N-S6E6: The Almost People

The majority of this episode is meh, to put it bluntly.  Humans and Gangers make peace, some humans die, some Gangers die, but there's always a happy ending for them.  Monster-Jen is terrifying and should never be brought up again.

But then there's the ending.  Just those last two minutes.  Amy's Flesh.  Has been for quite a while.  She was kidnapped and held hostage and is having a baby, wherever she is.  Hatch-Patch is indeed a midwife, and a terrifying one at that.  There's speculation tying "the only water in the forest is the river" to the second Weeping Angels episode, titled "Flesh and Stone."  I don't think the writers would have had a fake Amy recreate the universe; something about that just feels invalid.

There were several hints to this in this episode alone: the Ganger Doctor was able to connect with her and see what was going on.  He was the first to tell her to breathe.  He said to her after she saw Hatch-Patch that it was a "time memory" while the Doctor said, "it's in my head."  Don't know if he could see it too or not, but would make life a bit easier finding her if he could.  Ganger Doctor also told Amy to "push, but only when she tells you to."

Speaking of Amy giving birth, was it just me or did it look like a Dalek eyestalk with a green pupil between Amy's legs at the end there?  Creepy~

And going off creepers, we saw creeper Rory and fanservice ("I'll break out the big guns") Rory in this episode... AND he didn't die for once.  Guess it was "Amy's" turn to do that.  Rory did seem to know that Amy wasn't right and trusted the Doctor enough to let him dissolve her.  Maybe that means Amy does love him beyond when he's dying, just not when she's Flesh.

Flesh Doctor was amazing.  Double Doctor trouble was most definitely a grand idea.  Loved it when the Ganger Doctor was getting used to himself and pulled a Tom Baker clip out of the archives asking, "Would you like a Jelly Baby?"  And their shenanigans popping up and down and finishing each others' sentences.
Ganger: "Tough old sexy."
Doctor: "Tough dependable sexy."

Sexy which, of course, was completely fine.  As much as the TARDIS likes to wander off, get lost or stolen, she's great at finding her way back when and where she needs to be.  I bet there's a contradiction somewhere about her outer indestructibility, though.  Sinking all the way through the ground?  The ground is solid, just a little acid-y.  Did she sink by her own will?

And of course, Amy's mistake, not realizing they'd switched shoes.  I had to rewatch the episode and keep close tabs on which Doctor was doing what to catch a lot of things.
Ganger: "Well, my death arrives, I suppose."
Doctor: "But this one we're not invited to..."
Now the Doctor knows that they've seen his death and what the TARDIS blue invitations were for.  What he'll do with that information we don't know yet, but certainly there will be some tension and blame and accusations coming out of it.  I can't imagine the Doctor would be pleased with any of them for keeping that from him this long.

Things to think about:
-How did the Doctor find out Amy was Flesh, though?  He said at the end that they were there in the first place because he needed to see the Flesh in the early days.

-Where is Amy?  Who took her?  When was she taken?  There's the speculation about Flesh and Stone, but beyond my unease with the idea, there's the fact that there was a huge time gap between series 5 and 6 - too long for Amy to be pregnant with Rory's child.  There was also the few month gap between The Impossible Astronaut and The Day of the Moon, which means she was likely taken by the Silence, which is what I'm leaning toward (also why she wouldn't remember she was in a Ganger).

Next episode, A Good Man Goes to War, is the mid-series finale; the last episode until September.  Looking at the credits posted on the IMDB, we're getting River back, as well as Jenny (remember the little girl regenerating?  Placing my bet on who that was~), the Silence and the Cybermen.  A Moffat episode, of course.  Can't wait, even if it's a cliff hanger.

N-S6E5: The Rebel Flesh

Another episode I'm not sure what to think of.  It came across as very short, to the point I was surprised when it ended.  Granted, I was on an hour-and-45-minute flight and definitely had quite a while to go, but it still felt short.

