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Emerson Cod
Apr 14, 2004

by Pragmatica

Astroman posted:

I could have sworn, and correct me if I'm wrong, that the GI said "He will be known by other names...The Storm, The Beast, The Valeyard."

Ah, true, that's my mistake. Hmm, that has very different implications, though, even if the Valeyard is one or even two regenerations away.

But yeah, with Hurt's Doctor staring out at Trenzalore, it sounded like there were bombs falling and ships flying through the air. You could see one of the gravestones next to him.

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Wheat Loaf
Feb 13, 2012

by FactsAreUseless

Renzian posted:

I think this is the best way to deal with the idea of the Doctor's age, because so many different writers have said so many different things about how old he is at so many different points throughout the series that trying to make sense of it all will just make your head hurt. But for what it's worth, back when RTD was writing the show, I worked out that in my own personal calculation the Doctor must have traveled for 200 years with Romana because he's in his 700s when Romana first meets him, but then in Trial of a Timelord he's in his 900s, and as 5 he only ever traveled with human/human-lifespan companions sooo. But that's just my own take.

There's one fan theory that the time elapsed between Tegan leaving and coming back the first time (ie. between "Time-Flight" and "Arc Of Infinity"), them again after her second exit (ie. between "Resurrection Of the Daleks" and "Planet Of Fire"), Five could've travelled for a potentially very long time, because the life-span of natives of Taken and Trion was never officially established. :v:

Rhyno
Mar 22, 2003
Probation
Can't post for 10 years!

Metal Loaf posted:

I bet the real reason he never went home if he could help it is because he knew his old school bullies would give him a hard time about it. You know, "There's the Doctor; he's barely been around for a millennium and he's already gone through most of his regenerations! Hahahahaha!"

Don't you remember when he went home in The Deadly Assassin?


"Have you had a face lift?"

"Several."

Something I liked about the old series is that Gallifreyans could recognize each other despite changing bodies.

Forktoss
Feb 13, 2012

I'm OK, you're so-so

Metal Loaf posted:

There's one fan theory that the time elapsed between Tegan leaving and coming back the first time (ie. between "Time-Flight" and "Arc Of Infinity"), them again after her second exit (ie. between "Resurrection Of the Daleks" and "Planet Of Fire"), Five could've travelled for a potentially very long time, because the life-span of natives of Taken and Trion was never officially established. :v:

In the BF audio Cobwebs the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough return to Nyssa 50 years later and she's considerably older, which means that Trakenites age at similar rate to humans. :reject:

This did make me realise a fun(?) bit of trivia, though: Five is the last Doctor to date to never travel alone at any point during his lifespan, assuming he didn't leave a companion/companions behind and come back for them later in an untelevised adventure. Smith and Tennant are alone half the time, Eccleston was alone pre-(and mid-)Rose, McGann left Grace alone, McCoy comes into the TV Movie alone, Colin is alone after the Trial, and Tom and Pertwee are alone in between pretty much every companion. That leaves only Troughton and Hartnell the other ones with a continuous cycle of companions (if you don't want to go into Season 6B or count that five minutes Hartnell is alone in the end of The Massacre).

Rhyno
Mar 22, 2003
Probation
Can't post for 10 years!
As much as we'd like to forget her, Six had Mel with him at the end of Trial.

ProfessorLoomis
Apr 5, 2007

I LUST FOR MONKEY DEATH

Rhyno posted:

As much as we'd like to forget her, Six had Mel with him at the end of Trial.

I think I'm literally the only person in the universe that likes Mel.

Rhyno
Mar 22, 2003
Probation
Can't post for 10 years!

ProfessorLoomis posted:

I think I'm literally the only person in the universe that likes Mel.

Yup. Still better than Mels though.

Forktoss
Feb 13, 2012

I'm OK, you're so-so

Rhyno posted:

As much as we'd like to forget her, Six had Mel with him at the end of Trial.

The timelines are super confusing, but there is a period where Six travels alone after Trial. Terror of the Vervoids takes place in the future from the point of view of Trial, which means that Six had not yet met Mel at that point (which in turn means that he first meets her in person as she is brought into the trial, but she has already met him as this Mel is presumably from after Vervoids... I guess?). After Trial, he returns her to her own time (whenever that is - maybe after Dragonfire? I can't remember if this is ever stated in Trial) and goes off on his own. He later meets an earlier version of Mel (this being her first meeting with the Doctor) who he then takes with him.

There's a BFA called The Wrong Doctors that's about this very thing. I haven't heard it, but I'm sure it makes a lot more sense than whatever I've just typed up.

EvilHawk
Sep 15, 2009

LIVARPOOL!

