The only thing that confuses me is what exactly did her appearing to Wilf achieve?
It ensured that events came to pass the way they were supposed to. The "ghostly" version who appears to Wilf is the future self of the "real" woman who comes through The Gate.
Because the most obvious answer is 'his mother' I think when it's eventually answered in the series it should be someone else, maybe Susan, the Doctor's granddaughter. It's new series canon that he had 'family' that were lost to the Time War.
Why? Davies is not God. He's gone, the writers can do what they like. And it was a remarkably silly idea to suggest that she was the Doctor's mother. One of many remarkably silly ideas the man had.
PERHAPS IN YOUR WORLD IT WAS REMARKABLY SILLY TO BRING BACK DOCTOR WHO AT ALL! After all, it was RTD's idea!
I've not seen anything directly from the mouth of RTD about who the women was. But from the shot after Wilf asks the question, ie Sylvia in the foreground with Donna behind, I agree with you that it was implied that the relationship was parent and child. My own view is that it was probably his mother, though another interpretation is it could be his daughter. My view is based solely on the age of Claire Bloom compared to David Tennant.
The only thing that confuses me is what exactly did her appearing to Wilf achieve?
She appears in the church and points out the Tardis in the stained glass window. By talking about the Doctor's appearance back in time she causes Wilf to gather his friends to track the Doctor down.
She later appears to Wilf and the result fo that conversation is that Wilf takes his revolver out which eventually he gives to the Doctor. The Doctor then uses it to shoot the machine, sending the Time Lords back to the last day of the Time War.
The woman whoever she is actually orchestrates the events that cause the Time Lords to go back into the Time Lock
Because the most obvious answer is 'his mother' I think when it's eventually answered in the series it should be someone else, maybe Susan, the Doctor's granddaughter. It's new series canon that he had 'family' that were lost to the Time War.
However, Carole Ann Ford (Susan Foreman) is alive and well, still acting, and nine years younger than Claire Bloom. Of course Susan could be a Timelord (never established one way or another) who's regenerated, but in that case chances are she'd be considerably younger in appearance.
Why would she need to be younger in appearance? It's never been established that Time Lords regenerate into a younger body, aside from the Master choosing to in "Utopia" and arguably, Troughton being the effect of a 'renewal' as it was known back then.
Well Claire Bloom is older - by a considerable margin - than any incarnation of the Doctor we've ever seen. Probably older than any Timelord we've ever seen. So I'm inclined to believe she's a really, really old Timelord who's never regenerated or who has and that regeneration is very, very old. But there's no law requiring that - just my spin on what we've seen before.
In the real world, I think that if they wanted her to be Susan, they'd bring back Carole Ann Ford.
And in the Whovian world, I think she's destined to remain a mystery or, as RTD reportedly said, whoever you want her to be. Even if Moffat or a future producer want to explore the Timelords again, it doesn't guarantee he'll want to explore this particular aspect of things.
PERHAPS IN YOUR WORLD IT WAS REMARKABLY SILLY TO BRING BACK DOCTOR WHO AT ALL! After all, it was RTD's idea!
He didn't bring it back : Doctor Who never went away. I was reading and listening to better new Doctor Who adventures right up until Davies gave us his abysmal revamp of the TV series. I'd sooner have the books back than that, frankly. Though hopefully Moffat can rescue it.
Lol, yep I hope he can save the 12 million viewers from that awful show they keep watching and giving the highest Appreciation Index scores to.
It's like people don't want to share their toys. Under RTD, Doctor Who has achieved mass appeal again. Can you honestly say that many/any of those audios and novels you were consuming could have ever done that back then?
Lol, yep I hope he can save the 12 million viewers from that awful show they keep watching and giving the highest Appreciation Index scores to.
It's like people don't want to share their toys. Under RTD, Doctor Who has achieved mass appeal again. Can you honestly say that many/any of those audios and novels you were consuming could have ever done that back then?
Why would I care? I don't need a work of fiction to have 'mass appeal' to enjoy it. I just need it to be good.
The "clone" doctor is at least part, if not half, human. Part of his memories, and his genetic structure were taken from Donna, so in a way he's the child of them both.
I did think his mother, Romana, or Leela as far as the identities of the women was concerned. Remembering that the Master, and Rasilon had both been reborn as part of the Time War.
He didn't bring it back : Doctor Who never went away. I was reading and listening to better new Doctor Who adventures right up until Davies gave us his abysmal revamp of the TV series. I'd sooner have the books back than that, frankly. Though hopefully Moffat can rescue it.
You see things only in tunnel vision. While it is obvious Doctor Who was available in audio and written works, it was never planned to be brought back onto the television screens. It was RTD's persistence and the final agreement of Lorraine Heggessey to get it recommissioned as an initial one off sereies to "test the water" that resulted in the successful format we have today.
