Weeeeeeuhhhhwooooo! New Dr Who starts 19 September!

[VagelinaJolie]

Hooray! Let's hope that this series is better than the last.
Oh look it's Arya Stark! And more Missy!
And PC's hair is madder than ever!
(And I've found the box of exclamation marks!!!!!)
Let's see

To make me feel better after he saw me crying my DS (8yo) said,"Well, Mummy at least she has now been reunited with Danny Pink."

He's a little sweetheart

Dd has just gone to bed crying & with a headache. Apparently it's something to do with Dr Who - I take it someone died?

thegiddylimit if that is true then it is indeed a bag of shite! No way would that be a credible explanation.

Yes but no but ...

We didn't imagine her as a Dalek, it was a fact as unavoidable as crow dust. So I can't feel sad because I'm still waiting for what happens at the end.

If it is the Time Lords who have sent for the Dr I guess they could provide a little extra time reversal power, enough for Clara to avoid death but still need the world's best hiding place?

I liked it. I did. I just felt it was all a bit rushed at the end. If she had found out at the beginning that she was going to die and they spent the episode trying to save her but couldn't it might have had a bit more impact on me.
Instead we had about 2 minutes of her realising she was going to die, the doctor pretty much shrugging his shoulders and saying soz mate and then poof, she was gone I mean, he didn't even try.

When I saw her walking down the street I thought the wife of the first man to die might run out and offer to take the countdown away. Then when I saw the trailer for next week's I thought it might be part of the nightmare that's been created for him. Think I may be in denial. It just all seemed so sudden!

I like Clara but that had no impact on me whatsoever - probably for the same reasons as Monroe. Maybe also because we've seen Clara die a tonne of times already and it never seemed to stop her. I'm having difficulty believing that she's actually dead. She'd be the first companion to actually die (and stay dead in any sort of meaningful way) in the reboot (did any die in the original series?). Rose was sent to a parallel dimension (and did a rubbish job of actually being stuck there), Captain Jack died and was brought back, Martha went off to join UNIT, Donna had her memory wiped, Amy and Rory got sent back in time, River Song died the first time we met her but that's made no difference.

The theme this series (and for some of the last one) appears to be death not being what it seems.

• Danny Pink managed to stick around for a bit after his death.
• The Master turned up despite having 'died' twice.
• Osgood died but it turns out she was probably a Zygon.
• Ashildr died but was brought back.
• The Doctor leaves Davros to die as a boy but comes back to save him.
• The Doctor appears to be dead since he turned up as a ghost but that turns out to be a hologram.
• Rassmussen appears to die but it turns out he was a sleep dust monster the whole time.

I cried . . . but I don't understand why she couldn't have passed the death tattoo to the Doctor instead. I'm also struggling with the timeline - Ashildr realised Riggsy knew the Doctor so she used that to lure the Doctor to Diagon Alley because some aliens said if she did and gave them the Doctor then they would leave the Alley alone but when did the aliens tell her this? Had she been waiting years for an opportunity to lure Riggsy into the Alley and frame him for murder? Why couldn't she put the death tattoo on the naughty aliens? And since she can't die, why didn't she just say no and leave the Alley to its own devices?

I'm still certain the themes boil down to hybridity and cheating death. Yesterday touched on the latter but there was no hybridity element in Clara's death ... So I don't believe this story is finished.

APlace From what they said yesterday the death tattoo has to be freely offered and freely accepted. Also, although they didn't make it plain, it can surely only be passed on once for each sentence; otherwise they could be passed on endlessly (through generations!) and would only be a threat of death rather than an inescapable reality.

Passing it on doesn't reset the clock though.

Good point!

• Although. If the crow couldn't locate the victim.

Say, f'rinstance, they were half-Dalek in a forgotten, but impenetrable Dalek cemetery ...

Clara becoming a Dalek doesn't have to be her inevitable fate - when she went into the Doctor's timeline on Trenzalore she was split into fragments and scattered throughout his timeline to save him, after the Great Intelligence invaded the timeline to reverse his every victory. So the Dalek-Clara (actually Oswin) was probably just one fragment, just as the governess Clara was, and the one who saved the 7th doctor when he was hanging off the ice cliff and all the others we saw in flashbacks (or flash-forwards).

Of course, it's possible that one of the fragments also saved the Doctor next week too...

True Rusty - but nothing else will make sense for me.

Rusty I agree. I think JC is in the finale, but maybe as a different fragment. So Clara is dead, but a version of her is alive.

Rusty yy I thought that too so Clara shouldn't end up as the soufflé girl because soufflé girl was one of the fragments not the original (and that's why soufflé girl wasn't called Clara Oswald because the fragments all have slightly different names from the original).

(did any die in the original series?)

Yes - Adric died on board a cyber ship locked onto course to collide with a planet.

I'm sick of the long monologues. The writing has gone down hill.

Also Katerina sacrificed herself by opening an airlock to save the Doctor and Sarah Kingdom died from the effects of the Daleks' Time Destructor (both in The Daleks' Master Plan.

There are a few companions who I wish had been killed off (Jo Grant and Perri mainly!)

Rusty That's what I thought about Dalek-Clara - that it was one of her fragments through time and space rather than her future.

This was much much better than the sleep-in-your-eyes episode.

It's really bothering me that they really didn't try very hard to save her - it was just "can anything be done? " "No" "OK then, bye ".! Surely the Doctor could have done something?

I wonder whether Clara will be in this weekends episode in some form though, with a longer goodbye. I also can't believe her 'exit' was so short and matter of fact, especially as she's been the companion for ever so long.
It's a shame actually, the last few episodes have been the only ones ever that I've vaguely warmed to her. Have been unable to bear her for most of last three series, finally she starts being less bossy and acting like she's the actual doctor, then they kill her off.

I also think Missy will somehow be behind all this - ashildr alluding to 'someone' making her do this. Could only be missy couldn't it.

It is all very odd. There's so much "Clara's best bits" being pumped out by the BBC that I'm giving up hope that this was a false ending.

I get that they've proved death can't be cheated without a cost somewhere, but it's all so perfunctory ...

I think Jenna is back for the last episode but she might not be Clara. I liked her. I don't understand the problem with her.

I liked Clara although I did feel a bit bored with her this series. I think her death was even more shocking for being low-key.

Imo her arc since Danny died has been quite believable ie becoming more reckless; spending more time with the Doctor because he can't die and leave her. Underneath her competency and excitability, she's seemed like someone who is grieving. And I guess the Doctor's comment is key. His companions are always going to be more 'breakable' than him and that leaves them vulnerable.