Tales of Trenzalore

BBC Books has announced a new ebook featuring the 11th Doctor. It details some of his adventures during the course of The Time of the Doctor.

As it had been foretold, the armies of the Universe gathered at Trenzalore. Only one thing stood between the planet and destruction - the Doctor. For nine hundred years, he defended the planet, and the tiny town of Christmas, against the forces that would destroy it.

He never knew how long he could keep the peace. He never knew what creatures would emerge from the snowy night to threaten him next. He knew only that at the end he would die on Trenzalore.

Some of what happened during those terrible years is well documented. But most of it remains shrouded in mystery and darkness. Until now.

This is a glimpse of just some of the terrors the people faced, the monstrous threats the Doctor defeated. These are the tales of the monsters who found themselves afraid - and of the one man who was not.

The stories included are Let It Snow by Justin Richards, An Apple a Day by George Mann, Strangers in the Outland by Paul Finch, and The Dreaming by Mark Morris. The ebook will go on sale February 24th priced £2.49 in the UK.

Matt Smith Interview with Vulture

Matt Smith recently did an interview with vulture.com. He confirmed that he'd known when he'd be leaving for a while.

To be honest with you, it was something I was considering for a while. I talked to Steven [Moffat, series boss] about it, I talked to my family about it. I don’t know really. It was a very hard decision to come to because it’s such a wonderful show and I love making it so much.

He also confirmed that the Christmas Special would involve Trenzalore - and River Song.

Eventually Steve peppers it back — you think now we’re going toward the Doctor’s final hour, which is toward Trenzalore. Steven mentioned that in season five. Season five! The Silence was mentioned! He peppers this brilliant storytelling all the way through, and for my money that’s a much more interesting way to write. Aren’t all the layers what we fans of sci-fi want? I’m like, Cool, throw it at me. Is it complicated? Yes. Are we going back in time? Yes. Are we going forward in time? Yes. Are we meeting a character we’ve met in the future? Yes. Is she my wife? Yes.

The Name of the Doctor Second Clip

Digital Spy have another clip from the finale featuring the Doctor and Clara

Ultimate Jenna Theory - Revision 4

I'm Clara Oswald, I was born to save the Doctor.

So it looks like I was right in my last post, Clara does have something to do with Trenzalore. Only it sounds like she is going to save his life. Perhaps the Fall of the Eleventh does refer to the Doctor's death and is meant to happen at Trenzalore. Maybe she was created by someone to ensure that this doesn't go down.

Whether it was the Silence, the Great Intelligence, or the Whisper Men, is hard to tell. The Silence seem pretty intent on making sure the prophecy doesn't happen, though they don't seem to care when the Doctor dies, they just want the Question averted. The Great Intelligence is an enemy of the Doctor, so I can't see why it would want him alive, unless it still needs him for something. I still don't know what the Whisper Men want, so that makes it hard to guess for them, but it seems likely.

In the trailers, the Whisper Men seem to appear in a lot of the same scenes as Dr. Simeon and are wearing similar outfits. They may not be separate entities, but part of the Great Intelligence. They may be the new beasty boys to replace the snowmen, Spoonheads, and Yeti. I'm guessing they're a half-failed attempt to replicate Dr. Simeon, so they're him/the GI only with a sort of half-life.

Clara may also have been created by someone else entirely. The Doctor may not find out until the very end of the episode who she is or how she managed to save him. Then there's some big reveal and the Doctor rushes off to meet whoever it is and we pick up in the 50th Anniversary.

I like the idea that someone created an infinite series of Claras across time. They wanted her to meet the Doctor so one of them could save her, but they couldn't be sure the Doctor would actually be able to find her, so they created a near-infinite number of Claras and placed them across the entirety of human history. Inevitably, the Doctor did meet some of them, but he met most of them long in his past before he was meant to and forgot about them. He just happened to meet three of them within a short string of time and therefore remembered and it sparked his curiosity.

