Thing is, The Doctor wouldn’t DO that. Not without a hell of a good reason.
-Joe
Well, a reason that the killed Doctor seemed to be aware of and agree with.
River shot at the person in the space suit and if she was the future in the spacesuit “killing a good man” then that was in her past, so she would have known it was her.
But didn’t she miss? And as we’ve seen in “The Day of the Moon”, River doesn’t miss.
So did Amy at very close range. I just assumed that the suit was invulnerable to bullets.
And River muttered, “Of course not,” after she shot, so it could be that she knows some aspect of what’s going on.
Did River miss? Or was it a matter of a small pistol not making a very visible mark on a space suit at a distance of probably a hundred feet?
-Joe
Did Amy miss? I thought there was a bullet hole in the visor later on, in the creepy children’s home, when Amy apologizes to the little girl for shooting at her.
Amy definitely hit the suit, not the girl. There was an unmistakable bullet hole in the visor of the thing. And really, it was a pretty shitty cop out for a cliffhanger.
Still, the start of the second episode was awesome enough that I forgave them.
-Joe
I took that to be her saying to herself “Five rounds rapid, and did it do any good? Of course not.”
I’m sure I’ll find 1,000 things wrong with this by the light of day, but it’s one of those “I woke up at 2 am pondering this” sorts of things. Completely wild speculation about how to resolve the problem of duplicate Doctors:
[spoiler]OK, we will now have two Doctors running around the place. One of them gets shot/zapped/whatever and regenerates… into River Song. This takes care of the hint “that’s the day he finds out who I am”, it saves having to pay Matt Smith a double salary, it explains how River knows how to fly the TARDIS, knows so much about the Doctor, and knows Old High Gallifreyan. It will also appease the fanbase that wants a female Doctor. Or maybe them furious and turn the hate some have for River Song up to eleven.
Of course, it doesn’t explain what backstory she has told us so far, though as has been stated “the Doctor lies”. It doesn’t explain how a Technical Pacifist went all bang-bang-shooty. And there is the fact that means, if all of that is true, the Doctor is flirting with himself, which means the whole River Song/Doctor romance is masturbation[/spoiler]
Alternatively: the “good man” River kills (maybe not this next episode, but later) is, indeed, the Doctor but the duplicate, the “Doctorganger”.
Also, another one of those damn "I can’t sleep so my brain comes up with this" - the doppelganger clothes are made out of the same goo they are, right? So are their clothes part of them?
You’ve just reminded me of a conversation I once had about the X-Men films:
Me: “Y’know, technically Mystique is naked all the time. Rowrr.”
My friend: “Yes, but technically so was Odo.”
Me: “Urgh.”
Not necessarily. The clothes could be separate bits of Flesh. Depending how the Gangers are created, it might be harder to do otherwise.
Am I the only one that was really quite “meh” about this one? I’ve been thinking about it as I came to the conclusion that the whole “growing bodies to be controlled remotely by people in special harnesses” was just way too ‘Avatar’ for me.
To be honest, I’ve been disappointed with pretty much all of the series so far, with Gaiman’s being the lone bit of quality.
I think the episode as a whole was average, but the fact we’ll wind up with two Doctors is very intriguing. How that will be handled could make for a very good episode (or, if they mess up, a bad one). I can’t imagine they’ll have two Doctors running around for any length of time beyond next week, so what happens to the extra one?
So… plot and initial concept, meh. Things you think about the next day, interesting.
That’s my theory. I don’t agree with your spoiler box though. It doesn’t fit in with what we already know about the doctor. His personality might change but not the essence of who he is. I think the story arc we are now watching will :
Result in Amy delivering the little girl who we saw earlier, who was infected with Time Lord energy (hence the regeneration) I think River kills the doppelganger. I also think the doctor finds out about his death in the future and manages to change it because it is not a Time Locked event. Amy will let him know about it at some point. Kinda like when Marty Mcfly told Doc Brown about the future and prevented Docs death. If we asume the Doctor that died was the doppelganger that would imply that the he (the clone) had been cruising around the universe for a few hundred years. I don’t buy it.
It occurred to me that the Doctor must be retracing his own steps.
A big no no in the time rules.
That’s why he knew “sort of people” were coming at the Monastery. Also why he made no effort to help Rory at the end of the Pirates episode. (he knew Amy would succeed.)
I’m not sure why he’s doing this. It seems like he is playing around trying to fix events. Breaks a lot of time rules. Maybe it’s worth it to get that 2nd doctor?
Apology’s if I’m a week behind in this theory. Others may have realized this immediately.
OK, another speculation I’m going to box because if I’m halfway right it would be a spoiler and I know some people aren’t into speculating:
[spoiler]Word of Matt Smith is that the upcoming episode “The Almost People” has a massive cliffhanger at the end of it, which I confess makes it more intriguing for me than it would otherwise be, one that he said “knocked me out of my chair” when he first read the script. I’m guessing that has to do with how the spare Doctor is eliminated. If the Gallifreyan Doctor is the one killed (and remember, it’s been hinted/rumored/etc. that one of the principal characters gets killed off for real this series) that would leave the Doctorganger as the real Doctor going forward… which really would “change everything” in a sense, wouldn’t it? And what have we been hearing? About how everything will change?
It’s the only way I can see at this juncture to kill the Doctor for real but still have the Doctor around for the future.
It could also account for the “fall farther than he ever has before line” because, really, what is it going to do to Doctorganger to see the original Doctor die, particularly if Doctorganger expected to be the temporary guy (if that even applies - I suspect Doctorganger would have the same survival drive as the original Doctor). I mean, that’s gotta seriously mess with his head.
Is that what’s going to happen? Damn if I know. I want to watch the next episode not so much because I care about the acid miners and their stupid castle but because I want to know how they resolve the two Doctor dilemna and what that cliffhanger is.[/spoiler]
Nitpick: I believe you meant to say that it’s not a “fixed point in time.” Being “time locked” has another meaning entirely as I understand it.
Broomstick: I’m suspicious of something similar.
If Broomstick is right, then the ratings will plummet like a stone in water.
I have no interest ins watching a fake Doctor that isn’t from Gallifrey carry forward in the role permanently. I don’t mind a substitute for a few episodes, but eventually fans expect the real guy from Gallifrey. How could a fake clone even regenerate?
Do we really have to spoiler speculation?
Anyway:
I have a sneaking suspicion that we’ve been with the fake Doctor all the time in this season so far, and that he’s trying to undo something that lead to the real Doctor’s death. Though this doesn’t seem to have any obvious tie-ins with Schrödinger’s pregnancy, or eye patch lady, or the silence…