But there's always highlights!  Like seeing Raquel Cassidy as Foreman Miranda Cleaves, also known as Jo Porter from Party Animals (which she starred in alongside Matt Smith... it ran for 8 episodes and despite being good critical reaction, was not commissioned for another season due to a severe lack of viewership).  It's worth a watch, if you haven't seen it.

Amy's face when Rory was comforting Jennifer was beautiful.  She only loves him when he's dying, but watch out, she's full of jealous if anyone makes a move on him.  Rory's in danger in this episode again, will he die by electrocution this time?  Be melted by acid?  Be eaten by Gangers?  Tune in next week!

And the Doctor lost the TARDIS again in this episode.  I think it's more over-done in this season than Rory's death at this point and still I hear no one complaining about it.

Things to think about:
-Speaking of losing the TARDIS, is it melted or sunk or what?  The Doctor didn't seem too worried about it, so I don't think she's melted, but she's definitely lost and will have to be retrieved.

-Ganger Doctor!  How much of the Doctor's powers does he have?  Will he be able to regenerate?  What does this mean for the Doctor and how he deals with the Gangers?  It's easy to say the Gangers deserve to live when they're copies of humans, but when they're copies of Time Lords?  Can't have that running around.

N-S6E4: The Doctor's Wife

Wibbley-wobbly, timey-whimey, spacey-wacey.

Holy feebas, that was an amazing episode.  Watched it online in the early afternoon and got all wound up, killed a number of hours before watching it again and got all riled up once more.  I know I'm not allowed to watch Doctor Who before bed, but with this episode it really didn't matter.  Thank you very kindly, Neil Gaiman.

Awesome quotes!
-TARDIS: "You stole me and I stole you."

-Doctor: "My TARDIS."
TARDIS: "My Doctor."

-TARDIS: "I stole a Time Lord and ran away."

-TARDIS: "I'm thinking all of my sisters are dead, that they've been devoured, and that we are looking at their corpses."

-TARDIS: "Oh, my beautiful idiot, you have what you've always had.  You've got me."

-Amy: "Did you wish really hard?"
Doctor: "Shut up, it's not like that."
TARDIS: "Hi, I'm Sexy."
Doctor: "Still shut up!"

It had the energy of one of Moffat's River episodes (you can't deny there's a different dynamic when she's in the script) and maintained it all the way to the ending climax.  I was initially disappointed in the lack of squirm when the TARDIS first kissed the Doctor, but it turned out it was just shock and he quickly took to hiding - and maintained his squirminess.

I both loved and hated the idea of Time Lord distress signals, as I'm sure was meant to happen.  I don't know if they've been introduced before, but I'm sure we'll see them again at some point.  I was surprised that he didn't confiscate them and take them with him, though.  Those are the last words of his species and should be preserved.

Couple of let-downs:
-Killed Rory again, if even for a few moments.  Make up your damn minds!  It's made it obvious Amy only loves him when he's dying and that does not bode well for their marriage/relationship.
-Reaction to the patchwork people was very toned down.  They were obviously conglomerations of Time Lords that had been lured to the junkyard and the Doctor hardly batted an eye.
-The reappearance of the old control room.  You'd think he might have reacted to it a bit more, though to be fair it was discussed on the way to the physical TARDIS.

Oh, where to start with the squee moments.  The whole of the episode's dialogue was simply stellar.  It was keyed up the whole time, keeping that marvelous energy going.  There were a lot of similarities between the interactions of the Doctor and the TARDIS and the Doctor and River, but that might just be the flirting style they've settled on for Eleven.

Where this leaves the Doctor is quite and interesting position.  He's known the TARDIS is sentient, but now he knows it can speak given the chance.  I bet anything he'll be looking for a way to humanize her again, either by giving her a voice or a body... which body that is, however...

Gaiman, in an interview from WonderCon 2011:

The episode stars Suranne Jones as Idris, a character that Gaimain says: "May turn out being an old acquaintance of the Doctor's but with a new face."

While obviously this means the TARDIS, but as far as I'm aware, it hasn't had a face before.  Suggesting it has a new face just feels like it's pointing more toward a certain someone I'm biased toward.