That would explain Jenna's recent comment about how the Doctor "hasn't just met Clara three times before." If the other times were long long ago, he might not remember them, so he only knows about the most recent ones.

Given the recent pic of the Citadel of the Time Lords labelled "Gallifrey, a long time ago" and someone saying that the finale is going to mess with classic fans, Clara being created by the Time Lords seems very likely. The Time Lords may have foreseen something far in the Doctor's future and created her to intervene in his timeline. Why they created so many of her, I don't know. Maybe she was created to police the Doctor and act as a check on his power or to prevent him from intervening at certain key points. Or maybe she was created to save the Doctor at certain key points, though I don't know why the Time Lords would ever intervene in history like that.

Ultimate Jenna Theory - Revision 3

So Moffat said in a recent interview that so far, no one has gotten right the explanation for Clara's multiple appearances. That means I'm throwing out the Bad Wolf explanation. I doubt Moffat has seen my Guardian theory, but I'm going to assume that he has and throw that one out as well.

Clara's identity has got to be linked to the finale in some way. Since the finale is Trenzalore, she's got be related to the Doctor's name. About the only explanations are that she was created to either prevent the Doctor from revealing his name or to trick him into doing so. The only people who seem to be involved in Trenzalore other than the Doctor and friends are the Silence, the Whisper Men, and the Great Intelligence. The Great Intelligence seems to be heavily involved in Series 7 so that seems likely, but Moffat could just be reintroducing it as a villain before its appearance in the finale.

It's really hard to guess which of the three it is when we only know the Silence's intentions regarding the Doctor's name. Without more information on the other two's intents, it's haphazard to guess. Even if I knew just one of the others, I could posit a reasonable guess.

Jenna said recently that Clara "hasn't just met the Doctor three times before." This could mean any number of things. More than likely, we haven't seen those other times. I doubt she means the Prequel to the Bells of Saint John and The Rings of Akhaten, that would be too obvious. There's probably going to be some sort of flashback sequence in the finale, where the Doctor suddenly remembers all the other times he's met her.

New Details on Nightmare in Silver and The Name of the Doctor

The latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine has included some new details on the final two episodes of the season, Nightmare in Silver and The Name of the Doctor.

Nightmare in Silver

• The Cybermen are the 699th wonder of the universe
• The Cybermen apparently play chess
• The Doctor and Clara visit the Moon
• The new Cybermen's faces are designed such that the eyes and mouth line up with the eyes and mouths of the human operator - giving them a more human appearance
• The Doctor: "I am putting Clara in charge. Clara, stay alive till I get back – and don’t let anyone blow up this planet!"

The Name of the Doctor

• Time traveling damages reality and the Doctor has done this more than anyone
• Richard E. Grant is back as Dr. Simeon
• River Song is there post-Library (don't ask me how)
• Not everyone makes it out alive (my money's on Vastra, Jenny, or Strax)
• Nothing will ever be the same again
• The Doctor: “The path I carved through time and space, from Gallifrey to Trenzalore. My own personal time tunnel, leading back to every moment I ever lived. Every step, every tear, every kiss. Even the days I haven’t lived yet. Which is why I shouldn’t be here. The paradoxes… very bad…”

Doctor Who Future Continuity - Revision 2

So all of my speculation as to the future of the show appears to have been rendered moot by recent developments. I'm going to attempt to continue speculating based on new evidence.

So it appears now that the Fields of Trenzalore and all that good stuff is going to take place in the Series 7 finale. Moffat has already confirmed that "a lot of loose ends are going to be tied up." That probably means the Series 5, 6, & 7 story arcs are going to be concluded.

The 50th anniversary is probably going to raise some brand new question that the Doctor's going to have to answer (my money's on "who brought the Time Lords back to life?"). My guess it that the Christmas Special is going to touch on the subject, but is going to be more of an aside. I'm also guessing it's going to end in a cliffhanger that has the Doctor discovering some key piece of evidence, then rushing off to investigate it in Series 8.

