30/06/08
40The Stolen Earth Punditry
This is for those who watched (and care about!) Dr Who episode 12 The Stolen Earth, so be warned – there are spoilers!
This email landed this morning:
“I’m surprised to not see a Dr Who post on your blog. Are we going to get one? Will David Tennant be staying? Did you feel a pang of sadness at the thought of losing our current doctor?”
Ah, go on then.
I don’t think this is when David Tennant leaves, and I base that solely on the fact that he’s been seen filming the Christmas Episode! However, some points against that though:
- It’s possible that the production team kept his leaving secret – after all they had planned that Rose would be coming back, and managed to keep it secret for a couple of years.
- Catherine Tate did put her foot in it by saying this was his last season, after which there was an air of ‘she let the cat out of the bag’
- The scenes for the Christmas episode may be flashbacks, or some other ‘Time-Crash’ style plot device. Or even a complete Red Herring.
- Ood Sigma telling him that his “song may soon end” (although I take this to refer to Professor River Song – too literal?)
Still, my feeling is that next year’s special episodes will be his last. 3-4 years is the usual reign for a Doctor, and I’m sure that he would want to move on soon. He’s a great actor after all, and wouldn’t want to be typecast no matter how much of a fan he is. I hope he doesn’t go though – he makes even a bad script magic to watch.
So if this isn’t his last story, as I’m reckoning, then that leaves some issues. Will they back out and do some cringey plot device about how he regenerated but ‘came back the same’? Hopefully not, but here’s my theory: There was a brief mention to Donna that she ‘had something on her back’ – referencing the previous episode (Apparently Dextrus says this to Donna in ‘Fires of Pompeii’, but I missed that reference). There is still a Time Beetle™ on her back, and once some other choice is reversed, it will undo all these events. Anyway, we’ll see come Saturday!
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David Barrett said 104 days ago:
I have a horrible feeling that the “excess energy” of regeneration will build a new Tennant Doctor from his hand.
Ben Ward said 104 days ago:
I’m very cynical about what might happen next. If he really is gone then it’s perhaps one of the most well engineered pieces of television drama in a while: Keeping it secret, spreading false information to keep it unexpected (Tennant saying he’s signed on for more, the Christmas stuff, keeping the new actor secret). Also, you’d be cutting out your lead character before he’s been able to resolve his story arc, and that’s… brilliantly daring.
Unfortunately, it’s not the sort of daring that I’d expect of Russel T Davies. Instead I expect a cringeworthy, tedious plot device that turns the cliffhanger into an anticlimactic farce. Doctor Who doesn’t really have the long, cross-season arcs that would justify killing off the Doctor in his prime, either. There’s no long term plot that follows this that would justify it.
I remain slightly annoyed at the weekend’s episode. RTD’s quest for self fulfilment by cramming too many characters on screen, usually with minimal justification. Looking back on the episode, cliffhanger aside, not a lot actually happened and there was far to much ‘this is true because we say so’ nonsense plot development. Always a sign of Davies dreadful writing.
Don’t get me wrong, it was enjoyable, but I find myself thinking toward next week not so much with curiosity as to what happens next, but with the hope that no particular plot resolution ruins it all.
Oh, sod it, I’ll stop being a misery guts for a moment and indulge: My plot-based reason why the Doctor won’t regenerate into someone new is that when he’s shot by the Darlek, only half of his body gets xrayed. I presume that his ‘fatal’ injury affects just one of his hearts, and so isn’t fully regenerating.
Pete Lambert said 104 days ago:
Ok. Here’s my theory.
Spoiler alert
During the regeneration process, some of the energy pours into Donna and some of the energy pours into the hand in a jar, fusing the two together (the hand attatching itself to Donna’s shoulder, like a pirate’s parrot).
So there are now two Timelords. The regenerated Doctor (now in the guise of new Doctor, Matt Lucas), and the three handed Donna.
Immediately as the regeneration process finishes, Lucas and Donna fall to the floor exhausted. Donna’s 3rd hand comes to life and bats the Time Beetle off Donna’s back and to the feet of Rose. Rose spots it and jumps on top of it and teleports, taking it back to her own dimension.
The Doctor and Donna wake up and step outside the Tardis, which by this point is surrounded by Daleks. Supreme Dalek fires two shots – direct hits on both Timelords, knocking them back inside the Tardis. Regeneration begins again but as the previous regeneration had caused this dual-Timelord anomoly it attempts to correct itself, creating a short, fat, ginger gay man with five hands. Unfortunately the fifth hand is formed inside the new Doctor causing complications in all of his hearts and killing him instantly. Too quickly for regeneration to save him.
Cut to Rose in her own dimension stamping repeatedly on the beetle. It dies, and the time space continuum is restored to it’s original state. Donna and the (David Tennant) Doctor are then seen walking past the fortune teller’s shop and buying a falafel from a stall run by… wait for it… Bernard Cribbins.
Credits roll.
That’s it. I don’t think I left any plot holes unclosed there, did I?
