Before I get into my more reasoned reaction to the Season Finale, lets talk visceral.
This is what I wrote right after watching the episode yesterday:
AARGHH!
Clara Lives…Moffat’s is the one who’s cruel and cowardly.
He ruined “Face The Raven”. Made it cheap, taudry and manipulative.
Series 9. A magnificent marathon destined to win the Triple Crown of Season Arc Storied Horse racing only to come up lame in the last 10 yards. Such a pity.
I am very angry with you Steven. Very angry indeed!
Another fake Clara Death. F*ck The Raven….
I have calmed down quite a bit since then (about 12 hours later) and I have a much better opinion of this episode in the end once the emotions have calmed down.
It is actually a good episode. Series 9/35 is one of the best seasons in many years. It is a classic of its own.
But,it was a bit like watch the “Planet of The Apes” Tim Burton remake and you get to that idiotic last 5 minutes that ruined the movie. That was the visceral reaction I had to Time-Locked Undead Clara and Ashildr/Me running off into the universe together.
Fortunately, upon reflection I have a better consideration for this episode, and the last 5 minutes of “Planet of The Apes” STILL sucks. 🙂
The Doctor Clara and her companion, the immortal Me. Off to see the universe.
Is this what the Doctor and The Master would have been like if things had turned out differently? Hmmm…
That’s where the rumors of Me being a companion in The TARDIS obviously come from.
Doctor Clara gets the Hartnell TARDIS.
The visceral reaction is gone. I went too far… 🙂
But do the Time Lords REALLY want to risk having the Hybrid, aka Clara & The Doctor rekindle at some point in the future?
And what happens when Clara and Me meet Jenny?
The mind boggeleth.
Overall, the episode is very good. The Doctor literally broke all the rules and went literally to the end of time to save Clara.
But I still think it cheapened “Face The Raven” and gave us YET ANOTHER Fake Clara Death. I’m so sick of that. That visceral reaction hasn’t gone away. 🙂
The Doctor did break every rule he ever believed in. He was cruel. He was cowardly and he wasn’t The Doctor.
And Moffat got another Gender Change thrown in for sledgehammer effect. Sigh…Unnecessary.
The opening in the diner made me want to scream “MOFFAT!” but I kept it together because the story was actually very good- I just hated that one part- viscerally. 🙂
The Doctor drawing a line in the sand (Wish our President had that much resolution) at his childhood home, Lungbarrow.
The escalation of fear from Time Lords where you get one Chancellery Guard, to the Head of the Guard and several, to The High Council and finally Rassilon himself was very interesting to watch as the fear of the unknown was ratcheted up.
Too bad Rassilon forgot to take his own advice about “immortality is a curse not a blessing” and has gone mad himself and lead Gallifrey and The Universe to the brink of extinction in The Time War.
A Time Lord Victorious.
Now, he wants The Doctor. He “was a good man once” also but fear and death have overtaken him as well.
“Get off his Planet”. So does this mean The Doctor’s The President yet again, and he ran off in a TARDIS instead?
The Doctor is a “War Hero” He won the Time War. Yeah, he committed genocide of both sides and then undid it. 🙂
Rassilon fought it. The Doctor Won it.
Maybe they aren’t so dissimilar.
The Doctor was the one that beat The Death Zone, a playground for the Time Lords to torture other beings in.
They just tortured him for 4.5 billion years because they feared his incite into The Hybrid that would destroy Gallifrey, which the Time Lords naturally consider it to be a melding of the two great races of the universe- The Time Lords and The Daleks because they are the most powerful and most feared.
But it’s the deadly combo of a Time Lord, and a lowly Human who wants to be a Time Lord.
The Doctor & Clara, brought together by that ultimate lover of all things chaos, The Master/Missy. Also, he’s best friend. The Light and Dark in all of us.
Clara and Ashildr.
What does this say about the Cartmel MasterPlan that never finished because of the shows cancellation? The one where Ace was going to become a Time Lord on Gallifrey? 🙂
What does that say about the potentially deadly cocktail of Doctor and Companion for the future?
