NationStates Jolt Archive

This thread is likely to contain spoilers. Australians, Canadians, and Americans and other nationalities who get the new Doctor Who series but have yet to reach the season 4 finale, and don't want to know about the season 4 finale, may want to look away now.




















I also realise that there's another Doctor Who thread, but that's a generic 'are you watching Doctor Who' discussion that has some reference to the season finale. I've decided to start a dedicated thread for theories on the season finale. If possible, please limit discussion to plot points rather than whether RTD has lost his touch (or whether he ever had it).

Particular points for discussion:

1) Is the Doctor really regenerating? If so, is David Tennant leaving or not? Wouldn't that be the best-kept secret in TV history?
Possibly relevant here: Does Donna still have a time beetle on her back? Aren't the 27 planets one second out of sync with the rest of the Universe? Will the spare hand become significant, as hinted?


2) Who or what is Donna?
Possibly relevant here: Why the 'thump thump' beats when the Shadow Proclamation woman commiserates over Donna's unspecified loss? What's the anomaly around her mentioned in 'Turn Left'? And again with the time beetle.


3) Which companion will die if Dalek Caan's prophecy is to be fufilled?
One out there theory posited by a friend of mine: the companion is blue, boxy, and always a bit wooden on screen. Surely not?


4) If Davros can get out of the time-locked Time War, then what about Time Lords?


5) Don't any of us have anything better to do with our time?

Dr. Who should have been pulled after Tom Baker left all those years ago.

Dr. Who should have been pulled after Tom Baker left all those years ago.

Yes, thank you. That's precisely the sort of non-constructive contribution I specifically said I wasn't looking for.

But I can't help adding, as someone who's old enough to remember watching Jon Pertwee the first time around (never mind Tom Baker), that I think that the last few episodes of the current season, from Silence in the Library through to Turn Left, are as good as anything the Tom Baker era produced.

But really, I'd rather concentrate on theories on the current season finale, please.

The only rumours I've heard so far about the Doctor's new form is that Eddie Izzard might be stepping in. Helluva rumour either way, but I suspect the time beetle is still got something to do with it. Like, Izzard will be in it for the last episode, before time goes back to normal and Tennant comes back.

Or something.

This thread is likely to contain spoilers. Australians, Canadians, and Americans and other nationalities who get the new Doctor Who series but have yet to reach the season 4 finale, and don't want to know about the season 4 finale, may want to look away now.




















I also realise that there's another Doctor Who thread, but that's a generic 'are you watching Doctor Who' discussion that has some reference to the season finale. I've decided to start a dedicated thread for theories on the season finale. If possible, please limit discussion to plot points rather than whether RTD has lost his touch (or whether he ever had it).

Particular points for discussion:

1) Is the Doctor really regenerating? If so, is David Tennant leaving or not? Wouldn't that be the best-kept secret in TV history?
Possibly relevant here: Does Donna still have a time beetle on her back? Aren't the 27 planets one second out of sync with the rest of the Universe? Will the spare hand become significant, as hinted?


2) Who or what is Donna?
Possibly relevant here: Why the 'thump thump' beats when the Shadow Proclamation woman commiserates over Donna's unspecified loss? What's the anomaly around her mentioned in 'Turn Left'? And again with the time beetle.


3) Which companion will die if Dalek Caan's prophecy is to be fufilled?
One out there theory posited by a friend of mine: the companion is blue, boxy, and always a bit wooden on screen. Surely not?


4) If Davros can get out of the time-locked Time War, then what about Time Lords?


5) Don't any of us have anything better to do with our time?

1)He really is. It is one of the best kept television secrets in history. I thought the Time Beetle died in the episode before. Yes the planets are one second out of sync. Don't know about the hand.

2) Well apparently the universe is revolving around her and the Doctor. I think she is the key to defeating the Daleks. Don't know how, Maybe she is to die.

3) They better not touch the TARDIS! I'm still going with Donna being the one dying. Maybe to save the universe from the end.

4) I doubt it. Dalek Caan would probably have found a way to lock the Time War after he got Davros out. If not, then that would be one hell of a Finale!

5) No we don't damn it!

The only rumours I've heard so far about the Doctor's new form is that Eddie Izzard might be stepping in. Helluva rumour either way, but I suspect the time beetle is still got something to do with it. Like, Izzard will be in it for the last episode, before time goes back to normal and Tennant comes back.