Do you want to know what the Christmas special will be about?
Jon Hicks said 104 days ago:
If it’s of the same quality, hell yes!
Harry Roberts said 104 days ago:
I completely lost track of Dr. Who before Catherine Tate became a part of it, I’m absolutely gutted that I’ve missed so much of it.
Chris Ivens said 104 days ago:
I do think we will see the hand getting involved in the proceedings. They made a point of showing it a scene or two before.
Pete Lambert said 104 days ago:
Oh it’s a good one. I won’t give it all away but it features the last four Doctors (Christopher Ecclestone, David Tennant, Matt Lucas and Three-handed Donna Noble) joining in a battle against childhood obesity in low-income families.
Chris said 104 days ago:
Most of my thoughts around the cliff-hanger are revolving around a couple of things:
# the rumour that John Simm (The Master) was signed on to be a future regeneration of The Doctor # the Catherine Tate “foot-in-mouth” quote about Tennant leaving. # the possibily-still-there Time Beetle (though I’m not 100% convinced about this – I thought the Shadow Proclamation woman said was, not is)
I’m also intrigued about the constant focusing on the Doctor’s hand – both the amputated and regrown one. When the regeneration started, the first shot was of the amputated hand in the jar, then The Doctor looked at the regrown one. It might be nothing, but I thought it was curious. I could also be remembering the sequence wrong (iPlayer is blocked at work, so I can’t check). There have definitely been a lot of seemingly superfluous shots of the jar throughout the series.
Could the regeneration of The Doctor’s body causes the hand-in-a-jar to regenerate also? So we get two Doctors? That’d be cool. Unlikely, but cool!
Well remembered on the Ood Sigma thing – I’d forgotten about that one. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about “new” Who, it’s that no reference is a “throw-away”. Everything matters, and it all means something.
Roll on next week, to put us all out of our misery!
Jon Hicks said 104 days ago:
Point taken about all the hand shots – I think you’re right, its definitely significant!
Neil Bradley said 104 days ago:
The BBC had previously confirmed that David Tennant was staying on for the Christmas episode and the 3 special episodes next year.
My thinking is that they will somehow use the Time Beetle to reset everything and put Donna back to before she met The Doctor and perhaps retcon her so that she doesn’t remember anything.
Paul Annett said 104 days ago:
When a Doctor goes, it’s not by way of a quick shot from a single Dalek. There would have been more of a build up, it would have been Davros himself ordering his demise, or something. And in terms of getting out of this situation, remember that they’re currently in a world that’s shifted to one-second in the future, so they could slip back to the ‘present’ and find the Dalek just missed when it took its shot?
Nathan Pitman said 104 days ago:
I think Donna was told ‘you had something on your back’ in this episode, not that ‘you have something on your back’ but I might well be wrong. :)
Andy Warburton said 104 days ago:
Nooooo! I’m out of the country this Saturday – I’ll have to watch it on iPlayer when I get back on Sunday.
Michael Grinstead said 104 days ago:
I was thinking on the same lines as Paul, regarding that they are 1 sec in the future.
I think my wife was on the verge of tears at the thought of Tennant leaving.
Richard Earney said 104 days ago:
The line about something on your back by the Shadow Proclamation lady was in the past tense – you had something on your back.
ooohhh – still exciting!
Adam Coppard said 104 days ago:
It looks like the BBC have a long time to srot the story out, 65 (yes, 65, 5 mins longer than last year) have been scheduled for the final episode, which must mean that
a) something big is going to happen, on a different story after the re-generation
or
b) the story’ll got dragged out so long I’ll go to sleep.
Jon Hicks said 104 days ago:
She did say ‘was’, but I took that as meaning ‘there was something on your back just then, but now it’s gone’…
Barry Bloye said 104 days ago:
I believe that David Tennant’s Doctor is not dead simply because that would be a really lame death!
I’m sure they’ll swerve the Patrick-Duffy-coming-out-of-the-shower-ness of it being another beetle-induced alternate reality, but I do still think there will be some time-travelling / alternate timeline jiggery-pokery. I suspect this might involve Project Indigo and the Osterhagen Key.
However, with Dalek Caan predicting “everlasting death for the most faithful companion”, there will surely be a sacrifice involved in achieving this, with one of the companions giving their life or going insane as Caan did when he saved Davros.
There are also some interesting comments on wired.com relating to The Master!
Pete said 104 days ago:
What about the references to Mr Copper, the chap left on earth at the end of Voyage of the Damned with a whole load of currency? Presumably he was behind the Copper Foundation and Sarah-Jane’s Subnet.
What’s the “Oscar Hagen” (was that it?) key?
Who is “control” that is teleporting Rose around in – UNIT? How did she get “here”?
The hand in a jar is certainly something important. It’s been cropping up throughout the series for inexplicable reasons.
I’ve also heard talk of drums, the drums The Master was hearing, though I’ve not had chance to re-watch the episode yet to confirm this.