Peter Capaldi, over these last few episodes, has shown why he is magnificent actor and deserves to be one of the greatest. He oozes resolute menace like no Doctor ever has.
The episode itself is full of visceral reactions and elicits them also.
He “goes too far” and there is Clara, and Ashildr to stomp him back into being a Doctor.
The Time Lord Victorious, indeed. A wounded animal, acting on raw emotions and grief more like.
He’s willing to do literally anything to save her. He literally risks the fabric of time & space itself.
And The Time Lords let him because they are giving into their own fears.What could Clara actually tell them about the Hybrid? I mean really, what could she?
“Why would you even do that?” she asks him, crying, when she learns just how long it’s been since they last met, a heartbeat ago. “I was dead and gone. Why would you even do that to yourself?”
“I had a duty of care,” he says, repeating a phrase he’s uttered before.
It’s sweet and alarming. How far and how bad can things get if you “care” too much? Actually, given his knowledge of time, fixed points and the fallout of violations, it’s mostly alarming how far he’s gone and seems willing to go.
He has literally risked the Universe for her.
But she can talk him off his Time Lord Victorious Ledge and tell him to “Be a Doctor” before he effectively wipes his own memory.
It’s the reverse Donna. He forgets her, instead of her forgetting him OR DYING for real.
When did we become immune to seeing people die, for real?
But I did a fangasm when He steals a TARDIS and runs! Only this time, he takes Clara with him. And it’s an overlit (as it was back in the day) mockup of the First Doctor’s TARDIS with the original Hartnell console from An Adventure in Space & Time standing in for the original.
The Doctor has come full circle.
He’s running away from Gallifrey, afraid and scared, in a TARDIS but it’s not his grand daughter this time.
And via the Mind Clara in the Diner he become the Doctor Reborn with a new Sonic Screwdriver.
And the adventure continues. A new Companion. A New Direction.
Run you Clever Girl, and Remember.
She is now more Impossible that ever. She was born to save The Doctor, after all, even from himself.
Run you clever Doctor, and forget.
He doesn’t like endings, after all.
“stories are where memories go when they’re forgotten.”
A Man is the sum of his memories, you know, a Time Lord Even more so…:)
TEGAN: It’ll soon be goodbye, then.
DOCTOR 5: Will it?
TURLOUGH: Well, you’re off to Gallifrey to be President. I suppose your Time Lord subjects will find a Tardis that really works and get us both home?
DOCTOR 5: Who said anything about Gallifrey?
TURLOUGH: You told Chancellor Flavia
DOCTOR 5: I told her she had full deputy powers until I returned.
TEGAN: You’re not going back?
DOCTOR 5: You know, sometimes, Tegan, you take my breath away.
TURLOUGH: Er, won’t the Time Lords be very angry?
DOCTOR 5: Furious.
TEGAN: You mean you’re deliberately choosing to go on the run from your own people in a rackety old Tardis?
DOCTOR 5: Why not? After all, that’s how it all started.
But first, he has to meet his wife again…
19 Days Until Christmas. Then we are in for a long winters nap.
She certainly made an impression after her debut in series 9.
But Game of Thrones actress Maisie Williams, 18, will make her return to Doctor Who as the immortal Ashildr for the show’s season finale this weekend.
Starring alongside the Doctor – played by Peter Capaldi, 57 – it will be the first time she’s seen in the show since the Face The Raven episode, which aired November 21.
“You don’t see surprised to see me?”
Speaking of her return, Maisie said: ‘I didn’t know that I’d be back again but I’m glad I am because after the end of the previous episode that I’m in, it was nice to have something that would round off my character nicely.’
The show’s writer Steven Moffat, 54, added that her immortal character has lived many years since her most recent appearance.
He said: ‘She’s now impossibly ancient and quite serene. She’s far older than the doctor.
‘She’s certainly not alarmed by him anymore as she’s not merely his equal, she’s outgrown him.
