That's probably far too harsh, but I generally agree that introducing an element that directly contrasts what has been presented requires extraordinary evidence. As it is, what we know says the train really was in space, the kitchen staff were real, and the mummy had to have attacked a real old lady - if for no reason other than if there wasn't really an attack, the real mummy would have gone for someone else.
They weren't - the kitchen brigade, for example, were real people, as evidenced by their expulsion into space. I don't think any holograms were attacked at all, it certainly would have been odd behaviour for a soldier capable of detecting long-standing injury and mental conditions to not identify a hologram.
I think I asked the same question in another thread - as you say, they could only be there as bait.
Granny was there because of her chair (presumably wealth facilitated interest technology keeping her alive as long as possible (lke the mummy)) and her being the oldest, frailest person on board made her first target. Shhe was also a Mother (mummy) who wasn't really a mummy, like the mummy wasn't really a mummy and she was attempting to extend her life beyond the span it would naturally have had. Nice balance of function for series arc plot/character themes with sly wit in the writing.
Granny was there because of her chair (presumably wealth facilitated interest technology keeping her alive as long as possible (lke the mummy)) and her being the oldest, frailest person on board made her first target. Shhe was also a Mother (mummy) who wasn't really a mummy, like the mummy wasn't really a mummy and she was attempting to extend her life beyond the span it would naturally have had. Nice balance of function for series arc plot/character themes with sly wit in the writing.
I don't quite understand what you mean about her only being there because of the chair. I get the parallel with the soldier being kept alive beyond his natural death by technology, but I don't get why the characters are on the train in-universe. All the other non-hologram guests are researchers, what did granny and Maisie bring the to party? Just there by bad luck? Or just there in order to be the first ones bumped off?
I don't quite understand what you mean about her only being there because of the chair. I get the parallel with the soldier being kept alive beyond his natural death by technology, but I don't get why the characters are on the train in-universe. All the other non-hologram guests are researchers, what did granny and Maisie bring the to party? Just there by bad luck? Or just there in order to be the first ones bumped off?
I guess they could have being invited to make some normal people one Clara would likely talk to to make i9t appear more normal
Or as you said to be sacrificed
If Gus bought up all the tickets for that trip (as I doubt it was built just for that one journey) they could have bought their tickets first and it was just bad luck or it's even possible they were permanent guests and lived on it I have heard of old people who are rich who go on cruses buy years worth of tickets for the same room and just keep going around and around the world living on the ship.
Blimey. Its one thing to speculate about upcoming episodes. Its getting a bit silly when people are trying to rewrite what actually happened ON SCREEN in an episode that has already aired presumably because they prefer their version. Maybe try writing some scripts and submitting them if you want your vision on screen eh?
This endless game of 'ooooh was this really what it seemed?' is getting ludicrous. This is Doctor Who. Yes it has a few puzzles and mystery's and that's great but most of the time it is what it is. It isn't all some complex puzzle to be solved. 99% of every far fetched theory about New Who has been proven to be totally wide of the mark.
And anyone can invent scenarios to fill any occasional gaps in the on screen action. They don't show everything because they don't have time. They give the audience the credit that they can fill in the gaps.
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That's probably far too harsh, but I generally agree that introducing an element that directly contrasts what has been presented requires extraordinary evidence. As it is, what we know says the train really was in space, the kitchen staff were real, and the mummy had to have attacked a real old lady - if for no reason other than if there wasn't really an attack, the real mummy would have gone for someone else.
Question - how come the mummy only attacked people on that train?
You say that that the mummy would have "gone for someone else" but you assume it MUST be someone on that train? Why?
GUS claimed that he assembled that group to catch the creature - even had a special box full of bubble wrap made to house it when they did. Apparently, GUS had no control over the mummy - he couldn't make it appear at will - so how the hell could he/it KNOW that it would appear on that train?
We might say that it was attracted to the scroll which was in that carriage - but then why did it appear in the kitchen-car?