Things to think about!
-Which universe are they in?  They never said they returned from the other one from the Black Spot, though they did say that they returned to theirs after reclaiming the physical TARDIS.  It would be easy to say they forgot they were in the alternate one... which might be where Hatch-Patch is taking place.

-Why does the Doctor keep losing the TARDIS?  What does it mean he keeps losing her?  It's as recurring as Rory's death and not nearly as noticed. I think it has something to do with River, since we are getting close to her reveal.

-"The only water in the forest is the river."  This obviously references our favorite River Song.  Beyond that, does it mean that Amy [Pond] won't be around at some point?  What is the forest in this metaphor?  I love that it's the TARDIS that says this.  She seemed to be speaking backward as River is prone to traveling.  I don't know what that means, if they came from a similar creation or what.

Either way, can't wait for the rest of this season, whether it's got a big nasty break in the middle or not.  Just gives me more time to catch up on older episodes.

Hidden Messages on BBC.com

With each episode, the BBC website releases some background and history under the episode's "Fourth Dimension" tab.  In each paragraph, there is one italicized word.  When put together, they form a sentence.  These sentences are such:

N-S6E1: All the secrets you seek can be found here on the Webb.

N-S6E2: We found your message, you're alive, but what secrets d'you mean, my friend?

N-S6E3: I mean I glimpsed him and may the gods help him... or perhaps you can.

N-S6E4: To see what I saw, click the spot beyond the Doctor's home planet.
The period at the end of the final paragraph (which ends with "Gallifrey") is a link to this page.  It contains a video in which the Doctor says, "Oh, hello.  If you can hear me, please, listen to me.  It's about time and very how little of it I've got left.  Everything that happens next depends on you."

N-S6E5: Message interrupted.

N-S6E6: [No message.]

N-S6E7: [No message.]

N-S6E8: When reason slept, when mothers wept, when soldiers crept, the monsters came.

To be updated...

N-S6E3: The Curse of the Black Spot

Another episode all over the place.

I did like how it was mostly self-contained, only bringing up new questions for occurrences already in the series, such as the cyborg woman.  She seems to be connected to sleep and dreams, as the first time she appeared, she said something to the effect of “she’s only dreaming” and this time appeared as Amy was coming out of sleep.

Beyond that, I don’t know what to speculate about her.  There's talk that she's Amy's midwife, but the question remains when that happens and why the TARDIS is freaking out over it.  There's a theory that Amy gave birth while the Silence were there and hence can't remember it... but then what was everyone else doing in the 9 months that happened in?  Time will tell.

I’ve heard talk that Avery appears earlier in the series but am not sure when; if it’s true, this episode probably ties up older loose ends or provides background.  I look forward to finding him again.

I will admit I had a couple squee moments in this episode, mostly based on the previously posted theory.  When the Doctor tries to operate the TARDIS and has to abandon ship, one of his last options to coax her to work is “We could try stroking her and singing her a song.”  I think it might have worked.  Also, when he found her in the space ship…

EDIT: Feebas, am I listening to myself?  "Singing her a SONG?"

He was quite happy, almost too happy.  But what I want to know is if the TARDIS just got confused because of the shared space or if it’s sick.  I’d really like to see something come up in the future about the TARDIS being sick – I’m sure someone will make the love-sick connection.

I was torn with Rory.  While they did a wonderful job making the episode a tear-jerker, I’m really getting tired of Rory dying-only-not-really and being brought back.  If he really had drowned (one, he should have been able to swim), he wouldn’t have come around on his own after Amy gave up on her (fail) CPR (two, CPR doesn’t work that way).

Either kill him or leave him be, don’t keep killing him and bringing him back.

Amy’s pregnancy seems to be more aggressively indecisive.  I hope that comes to a head pretty quick here.

Couple thoughts:
-What universe are they currently in?  They didn't return to the proper one at the end of the episode.  If they don't make a show of jumping back through their reflections at some point, I'm going to start preparing my 'told you so' for the rest of this series.  It would be pretty lame to base the rest of the series off a parallel universe, though, so I'm really hoping I'm wrong.

