a theme we have Clara's last words to the Doctor in this episode which will resonate and echo down to the end of series 9-

“Run, you clever boy. And remember.”


Damn not go the time to do more at the moment, so will have to leave it there after only one episode! Still at least its a nice short one for you all to not bother reading anyway!!!  }}}

{{{ “You see, this is what happens when you travel alone for too long.”

A little morality play this one. Its main association with the memory theme is that the Doctor has been spending some time travelling alone without the Ponds, who are getting on with normal everyday life. As a result he has been brooding on old memories, still questioning his actions over the course of his lives and their balance in things, which boils over in this one when he decides just to sacrifice the scientist Jex to the Gunslinger to save everyone else-

“But they keep coming back, don't you see? Every time I negotiate, I try to understand. Well, not today. No. Today I honour the victims first. His, the Master's, the Daleks, all the people who have died because of my mercy.”

Jex and the Doctor are set up as mirrors in fact Jex outright says so -

“Looking at you, Doctor, is like looking into a mirror, almost. There's rage there, like me. Guilt, like me. Solitude. Everything but the nerve to do what needs to be done. Thank the gods my people weren't relying on you to save them.”

The Doctor sins however are far greater, as too are his good deeds. And it is a reminder that the Doctor without mercy is not only not the Doctor but the most terrifying being imaginable. But this episode is showing that he has by no means made peace with his past nor with what it means to be the Doctor in terms of being a force for good in the universe. We are in mental health territory here, specifically the Doctors, and after the previous episode where, after likewise having been travelling alone for some time, he outright killed Solomon for his sins, its not a good state of mind.


Only small but notable references here, firstly this introduces the character of Kate Lethbridge-Stewart as the new head of UNIT, daughter of the Doctor's old friend and recently deceased Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, former head of UNIT. Giving the Doctor further reminders of the past and of losses.

The Shakri themselves are a Gallifreyean children's bedtime story, to frighten the little ones, making the Doctor recall childhood briefly.

And most poignantly his conversation with Brian about past companions, which given all the Doctor has been dwelling on recently is probably not the best time to have brought it up-

What happened to the other people who travel with you?

Some left me. Some got let behind. And some, not many but, some died. Not them. Not them, Brian. Never them.

We have here not just him having to speak of past friends and losses but also his own reassurance, as much for himself as Brian, that such a fate will not befall the Ponds, because he knows he might not be able to take bearing the memory of another painful loss again.


“I always rip out the last page of a book. Then it doesn't have to end. I hate endings.”

The main importance of this episode is the effect it has on the Doctor. Here he gathers that memory he was dreading when he loses the Ponds.

On top of that River turns up gain only this time, to his discomfort she is now Professor River Song, her title when he first met her in the Library on the occasion of her death.
He might hate endings but they are gathering on him here.


This leads us into the events of the xmas episode and the second half of series seven.
But before I go onto them I feel I ought to say something about the nature of the second half of this series.
Among the usual Who aims of providing entertaining, occasionally thought provoking television, with the added Who task of introducing a new companion to the mix, Moffat also had to build it up to the big 50^th Anniversary Special.

To this end much of what occurs in the second half serves the purpose of linking the shows past- classic era- with the present. Letting Moffat play with memory through nostalgia for both previous NuWho series and classic.

And Clara is used as the central mystery by which this is done. Though not the only thing, we also for example see the return of the Great Intelligence a foe originally of the 2^nd Doctor and even extends to the style of episodes such as Cold War which is a classic era base under siege story, or Crimson Horror which could easily be a fourth Doctor tale.

But Moffat is also building our Doctor towards this. The Doctor was already in a pretty dodgy place before he lost the Ponds and it's worth recapping his current position.

He is on his last life. He has just lost this best friends- again! He is alone. And he is brooding on his long life now its end is in sight. He has grown to think that too many of his past decisions were wrong, or that he has lead to more chaos than he has solved, the weight of his decision in the Time War has never gone away though he has done everything to try to forget it and move on, he has been brooding on all those he has lost and are gone since 10 and he has been questioning what exactly it means to be the Doctor.