And rewatch the scene where the Doctor first speaks to the professor - he specifically tells him that the most interesting thing about the old woman's death "was that you were here to witness it" - her death was a SET-UP.
GUS claimed that he assembled that group to catch the creature - even had a special box full of bubble wrap made to house it when they did. Apparently, GUS had no control over the mummy - he couldn't make it appear at will - so how the hell could he/it KNOW that it would appear on that train?
We might say that it was attracted to the scroll which was in that carriage - but then why did it appear in the kitchen-car?
It was stated that the mummy appeared in the vicinity of the scroll, not necessarily the same room. Certainly the train is the only thing in that region of space - GUS created an isolated test lab, like he did with all the other ships that he got test results from.
And rewatch the scene where the Doctor first speaks to the professor - he specifically tells him that the most interesting thing about the old woman's death "was that you were here to witness it" - her death was a SET-UP.
Yes, but then again, all their deaths were set up. Why not invite a dozen other people who aren't archaeologists as test subjects instead of filling the train with holograms? Why not just use the kitchen staff?
Unless GUS already knew that the mummy systematically picked off the weakest, how would he know which bait to pick? And if he does already know that much about it, why wouldn't he tell his 'research team'?
In short, if GUS is a sociopath that doesn't care who dies to ensure his goals, why is he even bothering with the pretence?
It was stated that the mummy appeared in the vicinity of the scroll, not necessarily the same room. Certainly the train is the only thing in that region of space - GUS created an isolated test lab, like he did with all the other ships that he got test results from.
Yes, but then again, all their deaths were set up. Why not invite a dozen other people who aren't archaeologists as test subjects instead of filling the train with holograms? Why not just use the kitchen staff?
Unless GUS already knew that the mummy systematically picked off the weakest, how would he know which bait to pick? And if he does already know that much about it, why wouldn't he tell his 'research team'?
In short, if GUS is a sociopath that doesn't care who dies to ensure his goals, why is he even bothering with the pretence?
Again - the Doctor made it clear that the "interesting" thing about the woman's death was that it occurred where the professor would see it - which means it had to be engineered - no good killing a chef when the professor was in the dining car - or in killing a random person in a dining car with fixed, boothed seating - it needed to be someone sitting at a fairly specific table in order to be seen.
And again - WHY that train?
If the creature only ever attacked people when the scroll was around, who has been placing that scroll in the "right place" for the last 3,500 years?
And why would GUS even bother with the "train in space"? The sarcophagus was designed to contain the creature - so why not place the scroll and some "bait" inside the sarcophagus - and do it on a nice, safe planet?
(PS - any guesses on what happened to that sarcophagus?)
And what about all of the times the Doctor DIDN'T board that train? Was this the one and only trip on the OE and were all of the other invitations he'd received for this exact same trip - same date and details - or have there been many other equally death-filled journeys - in which case, why has no-one noticed all those people claiming to have been killed by a monster on that train?
Everything points to it being a complete one-off - which means it's an event that has happened many times in differing timelines. But that's a problems cos we were told that the train contained "the best" - people who were the recognised experts in their fields and they must all have been killed in those other timelines - so why WASN'T that at least a major historical event - up there with the Marie Ceeleste? Wouldn't changing that "history" cause huge problems?
Unless, of course, almost all of it was rigged and very little was what it seemed.
Prime example - we saw holographic passengers vanish when they weren't even in the experts' car - why?
And we saw that the experts' carriage had no windows - they were totally fake - so the passengers never really saw the kitchen staff floating in space - so why was that done?
The answer's simple - the same one things that was achieved with the old woman's death - a few controlled fakes deaths to cause panic.
Question - apart from the old woman and the chef, what attracted the creature to those specific victims in each other case? If it hadn't been for the death of the two "non-experts", would the others even have been regarded as "ill"?
1) Okay, the Doctor wasn't saying that the professor had to physically see it with his own eyes, but that he and all the other experts were present on the train.
2) Why that train? Presumably, it's an appealing environment for the sort of people that get romantically misty-eyed over old scrolls and papyrus. Significantly, it's not the first ship that GUS has engineer experiments on.
