Season 7, Story 6 (Overall Series Story #232) | Previous - Next | Index
Who is Clara Oswald? What does the Doctor need to remember? Is it Clara reminding the Doctor of something, or is there another agent behind her mysterious nature?
This wasn't a great episode, apart from re-examining it for clues, and for those moments of chemistry between the Doctor and this newest iteration of Clara, I'm not sure what it has going for it in terms of re-watchability? It's full of set up, reintroducing the mystery Clara, re-establishing their dynamic, hints to things from the past that may have portent for the near future ... but because I'm posting this pretty soon after first airing, I'm going to hide the rest of my notes behind the spoiler barrier. (The fact that I'm looking for clues to the bigger story though, and not really discussing this episode as a story in and of itself, should be all you need to know about what I think is wrong it.)
Let's start with how Clara ends up calling the Doctor, who is hermited away in a 13th c. monastery, after having been given a phone number as the ultimate help line by a "a girl at the shop." That phrase immediate made me think of Rose, partly because the news broke just the other day that she and Ten are coming back for the 50th anniversary special and she's the shop girl we all think of first, right? The fact that someone gave her the Doctor's number though seems to imply someone who was close to the Doctor is already in on the grand scheme, whatever it may be, which opens the possibility that the Doctor himself may be involved, maybe a future self? Or the exiled Ten splinter? I just hope Clara isn't a sort of Dawn (Buffy allusion), and will end up being a fully independent character, not just a plot driver. (Later, it'll turn out that woman at the shop was Missy ... and that is such good news because we're all going to love Michelle Gomez's version of the Master!)
Now that book, Summer Falls. Amelia Williams as an author implies Amy Pond may have something to do with this story arc, or it could just be a shout out to departed favorite? But I think you don't use that name, and have a character on the cover that looks Clara-ish without it meaning something more. And, as the A.V. Club write up points out, there seems to be some significance to the chapters as they related to Doctors. The kid with the book is on chapter ten, and Clara tells him he's really going to love chapter eleven, and that it will bring a tear to his eye. This obviously pours fuel on the Matt Smith-is-leaving rumor fire.
There's another book that offers up a clue, I think, in this episode, and I haven't seen anyone else point this out yet, but where Clara has written her age and scratched it out every year as she aged, her 23rd year is missing. *cue dramatic music* So where was she that missing year, or why couldn't write in her book that year? (This, it seems, was dead end. Don't recall anything ever coming of it.)
The Great Intelligence has obviously not made its last appearance of the season, which -- if nothing else -- give us a hope for the eventual return of the Yeti! I don't really have a theory to expound, any speculation on my part as to what he's got in mind, and what role he might have to play going forward would just be foolish, so I'll spare myself from getting egg on my face, but am very curious what other folks think he's got to do with the mystery of Clara, if anything?
The prequel webisode was strange, I thought, and didn't do anything but make the Doctor sort of creepy. But I saw something on G+ -- which I, frustratingly, can't find again because +1ing something doesn't add it to your +1s tab on your profile like it sort of obviously should do -- that suggested that prequel showed Rose and Mickey playing on the playground as children and Rose's mum talking to someone identified as Clara's mum, though I've no idea how any of that was arrived at; it looked sort of plausible though ...