Klopp's 13pts clear thanks to video ref

The thing about the Doctor's age is that there is literally no way to track it. First, you've got the problem of whether he tracks it in human (i.e. Earth) years, or in Gallifrey rotations, which presumably wouldn't be the same. Second, he spends half his time in the TARDIS; who knows how long time passes in there. Finally, what happens when he goes to other worlds? Again, the rotations aren't going to be the same, so he'd have to have some way of independently keep track of how many Earth/Gallifrey/whatever years have passed, which we have never seen.

What I'm saying is the Doctor is exactly as young or as old as he wants to be. Unless there is some expiration date for Time Lords it'll never be an issue for him.

Rhyno
Mar 22, 2003
Probation
Can't post for 10 years!
Bullshit. Cut him in half and count his rings.

Ensign_Ricky
Jan 4, 2008

Daddy Warlord
of the
Children of the Corn


or something...

Rhyno posted:

Something I liked about the old series is that Gallifreyans could recognize each other despite changing bodies.

It kinda makes sense seeing as they're low level psychics.

The_Doctor
Mar 29, 2007

"The entire history of this incarnation is one of temporal orbits, retcons, paradoxes, parallel time lines, reiterations, and divergences. How anyone can make head or tail of all this chaos, I don't know."

Ensign_Ricky posted:

It kinda makes sense seeing as they're low level psychics.

The best moment of this is in the War Games when the Doctor and the War Chief see each other for the first time, and both are basically "Oh poo poo!" My take is that Time Lords have special time vision that lets them see temporal stuff outside the regular visual spectrum, and to look at each other is like seeing someone covered in Christmas lights or with a big neon aura.

EvilHawk
Sep 15, 2009

LIVARPOOL!

Klopp's 13pts clear thanks to video ref

Rhyno posted:

Bullshit. Cut him in half and count his rings.

This is now the only acceptable answer.

SwimmingSpider
Jan 3, 2008


Jön, jön, jön a vizipók.
Várják már a tólakók.
Ez a kis pók ügyes búvár.
Sok új kaland is még rá vár.
Everybody's talking about the Valeyard being between the Doctor's 12th and 13th incarnations, but the Master clearly says "12th and final," which for Moffat isn't so much wiggle room as it is a playground of excuses to keep the Doctor going for many forms to come.

cams
Mar 28, 2003


Astroman posted:

I could have sworn, and correct me if I'm wrong, that the GI said "He will be known by other names...The Storm, The Beast, The Valeyard."
I'm amused that you guys are discussing tense-semantics on a time travel show where they were at the tomb of the man who the GI was talking to.

It also amuses me that people hold so tightly to the idea that the show has to honor things like a limit on regenerations. If they want to get around it they'll just make something up, it's a TV show.

Bicyclops
Aug 27, 2004

Rhinoceraptor posted:

Everybody's talking about the Valeyard being between the Doctor's 12th and 13th incarnations, but the Master clearly says "12th and final," which for Moffat isn't so much wiggle room as it is a playground of excuses to keep the Doctor going for many forms to come.

He really doesn't though :confused:


The Master posted:

The Valeyard, Doctor, is your penultimate reincarnation... Somewhere between your twelfth and thirteenth regeneration.

thexerox123
Aug 17, 2007

Bicyclops posted:

He really doesn't though :confused:

What? Where are you getting this from? I watched The Trial of a Time Lord for the first time this week, and just pulled up the episode and checked again... this is the verbatim quote:

The Master posted:

There is some evil in all of us, Doctor, even you. The Valeyard is an amalgamation of the darker sides of your nature, somewhere between your twelfth and final incarnation.

Royal W
Jun 20, 2008
I found this thing today. It's an infographic that (tries to) explain the Doctor/River timeline spaghetti. I can't imagine how much :spergin: it took to compile this.
EDIT: a link would be helpful, wouldn't it?
http://news.drwho-online.co.uk/Infographic-River-Songs-Timeline.aspx

Royal W fucked around with this message at 12:43 on May 23, 2013

jivjov
Sep 13, 2007

But how does it taste? Yummy!
Dinosaur Gum

cams posted:

It also amuses me that people hold so tightly to the idea that the show has to honor things like a limit on regenerations. If they want to get around it they'll just make something up, it's a TV show.

I don't think anyone has said they expect the 13 limit to be held to as a hard rule. It's just something they need to address in some fashion. A throwaway line or a "Last Life of the Doctor" episode to explain why the Doctor isn't bound by the 13 regeneration rule, and problem solved.

