Doctor Who Series 6 part 2 - the ganger thread

[RustyBear]

Old thread's getting full, so here's a nice new acid-resistant one...

No idea re the timelines but loved it tonight - SM is a genius.

PS Sure I read somewhere (here?) that DT and Peter Davidson are in the Christmas special.

I'd forgotten about the Doctor's daughter ... now there's one to slide back in again ... hmm

joyful like mary and pot mentioned above, they use the "reverse timelines" as a shorthand to describe it when that isn't 100% the case. it's more jumbled than that. if you try and fit it into an exact reverse order then it is more confusing imho. as to exactly why her timeline is a muddle - well, because moffatt wants it that way, i guess!

one good point though - a lot of people drew parallels between the river/doctor relationship and the book, the time traveller's wife
at least we are spared the possibilty of the 1000 year old doctor perving over the teenage river as she is growing up, thank goodness...

of course, this story line does not completely rule out any timey-wimey babies. that's one way to relaunch the timelords....

How disappointing ... from the Tardis index file - something about landing on the planet messaline with Donna ... progenation machines ... made from his DNA against his will and out popped Jenny here

Oh well.

She didn't have a mother, supposed to be like cloning but not exact clones

don't you remember? she was great. and peter davison's daughter irl and now of course mother to dt's wee babe. plus she could do backflips.

But the first Doctor had a grand-daughter, Susan, so descendants could crop up from there...

How did a shot tessalator begin to show regeneration energy before the second and lethal set of shots? Or can that be written off as the Doctor arranging convincing special effects as he knew what appearances needed to be?

River and the Doctor's timelines can't be exact reverses, because then there'd be no point in them synching diaries - "Ooh, have we done Easter Island yet?" - because the answer would always be no.

And I still think there's a story to be told from him changing into top hat and tails in Let's Kill Hitler.

sorry that was actually for edith

but you too, whereyou re the top hat and tails

IIRC - in TIA (which I haven't seen recently, so I might be all wrong), the astronaut shoot the Doctor, then he begins to regenerate. Then she shoots again during regeneration but before its completion, and River explains to Amy and Rory that a lethal incident whilst regeneration is incomplete is actually fatal to a Time Lord. So that's what I meant about the Tessalator having to have shown signs of regeneration.

edith you are completely right. i may have watched TIA and DOTM recently, somewhere and it was the regen energy that made me keep thinking ganger. so we're just going to have to assume that that was part of the disguise. and of course older river was completely in on it, so she explicity said he was killed before he had regenerated so that was the end...

She seemed so genuinely upset. But that might have been about the horrible experience that it was - how she didn't have any control over that.

Loved that supposedly last kiss btw, the one that made time start again.

yyy re the top hat. actually i thought that we might see that tonight, it seemed so prominent in the opening sequence. (BUT ACTUALLY I SHOULD HAVE BEEN LOOKING AT THE AMYLATOR)

Very happy - lots not tied up (I was also very excited about the top hat thinking it was going to be explained) but I'm less bothered about that than I am happy that they stayed true to the characters as I have understood them. I was terrified that River would turn out to be bad and I heart River so I'm prepared to forgive a lot.

Love the tesselector explanation - so much better than "ganger". Bit disappointed that the question is Doctor Who? Why would that be the oldest question in the universe when the Time Lords are an ancient time travelling race? Also it is a bit obvious and I was hoping for something less so.

I think that River and the Dr were moving in reverse timelines initially but yy the need to co-ordinate diaries means that this is not always the case. Also there are "meetings" which we do not see. When Dr "beemed" up River in the second storyline she was in he had an attitude of being annoyed with her and "here we go again" and Steven M confirmed that River had met 10 again after the Library. Also in tonight's episode River confirmed that she was running around with the previous incarnations of the Doctor.

What does confuse me is that River in TIA ( I think) talks about the impact on a young girl of meeting the Doctor and having him (through time travel) know all about her. How can that ever happen?

Sarah, I guess that is where an older doctor - before or after the one that was to be shot on the beach - went back and spent time with the early River song, who was young (Mels was only about 20 - if we don't count her reincarnations beforehand of course). It would actually explain the question I had about how she was in love with him but had only really met him that time she had tried to kill him and then saved Hitler (Although great explanation about reading about him and falling in love that way).

I'd so love to see the DT meetings after the library doctors time, before library River's time.

What was that about running around with previous incarnations Sarah? Missed that. The only bit I picked up was that they met at nighttime while she was in prison.

I think they're going to save the ganger/red/blue bow tie thing for the future...

PotPourri- I think that was the bit in Silence in the Library where she says to Donna that she has pictures of all his faces. But I'm not sure she could have met pre-Ten incarnations - wouldn't Ten have remembered? So it would only be Ten, Eleven and any 11+ regenerations.

It is possible that the bow tie thing was simply a red herring, designed to get people speculating - after all Ten changed his tie quite often, without apparent significance. Though someone once did do an analysis of his suit/tie combinations and came up with a theory as to the type of story each one appeared in - somebody (Kay? UnquietDad?) linked to it on a previous Doctor Who Geeks thread, but sadly I've lost the link - does anyone remember it?

This tie index comes up if you google, which is interesting but I'm sure there was a more detailed analysis somewhere out there...

I think the David Tennant/Peter Davidson thing was a red herring. At one stage IMDB was showing them as being in tonights episode, but I think the site is like Wikipedia in that anyone can edit it, so it is likely someone was just messing around.

My suspicion was that the Dr (MS) would go back to the Library to save River and we'd see DT in the background.

I shall just have to satisfy my DT cravings by watching the Fright Night trailers on YouTube (if you haven't seen them yet - DT in eyeliner and leather trousers [faints] )

yy cavemum, i might have watched that trailer quite a lot once or twice

he may be back for the 50th

Oh Cavemum, what a great twist that would have been! It is so sad that they are so very out of sync because we have always known that the first time he met her, she died.