At which point Gus would have vented the entire train, killing everyone.
Remember that The Doctor knew he was being watched, that it listened to every word and knew who he was. He had to act in a way that would allow him to solve the mystery without getting everyone killed in the process.
For balance, my infinitely more generous theory is that this is the 50th anniversary season, so it makes sense to have a lot of little canon/continuity nods like that.
I expect the answer will be in the middlish, leaning rather heavily towards my end (e.g., Moffat weaves all of the allusions to past episodes and past Doctors into some sort of loose explanation/story arc, but mostly it’s just that this is a 50th anniversary celebration and he needed an excuse to put a bunch of allusions in).
Feel free to bookmark this comment for later so we can see which it turns out to be.
[QUOTE=JohnT]
My wife’s theory is this:
Moffat is a hack who constantly has to steal, er, homage other peoples work in order to come up with a coherent episode. {snip}
[/QUOTE]
I was willing to forgive SteMo many things because he finally came up with a mature, sassy woman who could give as good as she got: River Song. Then I heard about The Time Traveller’s Wife. oy vey… 
…pants on fire!
Maisie Pitt overhears the Doctor tell Clara about the time he went to Thedion IV and accuses him of lying. Or did she accuse him of being a liar? I can’t remember… 
The Doctor misleads Capt. Quell about what kind of Doctor he is. However, in an oblique way, I suppose one could say the mummy is a sort of intestinal parasite hosted by the train.
As the Doctor and Clara separate before heading to their berths, Clara probably lies to the Doctor about her not wanting the mummy and the dead body to be “a thing”. The Doctor lies to Clara about coming round to people’s houses to have dinner.
In his berth, the Doctor holds conversation with himself, with one self lying to the other about being 99% sure the mummy situation is nothing.
Clara, in a call to Danny, lies to him about the train ride not being dangerous but, instead, “pretty boring.”
The Doctor lies to Captain Quell about being a mystery shopper and lies about his opinion of the breakfast bar.
Clara lies to Maisie Pitt about not being friends anymore with the Doctor. Maisie calls her out on this.
Clara lies to Maisie about the Doctor being able to cure her.
Clara: So, you saved everyone.
The Doctor: No, I just saved you and I let everyone else suffocate.
Clara: [chuckles]
The Doctor: This is just my cover story.
Clara asks the Doctor if he was pretending to be heartless about using Maisie’s impending death as an opportunity to study the mummy. The Doctor points out to Clara she can believe that if she wants to.
At the end of the episode, when Danny calls Clara, he asks her, “Is it done?” and I think this means, “have you finished your ‘good bye’ trip with the Doctor?” Clara lies to Danny by saying, “mission accomplished”. She then lies to the Doctor, telling him that Danny was the one who wanted her to stop traveling with him, but he changed his mind and now “is fine with it”. Bear in mind that Danny told Clara in The Caretaker (S08E06) that if he found out she has lied to him, their relationship is over.
There were probably many more lies told in this ep. Anyone want to commentate, explicate, fulminate, ruminate or terminate on this? 
To be fair, he just held up his psychic paper and told Quell that he was what he feared most. It was Quell that inferred “mystery shopper”.
And it certainly wasn’t established in the episode that the breakfast bar wasn’t, in actuality, horriffic.
If I remember correctly, she calls him a liar - because the Doctor can’t have visited Thedion IV, since it was destroyed a long time ago (about a thousand years.)
But **this isn’t a lie **- the Doctor has visited the planet in the past.
It is alleged in an AMA that the “jelly babies in the cigarette case” gag was Capaldi’s idea.
[QUOTE=leahcim]
{snip} And it certainly wasn’t established in the episode that the breakfast bar wasn’t, in actuality, horriffic.
[/QUOTE]
(First, thanks for the link to the reddit AMA!) True, however, the Doctor had never been on that train before, so he lied when he told Quell he didn’t like it.
[QUOTE=glee]
If I remember correctly, [Maisie] calls him a liar - because the Doctor can’t have visited Thedion IV, since it was destroyed a long time ago (about a thousand years.)
But **this isn’t a lie **- the Doctor has visited the planet in the past.
[/QUOTE]
Let me address your second point first. Yes, we know the Doctor has visited that planet and thus isn’t lying and Maisie has jumped to an erroneous conclusion. It’s just that her accusing him of lying and calling him a liar are some of the instances of the theme of lying in this episode. As to the first point, I just rewatched this episode and saw that Maisie both accuses the Doctor of lying and calls him a liar.
Also, in the cold open, Mrs. Pitt either accuses someone of lying or asks someone if they’re accusing her of lying. You’d think that if I just rewatched this episode I’d remember, but dang me, I can’t. :smack:
That was so much better than last week, it was a Hinchcliffe Tom Baker episode. And I did a fanboy squee when he channeled Baker’s voice for a couple of seconds. Best of the season so far.
The last time I checked that AMA the top rated question was “What does Jenna Coleman smell like?” and his answer was “Like a restraining order.”
I mostly enjoyed the episode. I’m a little put off by the Doctor’s behavior, but oh well. I’m a little thrown by Clara’s behavior at the end, deciding she doesn’t want to be quits and lying to both Pink and the Doctor about it.
The part at the end when Clara wakes up and the Doctor says he let everyone die, that kinda made me wonder. But then we had the engineer in the TARDIS, so I think he told the truth.