Bicyclops
Aug 27, 2004

thexerox123 posted:

What? Where are you getting this from? I watched The Trial of a Time Lord for the first time this week, and just pulled up the episode and checked again... this is the verbatim quote:

I just pulled it from TARDIS files, which may be using some of the questionably canon material, but either way, your quote says the same thing: The Valeyard is between regenerations. Although it looks like I was misinterpreting what Rhinocepter was saying - I thought he was making a point about which incarnation the Valeyard was, but he's noting that the Thirteenth Doctor has to be the last.

qntm
Jun 17, 2009

EvilHawk posted:

The thing about the Doctor's age is that there is literally no way to track it. First, you've got the problem of whether he tracks it in human (i.e. Earth) years, or in Gallifrey rotations, which presumably wouldn't be the same. Second, he spends half his time in the TARDIS; who knows how long time passes in there. Finally, what happens when he goes to other worlds? Again, the rotations aren't going to be the same, so he'd have to have some way of independently keep track of how many Earth/Gallifrey/whatever years have passed, which we have never seen.

What I'm saying is the Doctor is exactly as young or as old as he wants to be. Unless there is some expiration date for Time Lords it'll never be an issue for him.

I choose to believe that sometime during the Time War the Doctor went "Screw it! I've lost count. I can't keep track anymore and I can't be bothered to work it out. I'm nine hundred. I'm arbitrarily starting over at nine hundred, which I know is too low, but I don't care. And there are no Time Lords left to call me out on it."

qntm
Jun 17, 2009
And the 13-regeneration rule will definitely come up again because it has immense storytelling possibilities.

Chairman Capone
Dec 17, 2008

qntm posted:

I choose to believe that sometime during the Time War the Doctor went "Screw it! I've lost count. I can't keep track anymore and I can't be bothered to work it out. I'm nine hundred. I'm arbitrarily starting over at nine hundred, which I know is too low, but I don't care. And there are no Time Lords left to call me out on it."

Obviously the real reason the Doctor loses 50 years of age between the old show and the new is that one of the battles in the Time War clearly cut out a 50 year slice of time from the universe.

Classtoise
Feb 11, 2008

THINKS CON-AIR WAS A GOOD MOVIE

Chairman Capone posted:

Obviously the real reason the Doctor loses 50 years of age between the old show and the new is that one of the battles in the Time War clearly cut out a 50 year slice of time from the universe.

And it's such a massive loss of potential life that despite doing it for peace and sanity 8 felt he no longer deserved it.

It's okay guys I figured everything out.

Decius
Oct 14, 2005

Ramrod XTreme

qntm posted:

And the 13-regeneration rule will definitely come up again because it has immense storytelling possibilities.

Eh, we had enough Doctor angsting around with Tennant already, and we all know that he will find some solution if it even comes up, because the BBC and we all want more Doctor Who.

Pizdec
Dec 10, 2012

Mokinokaro posted:

I just think the writing hasn't given her much to do. Now that her mystery is solved I hope we see more of an "Oswin" side to her.
I'm kind of hoping she stays that way. I actually found her more tolerable this season than I expected to, because she was getting lost in all the plot. Unlike in her first two appearances, where the cheequirky Moffat girl crap got irritating fast.

Bicyclops
Aug 27, 2004

Decius posted:

Eh, we had enough Doctor angsting around with Tennant already, and we all know that he will find some solution if it even comes up, because the BBC and we all want more Doctor Who.

Wellllll, you have to remember, even if John Hurt is the new Ninth Doctor and Matt Smith is Twelve now, he has at least another year, and then we have another incarnation that will last another 3 - 4 years, which is plenty of time for the show to become unpopular. Hell, if it turns out Hurt is some kind of alt-Doctor who isn't part of the regular continuity of the Doctor's life, we could still have a decade of television before the Thirteenth Doctor "dies."

I think the show will stay pretty drat popular, but I also wouldn't be surprised if they put someone terrible in charge later and they ran it into the ground.

computer parts
Nov 18, 2010

PLEASE CLAP

Decius posted:

Eh, we had enough Doctor angsting around with Tennant already, and we all know that he will find some solution if it even comes up, because the BBC and we all want more Doctor Who.

Yeah but the same think happened in the new Star Trek movie with Kirk and plenty of people still found that compelling.

scary ghost dog
Aug 5, 2007
It's all about presentation.

Mooseontheloose
May 13, 2003

Giving the Doctor some sort of mortality can lead to some interesting scripts I think. Unwillingness to put another companion in harms way, how does one face the end of their life knowing the end is near, ect. and then at the end of the 13th incarnation reboot the universe and the Time Lords, Green Latern style.

Spacedad
Sep 11, 2001

We go play orbital catch around the curvature of the earth, son.
I'm actually kind of hoping they decide to break the 'one doctor at a time except for the #-doctors specials' rule and bounce between Matt Smith and David Tennet for future seasons/arcs, depending on the episode. To me it's almost like David Tennet never really stopped being the Doctor.