Moffatts version is not going to be rehas of the 70's version. Get used to it. It will be more similar to what we had with RTD. After all, if it is a success for the BBC the way it is now, then the BBC are going to want more of the same. They won't care about what you want.
You see things only in tunnel vision. While it is obvious Doctor Who was available in audio and written works, it was never planned to be brought back onto the television screens. It was RTD's persistence and the final agreement of Lorraine Heggessey to get it recommissioned as an initial one off sereies to "test the water" that resulted in the successful format we have today.
TV isn't everything. I'd sooner have the books back than RTD's TV version.
Moffatts version is not going to be rehas of the 70's version. Get used to it. It will be more similar to what we had with RTD. After all, if it is a success for the BBC the way it is now, then the BBC are going to want more of the same. They won't care about what you want.
Did RTD omit putting her identity in the actual show for the simple reason of flogging tons of copies of his new book?
Surely the show needed that loose end tying up. I can't see why he'd leave it up in the air like this?
But the show isn't ending - just his tenure. He left it there for someone else to pick up if they choose.
A perfectly valid answer to who she is could be "Just one of the Timelords with a strong sense of morality, with no more of a personal connection to the Doctor than any of the others." It would be a dull answer, but nothing we saw would make it impossible. Story over, nothing more to be said.
If, on the other hand, it was revealed she was his mother, or Susan, or a future timelord incarnation of Donna, that would also be a valid answer, but one that would raise many more new questions than could be answered in the special. And this would leave Moffat boxed in - he couldn't decide for himself who she was, nor could he really leave it be without people always wanting to know more about how Susan ended up on Gallifrey, or what was his mother's story.
From The Writer’s Tale: The Final Chapter page 622-3:
“The Woman! I like leaving it open, because then you can imagine what you want. I think the fans will say it’s Romana. Or even the Rani. Some might say that it’s Susan’s mother, I suppose. But of course it’s meant to be the Doctor’s mother. That’s certainly what I’ll tell the production team. Euros knows it already. David, too. It sounds a bit dumb, a bit sentimental, a bit rubbish when you confirm it. But shame on me, getting embarrassed about beautiful and heartfelt things…
It could only be his mother, really. If I can’t imagine a world in which our mothers are there, at the end of our lives, in our time of need, to help us, then what’s the point? It’ll never really happen, so I want to imagine it. I hadn’t exactly planned it, though. In fact, I can remember quite clearly, Wilf was going to enter the church in Scene 3, and fall into conversation with a couple of strangers – a housewife and a young lad – all drawn there because of their bad dreams; then they realise, to their horror, that they’ve all dreamt of the same thing. Spooky moment. End of scene. But as I went to write, I sort of faltered. It didn’t have enough size. The more I thought about the Tenth Doctor’s departure, about David’s departure, the more I needed to give it scale – not just scale in terms of thousands of monsters, but in personal terms. The intimate stuff had to become huge. So I sat down and wrote the Woman, on the spot. Invented her there and then. Half of my head doubting it, thinking, this is a bit extreme. (Is she his mother? Can she be? Really?!) The other half thinking, just keep writing and the story will make sense of it. And it has.”
Page 626:
“Actually, it goes right back to the Master in The Sound of Drums, saying that he was ‘resurrected’. That’s always preyed on my mind. I think an awful lot about the Time War, actually, more than I’d ever quite realised – that it was so dark, so obscene, that the dead were walking, called back into life to fight the terrible fight. That’s why I was free to bring back Rassilon. (The Lord President is Rassilon!) And that’s why it felt natural to bring back the Doctor’s mother. I don’t imagine she’s been alive all this time, but that, in the Time War, everyone was brought back to life. Horribly so. They’ve been there for a long time, in my head, all those dead people, walking.”
To be honest I like the suggestion that she was simply someone who still cared amongst timelords, that she wasnt mental and simply acted as a moment of clarity
Comments
It ensured that events came to pass the way they were supposed to. The "ghostly" version who appears to Wilf is the future self of the "real" woman who comes through The Gate.
PERHAPS IN YOUR WORLD IT WAS REMARKABLY SILLY TO BRING BACK DOCTOR WHO AT ALL! After all, it was RTD's idea!
She appears in the church and points out the Tardis in the stained glass window. By talking about the Doctor's appearance back in time she causes Wilf to gather his friends to track the Doctor down.
She later appears to Wilf and the result fo that conversation is that Wilf takes his revolver out which eventually he gives to the Doctor. The Doctor then uses it to shoot the machine, sending the Time Lords back to the last day of the Time War.
The woman whoever she is actually orchestrates the events that cause the Time Lords to go back into the Time Lock
However, Carole Ann Ford (Susan Foreman) is alive and well, still acting, and nine years younger than Claire Bloom. Of course Susan could be a Timelord (never established one way or another) who's regenerated, but in that case chances are she'd be considerably younger in appearance.