‘They are no longer equals. She’s way ahead. She’s seen more. She’s done more.’
Peter said: ‘We’re both creatures who look into eternity. That’s how Doctor Who should be. It’s good, it’s quite haunting.’
Maisie added: ‘Every episode that I’ve been back, my character’s made such a big change in the time that she’s been missing. It’s nice to be able to portray all of that.’
In the preview clip, Ashildr is seen sitting on a throne, as she says to the Doctor: ‘You don’t seem surprised to see me.’
The Doctor replies: ‘I know I went too far.’
In what appears to be quite the dramatic scene, Ashildr says: ‘I’ve had 800 years of adventure. Enough to fill a library if you write it all down. I think it’s time to tell the truth.’
Reflecting on her experience on the BBC1 show, Maisie admitted: ‘This is every fan boy’s dream and I get to do this as my job. I’m really grateful for that.’
Peter dropped a hint that Maisie would be an accomplished new companion in a recent interview.
He said: ‘I can’t answer questions like that but Maisie is fantastic, She’s been in Game of Thrones since she was 12 and is very assured.
‘I was doing a shot with her and when they called “action” she slightly pulled me back. When I asked her what she was doing she said, “You were in my light.” But she is lovely.’
The next episode is the 2-Part season finale, which starts with an episode starring ONLY Peter Capaldi.
<Spoiler?>
<Spoiler?>
Go ‘ne further if you don’t want to know (or speculate)…
Official Sypnosis:
“Heaven Sent” – “Trapped in a world unlike any other he has seen, the Doctor faces the greatest challenge of his many lives. One final test. And he must face it alone. Pursued by the fearsome creature known only as the Veil, he must attempt the impossible. If he makes it through, Gallifrey is waiting…”
“Hell Bent” – “If you took everything from him, betrayed him, trapped him, and broke both his hearts…how far might the Doctor go? Returning to Gallifrey, the Doctor faces the Time Lords in a struggle that will take him to the end of time itself. Who is the Hybrid? And what is the Doctor’s confession?”
Then add…
But actor Peter Capaldi appeared to silence reports on Friday night’s The Graham Norton Show when he said Saturday night’s Face The Raven would be ‘the end of the line’ for Clara Oswald.
Peter, 57, has been assisted by the 29-year-old companion for two years, and as he admitted that her exit would be sad and strange. (Daily Mail)
“It’s a sad one, gripping and very strange. And it’s the end of the line for Clara Oswald played by Jenna Coleman who’s been my companion for the last two years. It’s the end of her story. I don’t want to go into the details of it, but it’s sad.”
On whether Clara can return, Capaldi said: “Sometimes people can’t come back. Sometimes things happen that they can’t come back from.”
It makes since and I kind of thought that when I heard about the finale’s structure.
Will “Doctor” Clara lay down her life for her Companion Rigsy? (only she doesn’t regenerate).
Ok, let’s talk immortality and Taking the Slow Path (as Madame Du Pompadour once said) because that is at the heart of the episode.
We join Ashildr (now calling herself “Me” because all other names are pointless-“All the other names I chose died with whoever knew me, Me is who I am now. Nobody’s daughter, sister or mother, just Me.”) 800 years after her Viking village was attacked by The Mire and she was made immortal.
She is a cold, rather callous, and very much emotionally burnt-out woman who does highway robbery for kicks.
There is nothing exciting in her life anymore and the value of it normal shortness is lost on her.
People are like “smoke” and they pass by her so quickly that she forgets most of them.
And is hinted in the stories final scenes, the Doctor could still rue the day he made this girl an Immortal.
“Enemies are never a problem. It’s your friends you have to watch out for.”–Ashildr/Me echoing what Missy said on Skaro.
The storm clouds of time and consequence are gathering at the halfway point of the season.
For Ashildr is “clever” and she has a long time to learn just about anything.
As she says, “10,000 hours” to master any skill. 100,000 hours and you’re the best there’s ever been.” And she has the time for both.
10,000 hours is 416 days.