Or something.


You heard Izzard. I heard Jennifer Saunders. Don't remember where I heard that. That'd be strange.

1)He really is. It is one of the best kept television secrets in history. I thought the Time Beetle died in the episode before. Yes the planets are one second out of sync. Don't know about the hand.

2) Well apparently the universe is revolving around her and the Doctor. I think she is the key to defeating the Daleks. Don't know how, Maybe she is to die.

3) They better not touch the TARDIS! I'm still going with Donna being the one dying. Maybe to save the universe from the end.

4) I doubt it. Dalek Caan would probably have found a way to lock the Time War after he got Davros out. If not, then that would be one hell of a Finale!

5) No we don't damn it!

You heard Izzard. I heard Jennifer Saunders. Don't remember where I heard that. That'd be strange.

Problem with point 1: Tennant's already filmed the Christmas special. This makes a proper regeneration impossible unless the three specials next year are all flashbacks. My theories revolve around the Medusa Cluster being a second out of sync with the rest of the Universe, the/a time beetle still being on Donna's back (referenced both in the Fires of Pompeii and, last night, by a member of the Shadow Proclamation - where we heard the beetle sound) despite the apparent events at the end of Turn Left, and the Tenth Doctor's spare hand. It might well be possible for the Doctor to regenerate _and_ keep David Tennant if the reality/timeline around Earth in the Medusa Cluster is false/reversible. The regenerated Doctor (10.5?) might perhaps sacrifice himself to restore the 10th Doctor's timeline?


Points 2 & 3: The Donna dying possibility seems to have been too wildly telegraphed to actually happen. It wouldn't be enough of a surprise (unless our minds are being really, really toyed with). I still think that 'thump thump' at the Shadow Proclamation is important. Any takers for Donna is Romana?

Point 4: Dalek Caan is insane. If he can rescue Davros, if the Master can have survived the Time War (see last series) - albeit under very different circumstances, and if the end of the second series had a Time Lord Dalek prison with thousands of Daleks reappearing from between realities, then why not some reappearing Time Lords?



Rumours of Eddie Izzard and Jennifer Saunders are ancient rumours floating around from when the programme was on hiatus between McCoy and Eccleston, and I don't think are in any way trustworthy.

Here's another wild rumour: John Simm is said to have secretly spent two days filming scenes for the season finale. All this and the Master too?

I hope Tennant doesn't go - small children will stop mistaking me for Dr who if he does :(.

Going back to original Who lore timelords only have 12(?) regenerations and they're nearing the end of that cycle. Perhaps they've ditched that but they could also with all these various loose ends discussed use things like the hand the out of sync medusa cluster etc to provide an explanation for the Dr to get more regenerations.

Probably they have ditched this bit of who lore though as the Master used his regenerations way back and only survived through taking somebody elses (a human's?) body so he shouldn't have been around or certainly shouldn't have been able to regenerate further as the end of the last series implied he had.

Death of a companion? Could always be captain jack he can die and come back to life? My bet's on donna grandfather though

I've heard the theory of question two being related to your friend's theory to question 3. Essentially Donna in some way becomes a new/revives old/etc Tardis.

But in general there's going to be a big reset button at some point I think. Whether by the Time Beetle, that key thing Martha has or some other way a lot of stuff is going to get undone by a big deus ex machina of some sort. Oh, and Rose is going to die, mainly so they can tie off all the loose ends for the sabbatical.

I've heard the theory of question two being related to your friend's theory to question 3. Essentially Donna in some way becomes a new/revives old/etc Tardis.

But in general there's going to be a big reset button at some point I think. Whether by the Time Beetle, that key thing Martha has or some other way a lot of stuff is going to get undone by a big deus ex machina of some sort. Oh, and Rose is going to die, mainly so they can tie off all the loose ends for the sabbatical.


Wouldn't it make more sense for Rose to revive the TARDIS, if that was to happen, having channelled its power in the past?

Dr. Who should have been pulled after Tom Baker left all those years ago.

Bah, Sylvester McCoy was always my favourite!




(not for any rational reason though)

Going back to original Who lore timelords only have 12(?) regenerations and they're nearing the end of that cycle. Perhaps they've ditched that but they could also with all these various loose ends discussed use things like the hand the out of sync medusa cluster etc to provide an explanation for the Dr to get more regenerations.