3) The sarcophagus was designed the contain the creature - IF anyone could figure out how to disable it. No bait in the world will help if you can't do that. ("Your goal is to ascertain the Foretold's true nature, probe for weaknesses with a view to capture, after which we will reverse engineer its abilities. Isn't this exciting?")
4) Yes, the implication was that the Doctor had been invited many times to take this very trip. No other timelines required. The Doctor may have been invited many times, but he only had to turn up once.
5) The windows weren't fake. Specifically, they were viewscreens - or to put it another way, they were always fake. No reason to believe the kitchen staff didn't die.
Question - apart from the old woman and the chef, what attracted the creature to those specific victims in each other case? If it hadn't been for the death of the two "non-experts", would the others even have been regarded as "ill"?
The creature was picking off the most vulnerable targets first. If not the old lady and the chef, then Moorhouse would have been first. GUS would have to already know the pattern in order to pick the old lady as bait. Which may well be the case, but still doesn't make sense.
4) Yes, the implication was that the Doctor had been invited many times to take this very trip. No other timelines required. The Doctor may have been invited many times, but he only had to turn up once.
The Doctor didn't give much info on that for all we know it could have just been a few invites when he was 11 or he could have been invited 1000's of times since he was The First Doctor.
Oh, so much stuff, so little time.
The creature was picking off the most vulnerable targets first. If not the old lady and the chef, then Moorhouse would have been first. GUS would have to already know the pattern in order to pick the old lady as bait. Which may well be the case, but still doesn't make sense.
I questioned what AILED them - not whether that ailment was subjectively worse than someone else's - and the answer is they were frightened and upset by the mummy's supposed earlier attacks.
And since this point was actually about making Maisie the real villain - ask yourself why it was that the massive shock and mental stress of having her granny die whilst claiming to have seen a monster along with her overwhelming guilt at having wished the old woman dead before then was somehow not enough to put her on the Mummy's radar until AFTER the Doctor said "give me a minute with it"? Why was she somehow less "ill" than the train's boss or the professor - and exactly what "illness" was that kitchen worker supposed to have had?
(PS - why DIDN'T the mummy target the Doctor - he's supposed to have 2,000 years of self-doubt hanging over him - "Am I a good man?" and all that)
and exactly what "illness" was that kitchen worker supposed to have had?
I'll have to re-watch but I think they said he had a rare blood disorder while nobody could catch it they didn't mention it as he worked with food and some people get very funny about stuff like that.
4) Yes, the implication was that the Doctor had been invited many times to take this very trip. No other timelines required. The Doctor may have been invited many times, but he only had to turn up once.
There absolutely MUST be other timelines if there were multiple invitations sent to the Doctor over a period of year (1,000+ years that we know of).
How do you explain someone sending all those invitations over different time periods for him to attend a SPECIFIC EVENT unless it had already happened?
I could invite you to the Battle of Hastings cos I know the start time and I know what happens - but I can't invite you to "the next time I forget my keys" cos there's no way to know when that will happen.
Whoever invited the Doctor had already got all of the those experts ON THAT TRIP - it was a complete one-off - and all of that had to be arranged and made certain BEFORE inviting the time-traveller.
If you can suggest another way that works - feel free.
Oh - and you may need to explain HOW someone got multiple invitations delivered to the Doctor - his phone numbers isn't THAT well known.
I'll have to re-watch but I think they said he had a rare blood disorder while nobody could catch it they didn't mention it as he worked with food and some people get very funny about stuff like that.
So something that didn't actually make him "ill" - odd that
And we saw that the experts' carriage had no windows - they were totally fake - so the passengers never really saw the kitchen staff floating in space - so why was that done?
You haven't responded to my reasoning. There is nothing to be gained from your scenario. It makes absolutely no sense narratively, nor creatively. GUS could project everything, so why do you find it so difficult to believe he could actually show what's happening in space? In fact, it is almost laughable that he wouldn't be able to... Can create hard light holograms, but cannot project an accurate and current representation of the space immediately surrounding the train? Seems really quite lame, for a super computer.