[QUOTE=Irishman]
{snip} I’m a little thrown by Clara’s behavior at the end, deciding she doesn’t want to be quits and lying to both Pink and the Doctor about it. {snip}
[/QUOTE]
Minor spoiler for the next episode, Flatline:
the post-adventure “tag” at the end of Flatline may hold clues to Clara’s choice to lie. Well, if not exactly clues, then at least fodder for endless speculation. 
Here’s the big difference: Human* intervention, and a minor attempt at rationalization. Someone wanted a space train, and then built it. So they were free to use any kind of impossible future tech to do it, and make it look the way they wanted. (hard-light holograms, which were established as something possible with that tech, can easily explain the smoke). (the Doctor also mentioned something about riding hyperspace ribbons, which was at least an attempt to handwave an explanation).
Imagining futuristic, purposely designed technology breaking/bending the laws of science is part and parcel of sci-fi. It’s built into the premise of the show. Imagining a creature that by its very existence breaks them (and without anyone even noticing that things don’t work that way) or breaking them with technology (i.e. the space shuttle) that already exists and is already decades obsolete is harder to swallow.
Was it just me, or did BBCA cut a rather important part of the episode? Clara and the lady with her went from entering the room via high heel to being inexplicably trapped with an unmentioned sarcophagus and already trying to escape during a commercial break. Did I miss something?
[QUOTE=gonzoron]
{snip} OK, two things… I wish they’d explained why the Doctor surrendering made the soldier mummy stop and disintegrate.
Was it just me, or did BBCA cut a rather important part of the episode? Clara and the lady with her went from entering the room via high heel to being inexplicably trapped with an unmentioned sarcophagus and already trying to escape during a commercial break. Did I miss something?
[/QUOTE]
First question: because the mummy was actually an ancient soldier who’d had many bits and bobs of himself cybernetically upgraded. He was implanted with a thing that wouldn’t let him stop fighting until he received the order to lay down his arms because the war was over. When the Doctor “surrendered” the war was “won” and therefore, over.
Second question: (time stamp notation is approximate)
@11:52 – Maisie smashes door-opening mechanism with her shoe.
Maisie: Oh!
Clara: Or you could do that because…that works, too.
Maisie & Clara enter baggage car.
CUT TO DINING CAR – The Doctor enters and seeks out Prof Moorhouse.
The Doctor: What’s the most interesting thing about the Foretold?
Not sure how much more I can quote before I fall afoul of “fair use” regs. Do you need to know more?
Yeah, what’s the next scene with Maisie and Clara? In my version, it’s Clara fiddling with the wires of the door. It later makes sense that they are trapped and she’s trying to escape, but it felt like a scene was missing where the door closed behind them and they reacted to being trapped. Also, perhaps their discovery of the sarcophagus?
At first I thought there was a further chamber inside that Clara was trying to break into. It wasn’t until later dialogue that I realized they’d been trapped.
[QUOTE=gonzoron]
Yeah, what’s the next scene with Maisie and Clara? {snip}
[/QUOTE]
In case anyone was wondering about gonzoron and his predicament, worry no longer! I was able to answer his question via PM.
Well, I kinda wanted the answer. It also felt disjointed to me. Yes, I saw the door close after they entered the room, but it still was odd that they were trying to get out, without mentioning the old lady’s body was missing or something. I mean, that’s what they were up to in the first place, looking for the old lady’s body, right? So what happened there? One minute they’re entering the room, then they’re trying to leave the room. No body check mentioned.
Yeah, the sarcophagus was open and empty - stasis chamber waiting for the mummy, not source of the mummy. But something still felt missing in that part of the story.
@Irishman: was Mrs. Pitt’s body missing? I didn’t get that…
At approximately 11:52: Clara & Maisie are in the aisle of first-class carriage. Maisie smashes the door operating panel (leading to the baggage car) with her shoe heel.
Cut to: The Doctor enters the dining car, seeks out Prof. Moorhouse and talks to him. After the Jelly Baby gag…
Intercut scenes (with the 66-second countdown timer) of The Foretold hunting down a cook in the kitchen car and the Doctor and Prof. Moorhouse talking.
Cut to: Clara working on a door-operating mechanism. Maisie asks her if she knows what she’s doing; Clara says whatever it is it’s better than a shoe (or something, I’m paraphrasing). Maisie explains to Clara why she is so anxious to see Mrs. Pitt’s body. So far, most of the shots are tight close-ups or two-shots, but around 15:44, there’s a medium two-shot of Maisie and Clara and it’s clear from the shelving and the stuff on the shelves they are in the baggage car. After some conversation between Maisie and Clara…
Cut to: a long-shot of the “sarcophagus” at the end of the baggage car.
Perhaps there was a “uh-oh, we’re trapped, Doctor! help us” scene that was cut because the episode was running long. Not sure what else to say.
Okay, that was just repeating what I knew.
Something of the layout of that story element was off.
What I meant about missing body is that we don’t see any actual interaction with checking the body. She came to check for the lady’s body and see it, but we don’t see it sitting there, do we? I don’t recall it being in the room.
Exactly, that was what I was getting at. There seemed the be no “Oh Noez, we’re trapped!” or “hey, what’s this sarcophagus?” scene, as one might expect.