Since filming on the Christmas Special isn't scheduled to begin until September, when we get Series 8 depends on whether they start filming that immediately after. If they begin filming of Series 8 immediately afterward, we might just get 13 episodes in a row starting in August. Alternately, we could get several episodes in spring and several more in fall (like Series 6). If they delay filming, we'll probably get a repeat of 2012/2013.

I still think Series 8 is going to be the final season of Matt Smith. He's more than likely going to regenerate in the series finale. That would actually make him the third longest-running Doctor of all time (after Tom Baker and Jon Pertwee). If he made it into Series 9 (which is unlikely) he'd be tied with Pertwee for second place. I really, really want him to be replaced by a woman, but that has almost no chance of happening (unless they hire me to replace Moffat).

Series 9 is probably going to serve as the introduction to the twelfth Doctor and the end to Clara's run. Series 10 will introduce a new companion to replace her.

This post is a revised version of this one.

The Name of the Doctor

At long last, the name of the finale has been revealed: The Name of the Doctor. We've also got the episode artwork, but not much else has been revealed. There's a short synopsis from BBC South Africa, but that's about it.

Someone is kidnapping the Doctor’s friends, leading him towards the one place in all of time and space that he should never go.

UPDATE: There is one thing, the poster does confirm that Alex Kingston is back. She was already rumored to appear, but now it's confirmed.

UPDATE 2: Doctor Who Magazine has revealed Trenzalore is involved (see second picture)

Things I'd Like to See in Series 7.2/8

Here are some things I'd like to see in the next season and a half

• Captain Jack and the Torchwood team
• The Master
• A Sherlock crossover (could actually happen in Series 3 of that show)
• The Ice Warriors (they'd be good to see with modern special effects)
• K-9
• A meta-reference/breaking the fourth wall
• More story arcs (I for one, actually enjoy them)
• An explanation for why the TARDIS exploded in Series 5
• Doctor/Master scene (straight or lesbian versions only, though)
• An entire episode taking place inside the TARDIS
• The TARDIS kitchen (that is the room I seriously want to see the most)
• Jelly babies (the Doctor discovers his stash that got lost when the TARDIS rearranged itself sometime prior to Series 1)
• Trenzalore (I don't want to wait any longer than Series 8 for this whole story arc to end)
• Clara doesn't fall for the Doctor because she's lesbian (we need a companion who doesn't love the Doctor for that reason) 
• Donna gets her memories back

NOTE: This does not include the 50th Anniversary Special(s)

My Theory For the Question, Series 5, & Series 6

I already posted this theory a real long time ago here, but I'm posting it again where it will hopefully get seen more, plus I'm expanding it a little.

The Doctor's name is the passcode to open the Time Lock on Gallifrey. The Doctor chose it because it's only known to a handful of his family and friends. Once the war was over, he was the only person left in the universe who knew it. The Time Lords couldn't open the time lock because (I'm just making this up) a time lock can only be opened by the device that created it. They didn't have access to his TARDIS, so they couldn't open it.

Well for whatever reason, Captain Jack has decided to open the time lock on Gallifrey, and he knows he needs the Doctor's name and TARDIS. He realizes that the Doctor isn't about to just hand over the information, so he decides to ask him on the Fields of Trenzalore, when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer.

The Silence realize that someone is going to try to open the time lock, and they want to prevent this. Their first thought is to kill the person who's asking the Doctor his name, but they can't do this seeing as it's an immortal. Their second attempt is to blow up the TARDIS. They fail to realize the consequences of blowing up a TARDIS, or perhaps they don't do it properly, and end up destroying reality and the Doctor has to reboot the universe. Their final attempt is to just kill the Doctor, which they try to do multiple times, and fail.