Also, and this is the clincher, why on earth would we have been shown the kitchen staff dying if they weren't kitchen staff? That was for the sole benefit of us as the viewers. Nobody else witnessed it. No one. Not until the bodies were floating in space. It is ludicrous to suggest they were merely fake, as it undermines the scene and the episode.
It's great you've picked 'assumptions' as your particular theme for the series, but it doesn't hold up when you have to completely discount something integral!
You haven't responded to my reasoning. There is nothing to be gained from your scenario. It makes absolutely no sense narratively, nor creatively. GUS could project everything, so why do you find it so difficult to believe he could actually show what's happening in space? In fact, it is almost laughable that he wouldn't be able to... Can create hard light holograms, but cannot project an accurate and current representation of the space immediately surrounding the train? Seems really quite lame, for a super computer.
Also, and this is the clincher, why on earth would we have been shown the kitchen staff dying if they weren't kitchen staff? That was for the sole benefit of us as the viewers. Nobody else witnessed it. No one. Not until the bodies were floating in space. It is ludicrous to suggest they were merely fake, as it undermines the scene and the episode.
It's great you've picked 'assumptions' as your particular theme for the series, but it doesn't hold up when you have to completely discount something integral!
Why were two hologramatic women shown talking to each other in a corridor and then vanishing when that system was deactivated. Those two were in a section of the train that could not be seen by anyone else. That was specifically shown in the episode - no assumption involved - so how is that different to the kitchen staff being holograms.
And please remember that SOME of the staff WERE holograms - including one that had worked on that train and with the train manager for years. Isn't it just possible that there had been a real person who had been REPLACED on that one trip - a fake so totally convincing that someone who worked alongside him everyday in a closed environment could spot it.
And since we know that at least one member of staff was fake, why not others?
If you want some good logic - try this...
All of those fake people were eating and drinking? HOW?
Isn't it likely that the food and drink was as holographic as the clothes they apparently wore? And if that food was fake - wouldn't the kitchen staff and waiters spot that something didn't add-up - unless they were also holograms?
Just because it's POSSIBLE to show real people floating in space doesn't mean that they did - and I gave a solid reason for faking it - the real "illness" that mattered - the ONLY THE DOCTOR COULD FAKE - had to be mental illness brought on by trauma - seeing dead people floating past your window might just have an impact in that.
PS - sorry for not responding to you sooner - I walked away from the thread when it looked like it was going to be trashed by my pet troll - but he followed me to other threads anyway so that was a waste of time (I still haven't worked out how he manages to type whilst wearing a straight-jacket )
Comments
Granny was there because of her chair (presumably wealth facilitated interest technology keeping her alive as long as possible (lke the mummy)) and her being the oldest, frailest person on board made her first target. Shhe was also a Mother (mummy) who wasn't really a mummy, like the mummy wasn't really a mummy and she was attempting to extend her life beyond the span it would naturally have had. Nice balance of function for series arc plot/character themes with sly wit in the writing.
I don't quite understand what you mean about her only being there because of the chair. I get the parallel with the soldier being kept alive beyond his natural death by technology, but I don't get why the characters are on the train in-universe. All the other non-hologram guests are researchers, what did granny and Maisie bring the to party? Just there by bad luck? Or just there in order to be the first ones bumped off?
I guess they could have being invited to make some normal people one Clara would likely talk to to make i9t appear more normal
Or as you said to be sacrificed
If Gus bought up all the tickets for that trip (as I doubt it was built just for that one journey) they could have bought their tickets first and it was just bad luck or it's even possible they were permanent guests and lived on it I have heard of old people who are rich who go on cruses buy years worth of tickets for the same room and just keep going around and around the world living on the ship.
Please refrain from criticising other members who are having a friendly, harmless ON-TOPIC discussion in this forum.
If the topics in this thread are not to your taste, please find another thread to read rather than posting further abusive personal remarks about other Digital Spy members and their posts.