All under the guise of a young face and a young body full of the exuberant energy of youth. Or as River puts it in the Manhattan episode-

“When one's in love with an ageless god who insists on the face of a twelve year old, one does one's best to hide the damage.”

Second half of series 7 next (for whom it may concern!  ) and onto damage next! }}}

Pettytyrant101 wrote:{{Just looking at the memo written by Who creator Sydney Newman when in the 1980's he was asked by the BBC to come back and give them ideas for refreshing the show.
The bit that caught my eye was this-

'At a later stage, Doctor Who would be metamorphosed into a woman. This requires some considerable thought- mainly because I want to avoid a flashy Hollywood "Wonder Woman" because this kind of hero(ine)  has no flaws- and a character with no flaws is a bore."

This nails for me one of my main concerns for our upcoming female Doctor. There is worrying trend, exemplified in Star Wars Rey character, to portray female characters are always right and always flawless and brilliant at everything. The Doctor being flawed but still always striving for the best is what makes the character interesting, the weight of lifetimes of decisions, not all that went the right way or worked out as intended, gives character depth.
But there seems to be this worrying trend that to show a lead female character as flawed is somehow the same as being sexist and saying she is weak, flawed just because she is a woman, instead of the real reason- that she is flawed because she is a mortal sentient being in a physical universe and we are all flawed and capable of error, misjudgement, anger, envy, desire ect regardless of gender (or in Who planet of origin!).

I hope Chibnal has heeded the words of Newman and kept our beloved Doctor as fallible as the character has always been. }}}

That's odd, because Moffat made Smith look god-like, and whatshisface the last one, was always right and superior in every way.

because Moffat made Smith look god-like- Figg

{{I think you might have missed a few things Figg if you believe that! Perhaps the previous 7 parts of my analysis of mental health and dementia in Moffat era Who might shed a new light on that subject for you.   }}

are you telling me he had dementia? he is an alien.

{{{ }}}

I am looking forward to the parts where Petty will be analyzing why he has that huge blind spot where Amy and Cara is concerned.

{{{{ Ah well Amarie if you read on (assuming you are !!!! ) you will see how they serve the thematic themes and the purpose they serve showing there is no blind spot, though there is often a misunderstanding of their purpose which I hope my exploration of the themes will help explain. }}}

{{{An 11 second silent trailer of a logo making for a teaser trailer for a teaser! Which apparently is coming on Sunday.
And looks like we have our series tag line to mull over too- 'The Universe is Calling'  }}}

{{Apparently some sort of trailer for series 11 is going to drop sometime during tomorrows World Cup- presumably at half time. }}}

{{{ A big episode this mid series Christmas special on memory. The Doctor following the Pond's departure has become a recluse in Victorian London for some time, watched over by the Paternoster Gang. He has retired, withdrawing from his usual activities and refusing to take on anyone else to travel with him after so many heart breaking losses and has opted to spend the rest of his last regeneration in quiet retirement in the TARDIS on top of a cloud.

Until he meets a chirpy cockney barmaid called Clara.
This is the first meta play with memory here as whilst the Doctor never saw the Clara in asylum, she was a Dalek by that time, we the viewer did and so know she looks the same. We remember her.

The next play on memory is the Doctor himself, momentarily reminiscing on the days when he would have whisked Clara off on adventures - “Those were the days.”

This is followed up by Vastra reminding the Doctor that these things always start with same two words- “Doctor Who?” which Clara promptly supplies.

Before we know it we are introduced to the memory worm- touch it you lose a few hours memory, let it bite you it can take a lifetime of memories.

As if all this was not enough we have the Doctor wearing Amy's reading glasses in memory of her and then we have our big bad for the episode. The Great Intelligence, or the GI.