Probably they have ditched this bit of who lore though as the Master used his regenerations way back and only survived through taking somebody elses (a human's?) body so he shouldn't have been around or certainly shouldn't have been able to regenerate further as the end of the last series implied he had.


Additionally, If I remember correctly, the Time Lords themselves offered the Master a new cycle of regenerations as payment for help in the Five Doctors, so I think this is one piece of canon that's particularly prone to being ignored/changed.

One further thought... I think some of the guesses regarding the dead companion are waaaaay off (particularly with Donna's grandfather). Dalek Caan's prophecy specifically said that there would be 'everlasting death for the most faithful companion'. While Captain Jack fits the prophecy in so far as he can just keep dying and dying, 'the most faithful companion' suggests someone/thing highly significant. Captain Jack is many things, but 'the most faithful companion' he isn't.

And then there's the title of the final episode, a title that might well fit the idea of a dead Tardis: 'Journey's End'.

Rose and Donna just seem too obvious to me, and the BBC is presumably continuing The Sarah Jane Adventures, ruling out Sarah Jane.

I like Forsakia's idea of a connection between Donna and a new Tardis, but I have no idea how that would work.

To be honest, we're all guessing madly - though I also agree with Forsakia that it's all likely to end in a disappointing anticlimactic deus ex machina reset. That's RTD's style, alas. Possibly relevant is that the trailer for next week has Davros giving a speech about destroying reality itself.

Oh, and one final thought... I bet we haven't seen the last of Harriet Jones. Remember that she's supposed to be elected Prime Minister three times according to the Doctor. We only saw her screen go dead, after all, not an actual death scene.

Donna's grandfather was only on the basis of the sympathy being given to Donna for her loss. I didn't catch the accurate wording of the prophecy. (Small child distractions)

Well the TARDIS has been destroyed before ... A Patrick Troughton story (Can't remember which one) but that occurred out of reality, if they do the same here then it's not an original idea.

I hope they don't do a JP on him and use the loss of the TARDIS as an excuse to keep the Dr in C21st Britain to cut the budgets

Wouldn't it make more sense for Rose to revive the TARDIS, if that was to happen, having channelled its power in the past?
Yes, now I think of it it does. Hmm. But then I'm at a loss as to what they mean by 'something new' for Donna. Maybe shove them both in.

Another crazy plot idea thats 99.999999999999% likely to be wrong. Donna to find out she's adopted and actually a Time Lord (or whatever the female equivalent title is) :p

Edit: Also Eddie Izzard as the new Doctor would be almost as awesome as breakdancing cybermen

5) Don't any of us have anything better to do with our time?

No.

Another crazy plot idea thats 99.999999999999% likely to be wrong. Donna to find out she's adopted and actually a Time Lord (or whatever the female equivalent title is) :p

Well, it has already been suggested here that she's Romana, The Archregimancy has a taker :p


Edit: Also Eddie Izzard as the new Doctor would be almost as awesome as breakdancing cybermen

Eddie Izzard? Brrr. Don't get me wrong I like Izzard but I think the Doctor's done better by serious actors having fun rather than a comic turned actor

Eddie Izzard? Brrr. Don't get me wrong I like Izzard but I think the Doctor's done better by serious actors having fun rather than a comic turned actor
I vote the next Doctor be Sam Jackson.

Well, it has already been suggested here that she's Romana, The Archregimancy has a taker :p


Romanadvoratrelundar

Bit of a stretch, I know.

In fact, not so much a stretch as really wild speculation. Could just as easily pull out 'doona', in which case Romana is an Australian duvet.

And if you want to get really old school about speculations on Donna's identity, whatever happened to Susan Foreman, hmmmm?

Oh, and one final thought... I bet we haven't seen the last of Harriet Jones. Remember that she's supposed to be elected Prime Minister three times according to the Doctor. We only saw her screen go dead, after all, not an actual death scene.

I think he changed history when he deposed her.

I think he changed history when he deposed her.

you telling you still recall the show from when it was last shown here

you telling you still recall the show from when it was last shown here

I remember what happens in every episode, and I don't watch it on TV, I don't trust the networks here with any show that they didn't make themselves.

Romanadvoratrelundar

Bit of a stretch, I know.

In fact, not so much a stretch as really wild speculation. Could just as easily pull out 'doona', in which case Romana is an Australian duvet.