Question - how come the mummy only attacked people on that train?
You say that that the mummy would have "gone for someone else" but you assume it MUST be someone on that train? Why?
GUS claimed that he assembled that group to catch the creature - even had a special box full of bubble wrap made to house it when they did. Apparently, GUS had no control over the mummy - he couldn't make it appear at will - so how the hell could he/it KNOW that it would appear on that train?
We might say that it was attracted to the scroll which was in that carriage - but then why did it appear in the kitchen-car?
And rewatch the scene where the Doctor first speaks to the professor - he specifically tells him that the most interesting thing about the old woman's death "was that you were here to witness it" - her death was a SET-UP.
Yes, but then again, all their deaths were set up. Why not invite a dozen other people who aren't archaeologists as test subjects instead of filling the train with holograms? Why not just use the kitchen staff?
Unless GUS already knew that the mummy systematically picked off the weakest, how would he know which bait to pick? And if he does already know that much about it, why wouldn't he tell his 'research team'?
In short, if GUS is a sociopath that doesn't care who dies to ensure his goals, why is he even bothering with the pretence?
Again - the Doctor made it clear that the "interesting" thing about the woman's death was that it occurred where the professor would see it - which means it had to be engineered - no good killing a chef when the professor was in the dining car - or in killing a random person in a dining car with fixed, boothed seating - it needed to be someone sitting at a fairly specific table in order to be seen.
And again - WHY that train?
If the creature only ever attacked people when the scroll was around, who has been placing that scroll in the "right place" for the last 3,500 years?
And why would GUS even bother with the "train in space"? The sarcophagus was designed to contain the creature - so why not place the scroll and some "bait" inside the sarcophagus - and do it on a nice, safe planet?
(PS - any guesses on what happened to that sarcophagus?)
And what about all of the times the Doctor DIDN'T board that train? Was this the one and only trip on the OE and were all of the other invitations he'd received for this exact same trip - same date and details - or have there been many other equally death-filled journeys - in which case, why has no-one noticed all those people claiming to have been killed by a monster on that train?
Everything points to it being a complete one-off - which means it's an event that has happened many times in differing timelines. But that's a problems cos we were told that the train contained "the best" - people who were the recognised experts in their fields and they must all have been killed in those other timelines - so why WASN'T that at least a major historical event - up there with the Marie Ceeleste? Wouldn't changing that "history" cause huge problems?
Unless, of course, almost all of it was rigged and very little was what it seemed.
Prime example - we saw holographic passengers vanish when they weren't even in the experts' car - why?
And we saw that the experts' carriage had no windows - they were totally fake - so the passengers never really saw the kitchen staff floating in space - so why was that done?
The answer's simple - the same one things that was achieved with the old woman's death - a few controlled fakes deaths to cause panic.
Question - apart from the old woman and the chef, what attracted the creature to those specific victims in each other case? If it hadn't been for the death of the two "non-experts", would the others even have been regarded as "ill"?
1) Okay, the Doctor wasn't saying that the professor had to physically see it with his own eyes, but that he and all the other experts were present on the train.
2) Why that train? Presumably, it's an appealing environment for the sort of people that get romantically misty-eyed over old scrolls and papyrus. Significantly, it's not the first ship that GUS has engineer experiments on.
3) The sarcophagus was designed the contain the creature - IF anyone could figure out how to disable it. No bait in the world will help if you can't do that. ("Your goal is to ascertain the Foretold's true nature, probe for weaknesses with a view to capture, after which we will reverse engineer its abilities. Isn't this exciting?")
4) Yes, the implication was that the Doctor had been invited many times to take this very trip. No other timelines required. The Doctor may have been invited many times, but he only had to turn up once.
5) The windows weren't fake. Specifically, they were viewscreens - or to put it another way, they were always fake. No reason to believe the kitchen staff didn't die. The creature was picking off the most vulnerable targets first. If not the old lady and the chef, then Moorhouse would have been first. GUS would have to already know the pattern in order to pick the old lady as bait. Which may well be the case, but still doesn't make sense.