This too is a bit of meta memory, the GI was a foe of the 2^nd Doctor of course, is reappearance here not only fits into the memory theme but also is part of drawing things towards the 50^th celebration by bringing back a classic era foe.

But more so we have the means by which the GI is going about his business, the snow-

“This snow is interesting, don't you think? The ice crystals seem to have a low level telepathic field. Almost as if it can detect and respond to the thoughts and memories of the people around it. Memory snow. Snow that learns.”

And the Ice Woman formed as the new life-form is based on the frozen cellular memory of the dead governess who drowned and got frozen over in the ornamental pond.

And that word, pond, is of course the answer Clara gives to the one word test, resonating with the Doctors recent loss of the Ponds and spurring him back into action. Though the real moment of realising he is back in the game comes when he discovers he had put his bow-tie on out of habitual memory

“Sorry. It's just. Didn't know I'd put it on. Old habits.”

But off course among all this our poor Doctor is still musing on loss and if he has made any difference anyway-

“Over a thousand years of saving the universe, Strax, you know the one thing I learned? The universe doesn't care.”

Though not directly linked to memory, but rather to the Doctors ongoing mental development we have a line here which very much marks the start of something that will grow regards the Doctors attitude to Clara, upon Clara's untimely demise at the hands of the Ice Governess-

“It was my fault. I am responsible for what happened to Clara. She was in my care.”

Just a sentiment worth bearing in mind going forward from here till end of series 9.

In the climatic confrontation between the Doctor and Simeon/GI we get another bit of meta-memory thrown in- the piece of ice governess the Doctor has brought is in a lunch-box with the London Underground map on its lid. When the GI says he does not recognise these markings the Doctor replies-

“A map of the London Underground, 1967. Key strategic weakness in metropolitan living, if you ask me, but then I never liked a tunnel.”

This is a reference to the 2^nd Doctor story when he encounters the GI for the 2^nd time in the London Underground in 1967. In this episode, for the GI this his first time encountering with the Doctor, its a prequel, but for the Doctor its not. This is both more meta memory fun and more nods leading up to that 50^th.

The Doctor solution to the GI is to use the memory worm to wipe Simeon's memory entirely back to his encounter as a child with the GI, giving the GI nothing to mirror. But unfortunately the GI has learned enough to create a coherent consciousness of its own- in fact the Doctor here helps create the GI who will go on to encounter him as the 2^nd Doctor next, where the GI will continue its use of cold things in Tibet with some robotic Yeti. The Snowmen is in fact a GI origins story.

And of course Victorian Clara dies with her last words being a repeat of the previous Clara's words-

“Run. Run, you clever boy. And remember.”

And at episodes end when we are introduced to modern day Clara taking a shortcut through the graveyard where Victorian Clara was buried we see on the gravestone that it bears the words -

“Remember me, we shall meet again.”

So a story largely about memory in one fashion or the other whether that concerns the main plot, Clara, the GI, devices such as the memory worm, or the Doctors state of mind, its all about memory.


Interesting extras- Victorian Clara was supposed to be the main one for the series, and in fact many scripts had already been submitted with that version of Clara, most notably Gaiman's which not only had Victorian Clara but her two Victorian wards in it too and needed heavily rewritten.

So why such a big last minute change?- well the BBC execs got cold feet and decided, utterly wrongly and with as little understanding of Who as they have always displayed, that audiences would not take to a companion from a different era. Clara they said had to be contemporary.

Moffat having already set up the idea of her as someone the Doctor has encountered once before and who died and he meets again with its eventual leading into to the 50^th story, just extended it by one death, and killed Victorian Clara too and moved it to modern era and created modern Clara to carry it through to the 50^th narrative.