There are many story arcs that are coming together.
Now, I bet that Dalek that squeezed off the lucky shot had a good night back in the rec room of the mothership that night. (I’ve been racking my brains for a good Dalek Pub name but can’t think of one – answers on a postcard).
Pete said 104 days ago:
Oh yes, and the Subwave alert… it’s the same rhythm as the drums heard by The Master.
Alex Clarke said 104 days ago:
Dalek Caan says right at the beginning “He is coming, the three-fold man is coming”. What does this mean?
And that Dalek didn’t exterminate him fully, it only got half of him.
OMG, I can’t wait until Saturday. I have so many questions that need answering.
Chris said 104 days ago:
So his “regeneration” splits him in two – one half being the “dead” half, the other still Tennant. Then the Hand regenerates because of the excess energy going about. Threefold Doctors!
Neil Bradley said 103 days ago:
There will be a new Doctor in the final episode, but not in the conventional sense. ;)
Also, remember the Osterhagen Key which has yet to be used. Incidentally, Osterhagen means ‘Burning Man’ – which is what The Doctor looks like when he regenerates. Curious. :)
Pete said 103 days ago:
“Osterhagen means ‘Burning Man’ “
It doesn’t does it?
I’ll confess to not speaking German but I thought “Oster” meant “Easter”, “Ost” meaning “East” and is used as a prefix for other words.
For instance “Osterie” = Easter Egg, “Osterglocke” = Daffodil
Not sure where “Burning man” could come from but it could be a reference to ressurection – which makes sense in context.
Pete said 103 days ago:
Hehe,
osterhagen is also an anagram of “earth’s gone”
Chris Ivens said 102 days ago:
If they manage to prevent the earth being stolen and the other events BEFORE they happen then the Daleks won’t be there to shoot the doctor in the first place thus, we keep David Tennant.
DSCW said 102 days ago:
I think given the references we have had, the hand is a red herring.
Dalek Caan says Dark Lord and three fold man, I think we will get 3 Doctors 1 Past (Christopher E), 1 Present (David T) and 1 Future?. and a Master
Harriet Jones not dead but captured, the dalek changed his aim.
Donna’s loss is either memory of the Doctor or the death of Wilf her Grandfather.
The death of the most faithfull companion is either Rose or the Tardis itself.
The Oserhagen key is probably a self destruct for earth, Burning Man?
Just my thoughts
The Doctor said 102 days ago:
(this comment has been deleted for being a twat)Austin said 102 days ago:
Who on earth do you think you are? Calling people ‘THICK’ just because you see yourself as better than them due to the fact that you know something they don’t…How pompouse!
thee doc said 102 days ago:
yeap that was rude of the doctor, I reckon the hand prevents him regenerating and instead regeneration cells from his hand repair him enough not to fully regenerate
Benjamin said 102 days ago:
Slightly curious as to why noone has linked the Osterhagen key (Burning Man) to the fact that the master was burnt when he died. I mean fair enough he is a timelord but timelords occaisonally have been known to use the odd man and woman reference to themselves (don’t quote me on that…). I think it’s blatently clear that tennant is not going to regenerate as he should and will be in the episode. Firstly there have been pictures of him on the beach with characters from the episode, and the side dalek shot is too obvious to not miss to show that not all is well with the doctors “regeration”…
Anyway I wanted to say more but I only really put a comment to mention the burning man thing.
Ben x
Andy Croll said 102 days ago:
Just thought I should point out the splendidly written and lovely design of Behind the Sofa for those of you who may not have found it.
Doctor Who gives me a little dose of Britishness whilst I’m out in Asia, and for all it’s occasional foibles that’s why I continue to indulge. Thank goodness for BitTorrent.
Havuz said 101 days ago:
thanks you very nice web page and wonderful ful web design
Havuz said 101 days ago:
thanks you very nice web page Beatiful web designer
Chris Ivens said 101 days ago:
Just a side-note, perhaps more in keeping with Mr Hicks’ profession, I was reading Behind the Sofa and I really couldn’t keep focussed on the text as the white on black danced around in my vision. I was reading the post about the episode we are talking about here and it seems the author (didn’t get to the bottom to find out who) really didn’t like the episode. Oh well, you can’t please everyone.
Pete said 101 days ago:
How does Osterhagen translate to “Burning Man”?
Adam Coppard said 100 days ago:
The Osterhagen key is probably linked into past events in Doctor Who, but more likely, on the real world, it’s surely gotta be a key for some weapsons system that is unsafe or something like that.
Barry Bloye said 99 days ago:
Wait a minute…
Oster = Easter = Resurrection?
David Barrett said 99 days ago:
2 minutes to go!
Chris Hester said 97 days ago:
Where is everybody?
I just wanted to say that my dictionary defines the Dalek “crucible” thus. Interesting.
1. A vessel in which substances are heated to high temperatures
2. The hearth at the bottom of a metallurgical furnace in which the metal collects
3. A severe trial or test