Spacedad fucked around with this message at 04:46 on May 26, 2013

Atarask
Mar 8, 2008

Lord of Rigel Developer
It would be interesting if they brought in the Valeyard as a recurring villain in future Smith seasons (separate from Hurt), which culminates in his final episode being at Trenzalore and regenerating into 12 (13th incarnation) and the Valeyard.

12_String
Feb 28, 2007

Broccoli is brain food.

Legs Benedict posted:

I keep seeing some posters mention John Hurt looking out on Trenzalore as an "active battlefield". Was there activity in the background of that shot that I just missed somehow?

I was right there with you. I didn't see any indication of an active battlefield. But listen to the background noise from about when The Doctor is calling to Clara. "Trust me Clara..."

Shadoer
Aug 31, 2011


Zoe Quinn is one of many women targeted by the Gamergate harassment campaign.

Support a feminist today!


Bicyclops posted:

Wellllll, you have to remember, even if John Hurt is the new Ninth Doctor and Matt Smith is Twelve now, he has at least another year, and then we have another incarnation that will last another 3 - 4 years, which is plenty of time for the show to become unpopular. Hell, if it turns out Hurt is some kind of alt-Doctor who isn't part of the regular continuity of the Doctor's life, we could still have a decade of television before the Thirteenth Doctor "dies."

I think the show will stay pretty drat popular, but I also wouldn't be surprised if they put someone terrible in charge later and they ran it into the ground.

Hey crazy theory here. Maybe Matt Smith is the 13th regeneration?

I mean we have the John Hurt one bringing Matt Smith to 12... but we also have that whole weird thing in the Stolen Earth/Journey End two parter where it was never confirmed if Tennant had effectively used up a regeneration or not. So maybe Matt Smith can be considered the 13th one and will become the Valeyard.

Astroman
Apr 8, 2001


Atarask posted:

It would be interesting if they brought in the Valeyard as a recurring villain in future Smith seasons (separate from Hurt), which culminates in his final episode being at Trenzalore and regenerating into 12 (13th incarnation) and the Valeyard.

I would love to see this because my personal dream for a Valeyard return would be the 12th Doctor saying to his current companion (which would be Clara, if Moffat goes there) "you have to leave me. I could become someone dangerous at any time." He's basically a ticking time bomb at that point.

In the NAs, I always assumed that Muldwych was supposed to be the 12th Doctor, and he had exiled himself to Antykhon (future Earth) because he knew his next regeneration would be The Valeyard and he wanted to be alone and stranded.

Mordiceius
Nov 10, 2007

If you think calling me names is gonna get a rise out me, think again. I like my life as an idiot!
More hints that it's the Time War Doctor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYWghABqh3w

Astroman
Apr 8, 2001


Is there really any serious doubt that it is though? I mean, Clara opened a book about THE TIME WAR in Journey to the Center of the TARDIS. Why bring that up this season if the show wasn't going there?

Also, I have no idea how this particular Clara would at that time have had any memories of her future splintered selves (as it seems the 21st Century Clara is the *real* Clara), but she did look in the book and say something like "so THAT'S who he was"--which probably means she saw a pic of Doctor Hurt fighting in the Time War.

Tom Nook
Nov 14, 2005

Always crashing in the same car

Astroman posted:

Is there really any serious doubt that it is though? I mean, Clara opened a book about THE TIME WAR in Journey to the Center of the TARDIS. Why bring that up this season if the show wasn't going there?

Also, I have no idea how this particular Clara would at that time have had any memories of her future splintered selves (as it seems the 21st Century Clara is the *real* Clara), but she did look in the book and say something like "so THAT'S who he was"--which probably means she saw a pic of Doctor Hurt fighting in the Time War.

Then wouldn't she recognize him in The Name of the Doctor? She thought there were only 11 Doctors when she saw him.

Guy A. Person
May 23, 2003

Yeah I think you are misinterpreting that scene, especially because - like you even said - it would require her to have memories from her future self. I think she just saw something about the Doctor (possibly his name) and she wondered why he was keeping it a secret.

Referencing the Time War may have been a way to foreshadow its role later in the season though, I will definitely buy that.

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wyoming
Jun 7, 2010

Like a television
tuned to a dead channel.

Astroman posted:

(as it seems the 21st Century Clara is the *real* Clara)

There is no real Clara, she's a physical manifestation of something inside the Doctor brought on my nano-Daleks.

Well that's been my theory since she showed up again anyway.
And the last episode had the Doctor being able to interact with River even though she was only supposed to be mind linked with Clara.

Has there been any talk of John Simm being involved? Because The Master is technically part of the Time War now isn't he? I can't remember how that whole thing worked.

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