In the real world, I think that if they wanted her to be Susan, they'd bring back Carole Ann Ford.
And in the Whovian world, I think she's destined to remain a mystery or, as RTD reportedly said, whoever you want her to be. Even if Moffat or a future producer want to explore the Timelords again, it doesn't guarantee he'll want to explore this particular aspect of things.
He didn't bring it back : Doctor Who never went away. I was reading and listening to better new Doctor Who adventures right up until Davies gave us his abysmal revamp of the TV series. I'd sooner have the books back than that, frankly. Though hopefully Moffat can rescue it.
It's like people don't want to share their toys. Under RTD, Doctor Who has achieved mass appeal again. Can you honestly say that many/any of those audios and novels you were consuming could have ever done that back then?
Why would I care? I don't need a work of fiction to have 'mass appeal' to enjoy it. I just need it to be good.
No - because he's going to dislike Moffat's version just as much, if not more.
Moffat may have watched TV in the 1970s, but he never made TV in the 1970s! His Who is going to be just as modern as Davies', if not more.
I did think his mother, Romana, or Leela as far as the identities of the women was concerned. Remembering that the Master, and Rasilon had both been reborn as part of the Time War.
Surely the show needed that loose end tying up. I can't see why he'd leave it up in the air like this?
You see things only in tunnel vision. While it is obvious Doctor Who was available in audio and written works, it was never planned to be brought back onto the television screens. It was RTD's persistence and the final agreement of Lorraine Heggessey to get it recommissioned as an initial one off sereies to "test the water" that resulted in the successful format we have today.
Moffatts version is not going to be rehas of the 70's version. Get used to it. It will be more similar to what we had with RTD. After all, if it is a success for the BBC the way it is now, then the BBC are going to want more of the same. They won't care about what you want.
But the show isn't ending - just his tenure. He left it there for someone else to pick up if they choose.
A perfectly valid answer to who she is could be "Just one of the Timelords with a strong sense of morality, with no more of a personal connection to the Doctor than any of the others." It would be a dull answer, but nothing we saw would make it impossible. Story over, nothing more to be said.
If, on the other hand, it was revealed she was his mother, or Susan, or a future timelord incarnation of Donna, that would also be a valid answer, but one that would raise many more new questions than could be answered in the special. And this would leave Moffat boxed in - he couldn't decide for himself who she was, nor could he really leave it be without people always wanting to know more about how Susan ended up on Gallifrey, or what was his mother's story.
“The Woman! I like leaving it open, because then you can imagine what you want. I think the fans will say it’s Romana. Or even the Rani. Some might say that it’s Susan’s mother, I suppose. But of course it’s meant to be the Doctor’s mother. That’s certainly what I’ll tell the production team. Euros knows it already. David, too. It sounds a bit dumb, a bit sentimental, a bit rubbish when you confirm it. But shame on me, getting embarrassed about beautiful and heartfelt things…
It could only be his mother, really. If I can’t imagine a world in which our mothers are there, at the end of our lives, in our time of need, to help us, then what’s the point? It’ll never really happen, so I want to imagine it. I hadn’t exactly planned it, though. In fact, I can remember quite clearly, Wilf was going to enter the church in Scene 3, and fall into conversation with a couple of strangers – a housewife and a young lad – all drawn there because of their bad dreams; then they realise, to their horror, that they’ve all dreamt of the same thing. Spooky moment. End of scene. But as I went to write, I sort of faltered. It didn’t have enough size. The more I thought about the Tenth Doctor’s departure, about David’s departure, the more I needed to give it scale – not just scale in terms of thousands of monsters, but in personal terms. The intimate stuff had to become huge. So I sat down and wrote the Woman, on the spot. Invented her there and then. Half of my head doubting it, thinking, this is a bit extreme. (Is she his mother? Can she be? Really?!) The other half thinking, just keep writing and the story will make sense of it. And it has.”
Page 626:
“Actually, it goes right back to the Master in The Sound of Drums, saying that he was ‘resurrected’. That’s always preyed on my mind. I think an awful lot about the Time War, actually, more than I’d ever quite realised – that it was so dark, so obscene, that the dead were walking, called back into life to fight the terrible fight. That’s why I was free to bring back Rassilon. (The Lord President is Rassilon!) And that’s why it felt natural to bring back the Doctor’s mother. I don’t imagine she’s been alive all this time, but that, in the Time War, everyone was brought back to life. Horribly so. They’ve been there for a long time, in my head, all those dead people, walking.”
To be honest I like the suggestion that she was simply someone who still cared amongst timelords, that she wasnt mental and simply acted as a moment of clarity