Doctor Who Season 8 Premiere!!!! Theories and Observations from "Deep Breath"

“Deep Breath”, the season 8 premiere of Doctor Who, has come and gone, and now that we’ve all taken a collective deep breath ourselves, let’s take a moment to look at some of the things that MOFFAT!!!!! set up for the season! (WARNING: SPOILERS!!!)

(DISCLAIMER:  I am probably completely wrong about every single one of these ideas … I just enjoy chatting about them …)

The Face of the Doctor

Peter Capaldi wears the Doctor’s face well!  But, as has been discussed in the months since he was announced, he has appeared on Doctor Who before.  Would Moffat try to explain this occurrence?  It appears he will, as early in the episode, we have this …

“Why this one? Why did I choose this face? It's like I'm trying to tell myself something. Like I'm trying to make a point. But what is so important that I can't just tell myself what I'm thinking?” (Twelve)

I don’t even have a theory for this one … yet.

Who left the newspaper ad?

Someone leaves a newspaper ad titled “Impossible Girl” which leaves a cryptic message telling where Clara should go meet the Doctor.  Or is it a message telling the Doctor where to go to meet Clara?  Turns out it is neither … or is it both?

My thought is that it might be another version of Clara that left the message.  After all, she was scattered throughout the Doctor’s timeline.  Wild thought: Bad Wolf?

Did the Doctor push the robot or did the robot jump?

I think the robot jumped, because it became truly sentient and made a decision to do so, which sort of leads to where he went when he “died” …

What is Heaven?

This question, and the next one, could be the mystery of the season (and I originally thought it was going to be the search for Gallifrey).  When the clockwork robot “dies”, he wakes up in “Heaven”, “Paradise”, or “The Promised Land” – whichever you want to call it.  What is this place?  Well I have an idea.

I think this place is … *drum roll* … the mainframe that River Song was “saved” into in the episode “Silence in the Library”.  If you remember, the image of the inside of that mainframe was quite idyllic, a “paradise” of sorts.  Perhaps the library mainframe has grown to no longer need a physical constraint, existing outside of time and space, and still fulfilling its programming to save whomever it can.  Where else would heaven for a mechanical being be than inside a mainframe? Especially one that achieved some level of sentience.  (Could Handles be in here somewhere?)

This also fits with my favorite theory that Tasha Lem might be River Song after she discovers how to download her consciousness from the mainframe into a new body.  When she got out, she built a religion around the mainframe (whose real undercover purpose is to help the Doctor when needed).  Tasha equals River would give a deeper meaning to a couple of the comments by Tasha in “Time of the Doctor”:

“Flying the TARDIS was always easy. It was flying the Doctor I never quite mastered.” (Tasha Lem to Clara)

“I died in this room screaming your name.” (Tasha Lem to the Doctor)

That means, of course, that it’s quite possible River is still in the mainframe somewhere.  Which brings us to our next big question …

Who is Missy?

Missy is the strange woman who greets the clockwork robot when he arrives in “Paradise”.  She calls the Doctor her “boyfriend”.  She seems to be running the place, or at least acts like she does.  I have heard and considered a lot of ideas on her identity, assuming she is someone we know:

A female version of The Master (The Mistress = Missy)

An older version of Clara

Missy from the episode “Nightmare in Silver”

The woman who gave Clara the Doctor’s phone number

The Rani (whom I have only read about – she was a renegade female Timelord who worked with the Master against both the sixth and seventh Doctor)

None of these would seem to fit my Paradise theory, so I am going to go WAY out on a limb – I think she is River.  Or at least, some part of River in the mainframe I mentioned.  Perhaps River’s personality has fractured within the eternity of the mainframe, and this piece of it is quite crazy.  This coupled with Tasha Lem being “River reincarnate” could explain this statement by the Doctor from “Time of the Doctor”:

“Listen to me, you have been fighting the psychopath inside you all your life.” (The Doctor to Tasha Lem)

This of course assumes that it is indeed someone we might know and not a completely new character.

How did Eleven know when to call Clara?

This one is sort of a head scratcher. In “Time of the Doctor”, Eleven clearly tells Clara that he cannot regenerate again.  We have to assume that on Trenzalore, the call from Eleven to Clara in “Deep Breath” took place before he told her that.  So why would he assume that Clara would be with his next regeneration, if he knew he had none left?

Because he did know he would regenerate again!  Remember, the Doctor lies.  He told Clara what he told her in "Time of the Doctor", because he had gotten to the point where he needed Clara to do something to convince the Timelords to give him extra regenerations.

How did he know he would regenerate again?  Because he knew there was an extra TARDIS when he “saved” Gallifrey in “Day of the Doctor” (as the Timelords did).  Eleven knew it, and the Timelords knew it, it was just a matter of the right event happening at the right time for Eleven to get his extra regenerations – it happened just like he planned it to.

EDIT: A friend of mine pointed out that the phone call may have happened in "Time of the Doctor" between when Eleven got the regeneration energy and destroyed the Daleks, and when he completed the regeneration in front of Clara in the TARDIS.  Looking back I think she might be right!  Thanks, Faith!

Vastra, Jenny, and Strax

One last observation – BBC give these three their own spinoff miniseries already!!!!