100,000 hours is 4,166 or 11.4 years.
If you’re immortal with time on your hands that’s nothing.
She’ll learn, master, and then forget more things than any human ever has before.
She’s frankly bored. So bored she’s desperate.
That’s why she misses the problem with her extra terrestrial “partner”‘ s plan until it’s almost too late.
Unlike Jack Harkness who was a Time Agent and a future adventurer to begin with who could and had understood better the undying life of an Immortal Ashildr/Me is a Viking girl on the slow path through history. His perspective is a lot different from hers.
So the outcome of this little experiment in immortality may be quite different.
Overall, this episode was a lot more satisfying than the underwhelming start of the two-parter. It was a lot meatier also.
It also gave you comparisons between Ashildr’s perspective and The Doctors.
Yes, he’s been around form 2,000 years and he is effectively an immortal who has lost many a companion and will lose many more, including Clara very soon, but he has an escape plan, it’s called a TARDIS.
He can wonder through all of time and space and discover new and different things. He’s not stuck on a slow path through one planet’s evolution.
But he has companions for partially the same reason, to remind him of the “mayflies” that see the wonder of it all and are as fleeting as “smoke” in eternity.
He can come in, adventure, and leave. He can run to the next adventure. He doesn’t really have to concern himself with the mundanity of existence in same way she does.
It’s going to be 700+ years in The Whoniverse before man starts seriously going out into space.
Will that come back to bite him someday?
DOCTOR 1 “The Five Doctors” : Hmm? Oh, I’m so sorry. I suddenly realised what the old proverb meant. To lose is to win and he who wins shall lose. It was all part of Rassilon’s trap to find out who wanted immortality and put him out of the way. He knew very well that immortality was a curse, not a blessing.
“I have waited longer than I should ever have lived. I’ve lost more than I can even remember.”— Ashildr/Me
Get used to it, you have all of eternity ahead of you.
How will that change her over time. Will she get bored again.
Will she become a villainous character?
“You didn’t save my life. You trapped me inside it,” I’m picturing the ancient mind locked inside a child’s body.
Were you slightly creeped out at the end when Ashildr/Me said that the human race was going to be glad the Doctor saved her and she would be looking out for him??
But one shout out to the episode: Yeah! Terileptils and the Great Fire of London get a casual reference!
Missus O’Leary’s Cow indeed! 🙂
Maisie Williams is a very good actress for such a young age. Like Ashildr, she will be one to watch on the slow path.
As The Guardian noted: It would have been wonderful had Leandro been a time-sensitive Tharil from Warriors’ Gate. There’s even talk of him seeking a gateway, a portal to another reality, which seems straight out of that 1981 Tom Baker serial. But he was a plot device, really, no more than that.
‘Twas Beauty and The Beast, but the question remains, which was which. 🙂
It seems Ashildr has lost her way in the mass confusion of being an immortal for the last 700 years.
That’s a fascinating twist on the whole situation.
The integrity of the person appears to have crumbled, unlike Jack Harkness who was Mr. Over Confidence and became broody over the millenia but remained Jack through it all.
This could be an very interesting episode about the consequences of The Doctor’s Time Lord Victorious II actions in Daneland, an amoral immortal…
“England, 1651. The deadly Highwayman ‘The Nightmare’ and his sidekick stalk the dark streets of London. But when they find loot that’s not of this world, they come face to face with the Doctor. Who is the Nightmare in league with? And can the Doctor avoid the hangman’s noose and protect Earth from a devilish betrayal?”
Where was Col. Hannibal Smith and the boys when you need him in Viking England?
He was The Doctor. Part Hannibal, part Murdock, Some Face, and a comical B.A..
Apparently, I was not the only one who had thoughts of this during last week.’s episode.
The whole eel, electrocution, magnet in one-day did smell of an Act 4 “A-Team Special”.
Let me be perfectly clear :), I love “The A-Team” but it was predictable.