One of the reasons modern Clara has a bit of a shaky domestic setting for her time leading up to the 50^th is because the one they had created for her- governess with two wards in Victorian London and occasional barmaid (she was leading a double life) -had to be ditched and she had to be put hastily rewritten in a modern setting but where she would still have kids about not her own for the Gaiman story, hence nanny.
But blame the suits for this one if you would have liked to have seen Victorian Clara as companion and her original set up! }}}

{{{ Before delving into introducing modern day Clara we should first consider the state of mind of the Doctor leading up to meeting her.
He had already decided to retire in Victorian London, swearing he would not do it any longer, then he met Clara and then she died on him and he lost someone else again.
But then he found out something impossible- he had met her twice now, and she had died both times. This seemingly impossible mystery gives him the impetus and energy to go off in search of her. We don't know how long he did but seemingly he failed to find her and ended up in semi-retirement again in a Medieval monastery brooding on the mystery of Clara.

But is it just the mystery of how Clara could have lived and died and lived again in another time and place, or is it that after all his losses she is a companion who even when she dies comes back again? And also there is the guilt, he blamed himself for her death, and in the Asylum she gave her life to save his, Amy's and Rory's lives, as he said it was his fault. And more guilt is not what the Doctor needs, or can now easily cope with, finding her alive again would alleviate that.
When he does find her its via a phone call out the blue made to the TARDIS by Clara, after being given the TARDIS number by a mystery woman in a shop who said it was the best helpline in the universe. We find out much later, series 9 later, that the mystery woman in the shop was in fact Missy, the Master. And that she deliberately paired them up.


The Doctor however doesn't find Clara, she finds him in his reclusive hide out. They are teamed up. Clara is becoming the focus and symbol for him of his self-inflicted mental anguish over all the mistakes in his life, and will do all the way to the end of series 9.
As the priest comments-

“The woman twice dead, and her final message. He was drawn to this place of peace and solitude that he might divine her meaning. If he truly is mad, then this is his madness.”

The roots of series 9's Hybrid arc are sown right here. This is the first step towards that crisis point for the Doctor based in his state of mind when he first meets her again. And when he does he is almost giddy with delight to find her alive.





This episode sees the return of the GI. But this is the GI who has now met the Doctor several times before, and the episode title reference to bells is a nod to the 2^nd Doctor's first encounter with the GI where the Doctor was keen to see a Tibetan monastery's bell. More 50^th nuggets.

“You've been whispering in my ear so long, I'm not sure I remember what I was before.”

The main area of memory here, beyond the one surrounding the mystery of Clara, is Ms Kizlet, taken over by the GI as a small child and who is released and reverted back to as she was when he came into her life.

“Where are my mummy and daddy? They said they wouldn't be long. Are they coming back?”

All the way back to when she was just a child in fact.

{{Well teaser trailers dropped but doesn't give much to go on for our new Doctor's performance, actually nothing at all.



That issue of the Beano is the same one 11 had in Bells of St JOhn when watching Clara's past. }}}

The Doctor uses time-distortion to... dip an egg-roll into someone's egg or whatever, deliver pizzas, and replace someone's newspaper?

good to see Bradley Walsh, he will probably be my new Wilf. but obviously younger and hotter.

{{Sadly the whole thing looked like the way they make trailers for Eastenders- maybe it was all the domestic locations or something, or how it was shot.
Also not sure what message its supposed to be sending- if you dont know Who doubt you'll have any clue what sort of show its meant to be advertising, and if you do know Who it doesn't make a whole lot of sense- the Doctor can appear and disappear in moments of time and move stuff about? What? Eh?

Hopefully we will get a proper trailer with stuff from the actual episodes eventually rather than whatever the hell that was supposed to be.
I blame the BBC though- from series 1-7 of NUWho trailers were farmed out to a dedicated trailer making company- but from series 8 and the budget cuts they scrapped that and started making them in-house- since when they've been rubbish, this one included. }}

So. Um. One can hope it tries to show a more playfull Doctor?

{{Thats about as much as I can get from it too Amarie in terms of message- she's a bit of a cheeky one. In terms of performance we get nothing here but one of the cast members in an interview compared her somewhat to 11 in terms of enthusiastic energy levels. }}