Why Matt Smith is really the 13th Doctor…

Okay, after the revelation in “The Name of the Doctor” that the Ninth Doctor is really John Hurt and it was him that did for the Daleks and the Timelords in the Time War and not Eccles…

we have to re-think things a little.

First off, I reckon a Retcon on this scale is unprecedented and kudos to The Moff if he can really pull it off in November. So our list of Doctors, as we always knew it up until yesterday had Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor. So far, so canonical.

However, if John Hurt is really the Ninth Doctor, the Forgotten Doctor, then that makes Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor the Tenth incarnation, which means in turn that David Tennant`s Tenth Doctor is really the Eleventh.

Which means that Matt Smith is now the Twelfth Doctor.

Or does it?

Let’s think about this for a minute…

David`s Doctor had a regeneration, in “The Stolen Earth”, which admittedly wasn’t completed, “Ten” storing the rest of the energy in his handy spare hand. But he still regenerated, which means, to my mind at least, that if he didn’t have his handy spare hand to hand, he would have changed [ presumably into Matt] at the end of that ep instead of End of Time Part 2.

So that means, the way I see it, that there are two incarnations of the Doctor that look exactly the same, that is, they both look like David Tennant.

So David Tennant is really the Eleventh AND Twelfth Doctors. A regeneration is a regeneration, it was still used up, only “Ten” didn`t change at the end of it, he just saved up the energy he din’t need  after his body healed itself and didn’t change. But a regeneration was still triggered and one of the Doctor’s regenerations was used up, even though it didn’t result in a change in the Doctor`s appearance.

Which makes Matt Smith the Thirteenth Doctor, and, if you want to get all Classic Who Canon about it, The Last Doctor!

Think about it – when Clara was in the Doctor`s Timeline, just before Doctor Hurt turned up, she said she only saw Eleven Doctors and that Hurt was the only one she hadn’t seen.

That means that the Doctor who dies at Trenzalore is Doctor Matt, since Clara stepped into his entire timeline and didn’t see one future Doctor…

When the Doctor/Teselecta got shot on the beach in The Impossible Astronaut, he/it started to regenerate. Now that could have been just for effect, to convince River, Amy & Rory that he was dead since he got shot mid-regeneration… or it could mean that he does have other regenerations after all, if the Teselecta made an exact copy…

So when Matt does finally leave the show, I wonder what the explanation, if any, will be for the Fourteenth Doctor, because that`s who Matt`s succesor, whoever it is, will be…

John Hurt IS The Doctor!

“What I did I did without choice… in the name of peace and sanity”

Okay, so it looks like John Hurt is the “real” Ninth Doctor and fans all over the planet will have to amend their lists…

“The Doctor”

William Hartnell
Patrick Troughton
Jon Pertwee
Tom Baker
Peter Davison
Colin Baker
Sylvester McCoy
Paul McGann
John Hurt
Christopher Eccleston
David Tennant
Matt Smith

Quite aside from being quite possibly the biggest retcon in fiction ever, I think having a “forgotten” Doctor, one who betrayed his principles, for whatever reason, a “dark” Doctor if you like, is a brilliant idea, one that ranks only second to the concept of the Time War.

Of course, there will be some fanboys who will go into meltdown over this, which will no doubt please Moffat no end. As a hook to get the General Public watching in November it`s a bloody good one. And if ever there was a quality actor who could pull off that kind of character, it`s John Hurt . I think Eccles is off his head not coming back for the Special, which I predict will be called “The Forgotten Doctor”.

[don't they make a lovely couple? Can't wait to see them together!]

I can hear the fan speculation for November starting already… and it`s in my head too!

Wondering just how much, if any, we’ll see of the Time War.
Davros v Doctor Hurt – how cool would that be!
Oh and I know The Master legged it to the End of the universe but Derek Jacobi facing off against John Hurt – squeee!
Will we get a regeneration? Either from McGann to Hurt or from Hurt to Eccles?

It could be total flashback overload come November but I doubt it will be, still fascinating to wonder how much we’ll see of it in the ep.