Act 1- The Set-Up
Act 2- Annoy ‘The Mark’
Act 3- Get Captured
Act 4- A-Team Special to the Rescue
Act 5- Beat ‘the Mark’
The end.
So the Doctor has one day to defeat an interstellar bad ass army.
So he uses Electric Eels, which would not have been around at the time in that quantity, conveniently.
It’s absurd, but possible.
That’s The A-Team for you.
Someone at The Radio Times also had the same thoughts.
The Girl Who Died was a bit confusing, wasn’t it? No, not the baby talk, or the holographic Viking Gods, or the telegraphic dragon puppet. Those all make perfect sense, or at least are explained in the show with the requisite technobabble.
We’re talking about something Earth-bound, and much more slippery…
To recap, the Doctor has one day to prepare a small town for an attack by interstellar warlords. (It’s the Magnificent Seven crossed with an episode of the A-Team.) His big idea: to separate the Mire from their weapons and helmets by electrocuting them…
…and turning iron anvils into electromagnets.
A great plan, with just one problem: electrocution and electromagnets need electricity. With the Tardis inaccessible, where do you get a spark in a Viking village?
Yes, turns out the town has a constant supply of electric eels – the “fire in the water” that gloomy baby kept talking about. With a quick boost from the “silver stuff in Clara’s spacesuit” to “magnify the electrical charge”, it was all systems go.
So what’s the problem? Well, the nearest electric eel should have been thousands of miles away…
“A shocking error!” naturalist and Autumnwatch presenter Chris Packham told RadioTimes.com. “He’d need more than time travel, the old Tardis would have to head to the muddy waters of South America to get that kind of buzz.”
Chris is quite right. As we’re sure you’re aware, electric eels spend their days relaxing in the silt of the Amazon and Orinoco rivers, far from the fjords of Scandinavia.
And, actually, they’re not eels at all.
“Despite their snake like appearance, electric eels (Electrophorus electricus) are not actually eels,” a spokesperson for Sea Life London Aquarium told us, in another of several conversations we had about eels this week.
“Their scientific classification is closer to carp and catfish. They’re freshwater fish found around the waters of northeastern portions of South America and the middle and lower Amazon Basin. The eels that are found in the northern hemisphere are generally found to be the European eel (Anguilla anguilla).”
To put it simply – European eels would make a delicious dinner in the East End of London, but couldn’t even charge your phone. A major plot hole, even for Doctor Who, right?
But hold your snotty tweets, there could be a solution, and it’s down to those well travelled Vikings.
We might remember them as violent, hard drinking historical Klingons, but as the episode points out, Vikings were also canny traders, poets, explorers and merchants. They landed in the Americas centuries before Columbus, and their trade routes touched every area of the world. It is just possible that electric eels made their way from the Amazon to Scandinavia, possibly as part of a king’s menagerie of exotic animals.
(The great and the good used to collect animals to show off their influence. Ever wondered why there are so many peacocks wandering around stately homes?)
James Robson is curator of the National Sea Life Centre in Birmingham, where among the many underwater creatures on show you’ll find Ernie the Electric Eel.
“The first electric eels we know were transported to Europe were in the early 19th Century, but the Vikings didn’t really keep records we would know of,” Robson explains. “It’s stretching credulity a little bit, but conceivably a pair of electric eels could have been gifted as a prize or to assist trade negotiations.”
Once in the country, could the eels have survived outside of Horik’s palace?
“If it’s seawater it’s not possible, but if it’s in a lake or a stream…there’s potential they could have survived. The thing is European water tends to be a little bit harder, with more things dissolved in it, and it’s obviously significantly colder, so it would be very unlikely that electric eels would survive in the climate. “
What would increase their chances of living long enough to be the Doctor’s battery?
“They would have to be kept as pets, or they could be put out in the summer then brought inside and warmed up during the winter.”
Brought inside?
“In a warm hut, yeah, feasibly you could keep them alive.”
A warm hut you say? Now, where did we see those eels?