-Suddenly we find ourselves able to pop between universes that are pressed up against each other.  I'd really rather not have Rose start making appearances again.

Neil Gaiman's "The Doctor's Wife" next week.  We'll see how that goes.  Looks like we'll have a cameo by cthulhu, too (Ood?).

River Song is the TARDIS

I was ranting and raving at about 1:30 in the morning last night after rewatching S6E2 (Day of the Moon) and seeing S4E9-10 (Silence in the Library, Forest of the Dead) for the first time.  Who River is has been bugging the crap out of me and I spent this evening thinking about it and she has to be the TARDIS.  There's so many things saying yes, and I'm not the only person who's stumbled on this theory.

From Greywulf's Lair:

More accurately, she is the TARDIS from the future (after... y'know... that THING happens) regrown from Amy's Ring. That's why she can fly the TARDIS, write Gallifreyan and keeps a dairy (her "memory bank") that looks an awful lot like the ol' Police Box. As she is regrown, her Chameleon circuit is working too, which is why she looks amazingly like Alex Kingston. And yes, that does mean that River Song is bigger on the inside than she is on the outside.

 Don't go there.

 Want more proof?

Add an L from somewhere (I'm sure they'll invent a middle initial or something) and River L. Song is an anagram of Lover's Ring. Ok, it's a stretch, but worse anagrams have been made in Doctor Who :D

 In this episode she says to herself "Oh Doctor. It's amazing I let you out" - something only the TARDIS can say!

 The TARDIS is The Doctor's constant companion, friend, ally, and has proven time and again (no pun intended) that she is utterly devoted to him. In a way, she IS his wife. The TARDIS has demonstrated her ability to create Sonic Screwdrivers which explains how she got one in Silence in the Library.

 From Scott at Iceburg Ink:

Well, it all started with hearing about the Series 6 episode that Neil Gaiman has written called THE DOCTOR’S WIFE in which the Doctor finds himself in a spaceship graveyard and the rumor is that Suranne Jones who plays a character called Idris (TARDIS sounding ain’t it?) is actually the Doctor’s wife. Who could BE the Doctor’s wife? Why his TARDIS of course! He loves his ship. Loves it. Calls it sexy at times.

-River carries with her a diary. A blue one cut with the panels on the cover to look like a TARDIS. 

-She knows the Doctor's true name! 

-She also carries a sonic screwdriver that looks like Ten’s sonic. 

-She at certain points has had Jack Harkness’ wrist-time-traveling device, an item the tenth Doctor confiscated for a time. An item specifically made by his people to police time and could not be gotten by her any other way than being in (or part of) the TARDIS.

-She also carries the Squareness Gun, another item once owned by Captain Jack Harkness and confiscated by the Ninth Doctor (in the Moffat penned episode from Series 1, THE DOCTOR DANCES) and likely then resided in the TARDIS. 

-She can fly the TARDIS by herself (a feat the Doctor can’t fathom), knows where the blue stabilizers are (another thing the Doctor didn’t know about), and can land it without the brakes on (the Doctor always leaves the brakes on resulting in the telltale VWAARP VWAARP sound). 

-She has been in the TARDIS during two different occasions when the TARDIS was in mortal peril, once in the loop at the end of the series 5 finale, THE BIG BANG and survived. 

-When the Doctor meets her again in the Series 6 opener THE IMPOSSIBLE ASTRONAUT his first words for her are “Okay, what have you got for me this time?” the very same words he spoke to the TARDIS when standing in front of it after it regenerated itself during the Series 5 opener THE ELEVENTH HOUR. 

-In THE PANDORICA OPENS when River sees Amy's raggedy Doctor dolls in her house she says "I don't know why I ever let you out." Think about that statement...really think about it. 

-He always refers the TARDIS as she (but all captains do that about their ships so that may be nothing) 

There is also the other theory that River is Amy’s future daughter (Amy has preggers stomach pains in THE IMPOSSIBLE ASTRONAUT and River seems to have phantom sympathy pains) and that the man she kills is Rory who would be her actual father. But that one is an even wilder speculation than my above nonsense.