The only other person who could possibly try to open the time lock is Omega, safe and sound in his antimatter universe, where the Silence can't reach him. That's the only other possibility for who could be asking the question. It can't be the Master, because he must surely already know the Doctor's real name (they were probably friends before they chose those names). It can't be River, because if the Silence wanted to prevent her from asking The Question, all they had to do was not kidnap her, and just let her live a normal life. The only reason River knows the Doctor's name is because she was there when the Doctor revealed it.

Note that this a completely separate theory from this one.

Doctor Who Future Continuity Revised Theory

So here is a revised version of this post containing my theory for the future of Doctor Who.

I think in the Series 7 finale, Clara is going to meet the Silence. At this point, the Doctor is only going to explain that they are a religious organization out to kill him. In the 50th Anniversary Specials, they're going to go up against them again, and this time there is going to be a full explanation of everything. We're going to learn why his name is so important. Also, at some point during the specials, we're going to learn who blew up the TARDIS. I still think it might be the Time Lords. Of course it could always be the Silence's first attempt to kill him, but they didn't understand the consequences or destroying the TARDIS. I think this is what Moffat is trying to lead us to believe, seeing how the Silence were mentioned throughout Series 5, regardless of whether it's true.

Again, I doubt we are going to learn everything about River. If we do, that's when she'll leave, because she'll stop being the mysterious figure from the Doctor's future, which is the entire point of her character.

The events of the Fields of Trenzalore are still going to take place at the end of Series 8, when the Doctor regenerates. The will see the conclusion of the Series 5–8 story arc. Series 9 will feature the introduction of the 12th Doctor and a new story arc. Clara will leave at the end of Series 9, and Series 10 will feature the introduction of another companion. I think River is going to be there when Clara leaves, just because in The Angels Take Manhattan, when the Doctor found out Amy was going to leave, River said she knew that face. River knew the face the Doctor makes when he loses someone, and since she wasn't there at any of the previous companion departures, it has to be a future one. Of course, a different Doctor might make an entirely different face, so who knows.

Doctor Who Future Continuity

So here's my guess for when we're going to find out all the answers to the questions from Series 5 & 6.

As for the importance of the Doctor's name, I think that's going to be explained in Series 7, Part 1. I think this because the Ponds are probably going to be demanding an explanation as to why the Silence want to kill the Doctor. The Doctor will reveal something to them, I'm just not sure if he'll give them the full explanation. If we don't find out then, I think Clara is not going to know anything about this until the 50th Anniversary Specials. At that point there will definitely be a full explanation of why the Silence want to kill the Doctor and why his name is so important. That is the latest date I see this happening. Heck, even if it does get explained to the Ponds, Clara is going to need her own explanation and that's probably going to be the more detailed one.

As for the TARDIS exploding, I think that's definitely going to be explained in Series 7, Part 1. This is just because it's long overdue (I don't think it was ever mentioned at all in Series 6), and Clara is never going to bring it up. The Doctor would have to bring it up in the context of the Silence's other plots, assuming of course it was them at all (see my theory about the Time Lords being behind it). The Ponds would have to bring it up, just because it needs to be brought up by someone because we still don't have a proper explanation.

Some of our questions about River Song may never be answered. She's intended to be this mysterious character, and I think she's going to stay this way. If we know everything about her, that will take away some of the point of the character, and that would have to be the point where they write her out.

Trenzalore and the fall of the eleventh are probably going to take place at the end of Series 8. Moffat is probably going to employ reverse reverse psychology and have "the fall of the eleventh" be exactly what it sounds like, the 11th Doctor's regeneration. Based on current evidence which states that Matt Smith is still going to be here in 2014, I'm guessing he's leaving at the end of Series 8. At that point, the whole Series 5-8 story arc will be wrapped up and the Silence will be no more. Series 9 will feature the introduction of the 12th Doctor and the departure of Clara. Clara's replacement will be introduced either part way through Series 9 or at the beginning of Series 10.