Well played Doctor Who, well played. A royally appointed Viking exotic aquarium. It’s an absurd solution, but it’s not impossible – and that’s all the Doctor has ever needed.
The Doctor does the Musketeers! I wonder if he’ll run across Cardinal Richelieu?? 🙂
But she’s the bandit.
Or is it Beauty & The Beast…
Somehow I don’t thinks she’s going to be the Female Jack Harness except that she is immortal and that’s a heavy burden.
One she may not be up to.
But she’s probably more available than Mr. Entertainment, John Barrowman.
Maisie Williams has hinted that her Doctor Who character Ashildr may recur on the series.
The Game of Thrones star debuted as the Viking girl – made immortal by the Doctor – in Saturday’s episode, ‘The Girl Who Died’, and will return in this week’s ‘The Woman Who Lived’.
The 18-year-old said that there is “a good chance” viewers will see Ashildr again in later episodes.
“I’m hoping she comes back,” Williams said. “Everyone’s been asking if she comes back. I hope so, but I have no idea.
“I know they’ve had characters similar to Ashildr that have returned in future episodes and series, so we’ll see. I think there’s a good chance!”
‘The Woman Who Lived’ picks up with Ashildr hundreds of years after ‘The Girl Who Died’, and is set in England, 1651, where a deadly and elusive highwayman is running riot.
“In episode 6, we meet my character again,” said Williams. “This time it’s years and years in the future for her story – but still years in the past for modern day people.
“She has witnessed so much and lost so much and been through so much trauma that it has really changed her as a person. She comes off as very bitter at the start until a few scenes in which we realize how much she’s lost. It’s a wonderful episode and I’m so thrilled to have played both sides of her character.”
‘The Woman Who Lived’ – from Torchwood writer Catherine Tregenna – airs this Saturday (October 24) at 8.20pm on BBC One. (Digital Spy)
“The Doctor meets The Vikings! Of course he does. The only question is, why did it take so long?
“Odin has come to visit his loyal followers, the Vikings, and reward their bravest warriors with a place in Valhalla. There’s only one problem – The Doctor and Clara, who are having none of this and smell a rat. They are soon caught up in the middle of a war between an advanced race of mercenary aliens and a village full of angry Vikings, who don’t take kindly to having their Gods insulted.
“But the Doctor has no TARDIS or sonic screwdriver, just his wits and raw material in the form of Viking villagers. But these aren’t the roaring warriors of legend, these are the ones who usually stay behind to feed the chickens. The farmers and shepherds who make sure that the roaring Vikings had a village to come home to. But the aliens are coming back and if the Doctor can’t convince the villagers to flee, he just might have to teach them to fight…
“There is another big mystery to solve in the form of Maisie Williams, who plays a Viking that the Doctor seems to recognise. But from where? Or is it when?
“At one point in development the episode was called ‘The Allfather’s Army’ referencing both Dad’s army and Norse mythology. There are also nods to films like ‘The Magnificent Seven’ and ‘The Dirty Dozen’.”
Maisie Williams (Ashildr)
Are you a fan of Doctor Who?
“When Doctor Who came back on television a lot of my male friends were really excited. I didn’t know much about it, but I watched a couple of seasons with David Tennant as the Doctor. And since I’ve been here, I’ve been questioning Jenna – why are you in a space suit?, what’s going on here?, have we met this person before?, does this link back to a previous episode? – anything I can find out. It has been really exciting working on it and I’m so glad to be a part of it now.”
How did you get the role?
I was approached with the role, I didn’t know much about it but knew they were introducing a new character to work closely with the Doctor. I’d got through the second episode and absolutely loved it! I was going to do a tape but ran out of time because I was in America shooting another film, so my agent worked really hard and sent over lots of clips and videos – they liked them and gave me the role.”
Who has the most beards, Doctor Who or Game of Thrones?