 From Bullet Point Ballet:

There are all kinds of little events that have happened - specifically, when Churchill tries to call the TARDIS and the phone rings for her!

5/14 EDIT: Upon airing of "The Doctor's Wife" and the line, "The only water in the forest is the river."
From JoeUK on Gallifreybase.com:

I think we are now looking towards River being the TARDIS: 

1) He calls the TARDIS "sexy" 

2) The epsiode is called the Doctor's wife, and most evidence points towards River being the Doctor's Wife 

3) This would also allow the time-girl to be River and regenerate, it is not inconceivable that a TARDIS in a flesh body can regenerate! 

4) Would explain why River can speak High Gallifrean / Pilot the TARDIS / understand Time Lords so well.

I suppose the only hole is that River talks about the Doctor picking her up and knowing all about her when she doesn't know anything but that could also be to throw people off. We know it has been said that River isn't who we suspect her to be, I just think that her being the plain Doctor's wife is far too obvious for Dr Who!

One thing I know I want to add - River is the one who told the Doctor the doors to the TARDIS would open if he snapped, if her Doctor snapped.  Sure, she's seen it traveling with him, but how did he start snapping in the first place?  Because she told the 10th Doctor.

So there you have it.  They'd already said it and saved me the trouble of typing it all out (though formatting that was annoying) and probably said it better than I would have.  But such doesn't detract from the strength of the evidence.  River is the TARDIS.  Keep watching.  I'm willing to bet this will turn out true.

N-S6E2: Day of the Moon

Wooooo, Doctor/River flirting AND kiss~  <3

He so awkward and squirmy when he gets himself into those situations.  It’s adorable and really adds to the feeling of youth in this incarnation.  Makes for quite a number of depressing exchanges with River, but time will tell with that.  Spoilers.

The Silence are creepy. Not nearly as creepy as the Weeping Angels, but they’re creepy.  And the Doctor didn’t really deal with them, just killed a bunch of them and brainwashed the human race into systematically killing them off.  Prognosis: They will be back, no doubt about it.

Richard Nixon was abused WAY too much in this episode.  Oh hi there, I’m the President.  Don’t mind me; just let this guy do what he’s going to do.  Also, I’m going to walk out of this prison that’s been sealed for the past few days even though I wasn’t in it when it was closed.  Pomp and circumstance and America.  In England.

As expected, the episode does a wonderful job of confusing you in the beginning, making you feel better, scaring the crap out of you, making you rejoice with a solution, tricking you into thinking a happy moment is going to be sad and then leaving you with some crap-tastic mystery or whatnot that leaves you feeling crappy, wanting more or both.  My emotions!  They are not a roller coaster that exists for your pleasure!

Couple thoughts:

-Who’s in the astronaut life-support suit?  Need to rewatch S6E1 for what the exchange with future Doctor.  Is it Rory?  They’re setting him up to have enough motivation.  Is it the little girl?  Somehow I don’t think she’d return to the suit after escaping it.  Long-shot with no evidence at the moment, is it River?  All that speculation she kills the Doctor and that’s why she’s in prison, etc.

-Who is the little girl?  They suggest she’s Amy’s daughter, but they wouldn’t give the answer that easily, especially with the girl regenerating at the end of the episode.  She must be related to the Doctor somehow.  Time will tell if she’s a clone, Amy’s, River’s (she’d know already...spoilers?), or the TARDIS’s.  And that last one is a legit concern.

-What’s up with Amy’s pregnancy?  Obviously it’s not the Doctor’s or at least she would know.  That leaves Rory, and he’s a cyborg or something like it now, so can he reproduce to begin with?  And as for the TARDIS not being able to confirm or deny her pregnancy... do we have time travel baby on our hands like in Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife?  Or just a normal/cyborg-human baby affected by time traveling in the womb?

Waiting sucks.  I’ma go watch new series 4, since it’s due soon and I want my bloopers!  Or I’ll get distracted wanting to make a Doctor Who timeline, of what place he’s been when throughout the entire series.  Would give me something to pay attention to as I watch it from old series one.

The angel is full of forests!