The Doctor didn't give much info on that for all we know it could have just been a few invites when he was 11 or he could have been invited 1000's of times since he was The First Doctor.
I questioned what AILED them - not whether that ailment was subjectively worse than someone else's - and the answer is they were frightened and upset by the mummy's supposed earlier attacks.
And since this point was actually about making Maisie the real villain - ask yourself why it was that the massive shock and mental stress of having her granny die whilst claiming to have seen a monster along with her overwhelming guilt at having wished the old woman dead before then was somehow not enough to put her on the Mummy's radar until AFTER the Doctor said "give me a minute with it"? Why was she somehow less "ill" than the train's boss or the professor - and exactly what "illness" was that kitchen worker supposed to have had?
(PS - why DIDN'T the mummy target the Doctor - he's supposed to have 2,000 years of self-doubt hanging over him - "Am I a good man?" and all that)
I'll have to re-watch but I think they said he had a rare blood disorder while nobody could catch it they didn't mention it as he worked with food and some people get very funny about stuff like that.
There absolutely MUST be other timelines if there were multiple invitations sent to the Doctor over a period of year (1,000+ years that we know of).
How do you explain someone sending all those invitations over different time periods for him to attend a SPECIFIC EVENT unless it had already happened?
I could invite you to the Battle of Hastings cos I know the start time and I know what happens - but I can't invite you to "the next time I forget my keys" cos there's no way to know when that will happen.
Whoever invited the Doctor had already got all of the those experts ON THAT TRIP - it was a complete one-off - and all of that had to be arranged and made certain BEFORE inviting the time-traveller.
If you can suggest another way that works - feel free.
Oh - and you may need to explain HOW someone got multiple invitations delivered to the Doctor - his phone numbers isn't THAT well known.
So something that didn't actually make him "ill" - odd that
You haven't responded to my reasoning. There is nothing to be gained from your scenario. It makes absolutely no sense narratively, nor creatively. GUS could project everything, so why do you find it so difficult to believe he could actually show what's happening in space? In fact, it is almost laughable that he wouldn't be able to... Can create hard light holograms, but cannot project an accurate and current representation of the space immediately surrounding the train? Seems really quite lame, for a super computer.
Also, and this is the clincher, why on earth would we have been shown the kitchen staff dying if they weren't kitchen staff? That was for the sole benefit of us as the viewers. Nobody else witnessed it. No one. Not until the bodies were floating in space. It is ludicrous to suggest they were merely fake, as it undermines the scene and the episode.
It's great you've picked 'assumptions' as your particular theme for the series, but it doesn't hold up when you have to completely discount something integral!
Why were two hologramatic women shown talking to each other in a corridor and then vanishing when that system was deactivated. Those two were in a section of the train that could not be seen by anyone else. That was specifically shown in the episode - no assumption involved - so how is that different to the kitchen staff being holograms.
And please remember that SOME of the staff WERE holograms - including one that had worked on that train and with the train manager for years. Isn't it just possible that there had been a real person who had been REPLACED on that one trip - a fake so totally convincing that someone who worked alongside him everyday in a closed environment could spot it.
And since we know that at least one member of staff was fake, why not others?
If you want some good logic - try this...
All of those fake people were eating and drinking? HOW?
Isn't it likely that the food and drink was as holographic as the clothes they apparently wore? And if that food was fake - wouldn't the kitchen staff and waiters spot that something didn't add-up - unless they were also holograms?
Just because it's POSSIBLE to show real people floating in space doesn't mean that they did - and I gave a solid reason for faking it - the real "illness" that mattered - the ONLY THE DOCTOR COULD FAKE - had to be mental illness brought on by trauma - seeing dead people floating past your window might just have an impact in that.
PS - sorry for not responding to you sooner - I walked away from the thread when it looked like it was going to be trashed by my pet troll - but he followed me to other threads anyway so that was a waste of time (I still haven't worked out how he manages to type whilst wearing a straight-jacket