And how the hell does Totters Lane etc fit into all this?

And will David Bradley`s Tardis set make an appearance? God I hope so, how cool would that be, to see the original in colour in the show itself!

And speaking of colour, we’ve got to see Totters Lane, haven`t we?
I mean, if they’ve built the sets for the docudrama anyway… that just seems like too good an opportunity to pass up. And we know, from the location filming photos, that they filmed the entrance to the lane so…?

And only SIX MONTHS to go!

The Name of the Doctor – spoiler review!

Well? After all the build up, was it worth it?

Hell yeah!

Looking back at my thoughts prior to transmission, some things I got right, some I got wrong, but I got the important one right, and that’s what matters!

Okay, first up, let’s deal with those flashbacks at the start. So glad I was wrong about the Gallifrey flashback, how many times have fans imagined that escape scene. Shame they didn’t get Babelcolour to do it, it would have been so much better than it was. As for the rest of the clips that Clara was inserted into, there were some pretty bizarre choices in there I must say – I mean, Dragonfire? WTF?

I thought there’d be some out of focus, in the background doubles and I got that right, though some of them didn’t look much like the Doctors they were meant to be, but I suppose you can explain that away as “the memory cheats”…

As for the story itself, well I got it right that we wouldn’t actually find out his name and there were a couple of moments where I guessed the dialogue correctly, which always gives me a warm glow. And did anybody else spot the line that was very similar to one from “Castrovalva”? Yeah, `course you did.

As for the “secret” itself, well, if you`ve been anywhere near the Internet, even in the run up to the “leak” of the episode, and showed any interest at all in the Anniversary special, then you had a good idea of exactly Who it was that  John Hurt was playing.  But if you didn’t, it must have been the biggest surprise ever. The moment he spoke, and you heard that distinctive voice of his, you would have been thinking “bloody hell, they’ve got John Hurt to play The Valeyard!”  But no…

And I got it right that Clara was Temporal Fission-ed across the Doctor’s timeline though having The Great Intelligence as the villain didn’t really have that much of an impact as it could have been pretty much anyone, the whole point of the story was simply to open the Doctor’s grave and find what was inside.

Guessed that Trenzalore was where he was buried and loved the idea of the now-dead  Tardis being his tomb. And I do think it’s a good idea to establish that, at some point in the future, the Doctor does die, he’s not immortal. Of course, how many Doctors there are before Trenzalore is another question…

And speaking of questions, there are plenty of those left hanging in the air between now and November 23rd.  I love the idea of a “forgotten” Doctor but I do think they could have made him a bit less of a scruffy bugger, don’t you?

And that was “The Name of the Doctor”, the obvious winner of the DWM Season Survey, the result of that will never be in doubt.

And what are the chances that the next issue of DWM will have a “John Hurt IS The Doctor” cover?

Can’t wait to Fan Edit this one!

SATISFACTION LEVEL FOR THIS EPISODE? – 96%

FRUSTRATION LEVEL FOR THIS EPISODE? – 2%

ANTICIPATION LEVEL FOR NEXT EPISODE? – 80%

SEASON SEVEN [According to Whopix]

#1 – The Name of the Doctor
#2 – The Crimson Horror
#3 – Nightmare In Silver
#4 – Journey to the Centre of the Tardis
#5 – The Bells of Saint John
#6 – Hide
#7 – Cold War
#8 – The Rings of Akhaten

Iron Man Cyberman

Had to be done…

CYBERMAN

IRON MAN

Name of the Doctor – Spoiler pix? Maybe…

Okay so you`ve probably all seen the two “spoiler” pix put out by the Beeb today, but if you haven’t they’re not really that spoiler-y, I think. Well, one of `em probably is and one of `em isn`t really, it`s just confirmation of my theory on what happens to Clara in the Tardis…

Okay, here’s the first one… ready?