“I feel like I’ve seen a lot of insane beards here on this shoot. I don’t know which would have more, but it’s very nice to have that familiar bearded, hairy men setting. It’s so refreshing to have this futuristic element linked in to it too, that’s what has kept me going really, not just beards and dragons. There’s a whole new element that’s fed in to the sides. It just looks so great with all of us in our Viking outfits, Jenna in her space suit and the Doctor in his cool coat with his crazy sunglasses. It makes for a really cool and interesting dynamic on screen.”
What was it like to work with Peter Capaldi?
“Peter has been such a joy to work with. My brother was so excited when he heard I got the part, as was I. He’s a wonderful, wonderful actor and I couldn’t wait to meet him. He totally lived up to my expectations and I Iove that! When you meet your idols – people say ‘don’t meet your idols as they never turn out to be who you want them to be’. That was completely not the case with Peter and he’s been wonderful and really helpful on set.”
What do you think about the fact that Doctor Who has been running for 50 years?
“When I got the role, my mum would tell me about when she watched it before it came back more recently. I’m not so aware of the previous Doctors but I know a lot of the lines Peter says now relate back to other Doctors’ lines. It is so nice how they’ve incorporated the previous seasons in to the more recent episodes. I like how it all links in some way or another.”
As everyone knows, there are two kinds of lies: Bad ones that are hurtful, and less bad ones that are a little less hurtful. For example, telling someone you like their outfit even though it’s awful isn’t nearly as bad as, say, telling them you’re not sleeping with their husband even though you totally are. They’re both lies, but one probably won’t result in you getting punched in the face, and the other probably will. For people who work in certain kinds of movies and TV shows, the more benign type of lie is sometimes a deeply important part of the creative process. That’s why J.J. Abrams refused to admit that Khan was in Star Trek Into Darkness before the movie came out. He thought lying to the audience would be worth the big chuckle he’d get when we all realized the truth. (Even though it wasn’t.)
It was fairly obvious, so not a surprise. Now Tom Baker in “The Day of the Doctor” THAT was a surprise.
“I really think you might.” still sends shivers up my spine.
Now, Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat seems to be in an almost-identical situation. Back in March, we reported that Game Of Thrones star Maisie Williams would be appearing in the show’s upcoming season as an undisclosed character. Fans speculated rampantly about who she’d be playing, and when Williams briefly appeared in the Doctor Who Comic-Con trailer, that speculation somehow got even more rampant. Apparently, though, we should all stop trying to guess who she’s playing, because an Associated Press report says that she’s “a brand-new character, not someone from the Doctor’s past.” Well, that settles that! Unless, of course, we’re being lied to…
And The Moff never lies… 🙂
Moffat goes on to pat himself on the back a little, adding that “once you see what she’s up to…you’ll appreciate what a clever idea it was.”
The character or the lie or the appearance of a lie??
It better not be The 13th Doctor! 😦
He also says that it’ll take the audience “a moment or two” to figure out what’s going on, but apparently it’ll be a great reveal. To us, this practically screams “Benedict Cumberbatch isn’t playing Khan in Star Trek,” but there is a slim chance that Williams will really be a totally new character. If that’s the case, here’s our theory: She’s playing herself. It’ll be Maisie Williams, the actor, going on an adventure with the Doctor.
We’ll find out how right we are when Doctor Who returns on September 19. (We’re totally right.)
It will be a Game of Thrones crossover and she’ll be playing that character and in undisclosed adventure the Doctor is secretly one of George RR Martin’s characters! (I don’t watch Game of Thrones so I can go any farther with that).
So why do you want to be lied to?
For the same reason that some people hate spoilers. We want to be surprised. But we can’t help speculating so The Moff attempts feats of misdirection, which is one of the oldest form of distraction and lie.
The Speculation on “John Hurt is The Doctor” was rampant.
I even had my own pet theory, knowing full well that I was going to be wrong in the end, but hoping somewhere deep down I could go “Yeah! I got you, Moffat!”
So when Maisie Williams turns out to be the regenerated Susan Foreman I can say…Oh wait a minute… 🙂
There’s this cryptic picture from the BBC on Instagram:
Are you a fan of Doctor Who?
MY Doctor Who 