And if you want to get really old school about speculations on Donna's identity, whatever happened to Susan Foreman, hmmmm?


That's really pushing it, by the same reasoning Donna could just as well have been called Amanda, Nora, or Vera.

Susan Foreman, the Doctor's "Grandchild", she was human wasn't she?

That's really pushing it, by the same reasoning Donna could just as well have been called Amanda, Nora, or Vera.

Fully granted, but I can have fun, can't I?

Susan Foreman, the Doctor's "Grandchild", she was human wasn't she?

Aha! This one's more interesting, and allows us to descend into depths of Doctor Who geekiness previously untapped in this thread.

Susan's precise relationship to the Time Lords is never fully explained in her original appearances, probably because Time Lord lore was almost entirely absent during William Hartnell's run.

Susan certainly stays on Earth after falling in love with 22nd-century human freedom fighter David Campbell at the end of The Dalek Invasion of Earth (hmmmmm....) - broadcast all the way back in 1964.

It's usually assumed that she's Gallifreyan, however. In the very first episode, An Unearthly Child (1963), the Doctor specifically states that both himself and Susan are exiles from their own people, and Susan states that she was born 'in another time, on another world'. Her (1964) description of her home planet matches the 10th Doctor's description of Gallifrey, she's fully familiar with Time Lord lore and society in her only subsequent appearance in The Five Doctors, and shows telepathic abilities on at least one occasion. The 9th and 10th Doctors have both mentioned on several occasions that the Doctor has been a father in the past, and that his entire family is now dead. Original actress Carole Ann Ford herself has noted in DVD commentaries that theories that Susan wasn't the Doctor's biological granddaughter only gained currency in the 1990s.

He does of course have a daughter wandering around somewhere.

I didn't know that

Well Susan was something to scream when the zarbi appeared and be mildly irrititatingly precocious at other times ie not much different from most of the other early female companions. The 1960's Susan would have never made it out of the C22nd but a new, post feminist, C21st timelady Susan might just have done.

Didn't the face of bo, though, tell the Doctor that "there is another" meaning the Master, surely Cp'n Jack's enourmous head would have mentioned a few more as well

He does of course have a daughter wandering around somewhere.

But she was "born" when Donna was present so couldn't be her ?

But she was "born" when Donna was present so couldn't be her ?

Almost certainly not, just throwing it out there as something else that might (though I doubt it) come back into play. On the other hand, this is Dr. Who, you never know ;)

He does of course have a daughter wandering around somewhere.

Though I'm fairly certain that she's in 'modern' earth's future given that she was generated on an off-Earth colony, so it would need something particularly unusual for her to make an appearance in the finale.

On the other hand, David Tennant is said to be dating the actress who played his daughter, so he might want her back in. I forget her name, but just to make it even more conceptually incestuous, she's Peter Davison's real life daughter.

So the actor who plays the 10th Doctor is dating the actress who played the 10th Doctor's fictional genetic daughter, who is herself the real life daughter of the 5th Doctor.

Easy.

This thread is likely to contain spoilers. Australians, Canadians, and Americans and other nationalities who get the new Doctor Who series but have yet to reach the season 4 finale, and don't want to know about the season 4 finale, may want to look away now.




















I also realise that there's another Doctor Who thread, but that's a generic 'are you watching Doctor Who' discussion that has some reference to the season finale. I've decided to start a dedicated thread for theories on the season finale. If possible, please limit discussion to plot points rather than whether RTD has lost his touch (or whether he ever had it).

Particular points for discussion:

1) Is the Doctor really regenerating? If so, is David Tennant leaving or not? Wouldn't that be the best-kept secret in TV history?
Possibly relevant here: Does Donna still have a time beetle on her back? Aren't the 27 planets one second out of sync with the rest of the Universe? Will the spare hand become significant, as hinted?


2) Who or what is Donna?
Possibly relevant here: Why the 'thump thump' beats when the Shadow Proclamation woman commiserates over Donna's unspecified loss? What's the anomaly around her mentioned in 'Turn Left'? And again with the time beetle.


3) Which companion will die if Dalek Caan's prophecy is to be fufilled?
One out there theory posited by a friend of mine: the companion is blue, boxy, and always a bit wooden on screen. Surely not?


4) If Davros can get out of the time-locked Time War, then what about Time Lords?


5) Don't any of us have anything better to do with our time?

Go to www.doctorwhoforum.com :)