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Given that this is on the Beeb`s official Facebook Page, I doubt that the revelation that we get a Gallifrey Flashback really counts as a spoiler. Unless you`re one of those strange people who don’t even look at Next Time trailers, in which case you`re not likely to be here anyway…

So, there are two possibilities. One, we’ll see the Doctor as a baby getting baptised, or whatever the Timelord equivalent is for naming their kids. Maybe Claire Bloom will be back as his mum…

Or it’ll be a flashback to the Doctor and Susan escaping for the very first time. I doubt this will be what it`s for, they would need a Hartnell lookalike for a start and where would they get one of those from…

I reckon this scene will be the Doctor getting named by his parents.

Or something else entirely!

Next, this one is a real corker and confirms what I thought was going on in my previous speculations on the story. Remember how Clara steps into the energy column to rescue the Doctor and sees Bessie drive past…

Just after this last one, guess what happens next. somebody walks past in the corridor behind Clara… and look Who it is!

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It`s Sixie!

Now, that confirms what I thought about her having brief encounters with previous Doctors, moments in his lives. We had a similar thing in Journey a few eps back if you remember. So we’ve got a Colin Baker lookalike, in his costume, out of focus and in the background in a dimly lit corridor… I reckon he walks past the junction, with a genuine Colin line from the Classic Series as a voice over, and vanishes just as Clara turns round.

Nice idea, to have “ghosts” of previous Doctors “haunting” the Tardis due to whatever timey-wimey thing is going on. A nice idea and a neat way of getting the previous docs involved in anniversary year.

I reckon this is exactly what they’ll do for the other Old Doctors, with lookalikes for some and voice overs for others.

Excited for Saturday yet? I am, and it`s only Tuesday!

The Impossible Girl – solved? [Speculation, no spoilers]

Okay, having looked at the trailers closely and having put me thinking head on [see what I did there?] I reckon I know what the answer to Clara’s mystery is. Now this is just speculation, I haven’t seen the ep, I`m just going by what everyone else has seen in the trailers. If you look closely at them and put together the clues we’ve been given so far, then it starts to make sense. Sort of.

Anyway, here’s what I reckon…

Something happens during the story to the Tardis, resulting in this column of energy…

River is there with Clara, and if you look, so is Vastra [no sign of Strax & Jenny though]

Now look what happens next, after River says to Clara not to do what she’s thinking of doing…

CLARA STEPS INTO THE ENERGY COLUMN AND VANISHES!

So where does she go? Answer – she’s somewhere in the Tardis, having very brief encounters with previous moments in the Doctor`s past lives, like this one with the Third Doctor and Bessie…

I reckon Clara somehow undergoes some sort of Temporal Fission type thing while trying to rescue the Doctor, spreading multiple copies of her through time and space – we’ve met the Snowmen one and the Dalek Asylum one so far but I reckon there are others.

That`s what I think.

Clara goes inside the Tardis to rescue the Doctor and gets Temporal Fission-ed. Her are some more screen grabs to back that up –

Name of the Doctor Speculation #2 – Bessie!

YES, IT IS BESSIE!

If you look at the TV trailer for The Name of the Doctor, yes, that is clearly Bessie, and here are the six frames that prove it, and we all know what that means…

The implications of this are worth thinking over. It looks like Clara ends up back in time as the Third Doctor drives past her in Bessie. Yes the tree in the background looks like it`s from The Five Doctors but if you look at the other shots I reckon she’s still inside the Tardis and is doing some sort of “travelling through all the Doctor`s past lives” kind of thing.

So does this mean she will pop back through all ten previous Doctors? I doubt it – we’ve already had Eccles and others as voice overs in Journey so I wouldn’t be surprised if that happens again. Not only that, it would be a bloody long sequence if you gave them one each, even if they were only six frames long like the Bessie shot.

I reckon she’ll have brief, and I mean. very brief glimpses of past Doctors in one way or another. Bill & Pat will probably be voice overs, the others will be seen from behind or out of focus in the background or passing by really quickly.

As for why? Well, if, as Clara says in the trailer that she “was born to save the Doctor” then it looks like she travels back through his previous live in the Tardis, and that`s somehow involved in rescuing him.

That’s what I reckon’s going on anyway. And yes, Bessie`s back! Hooray!