There's the two probabilities of 1/2, like heads and tails, each with a different outcome depending on whether or not Amy is pregnant.

We also have already had the suggestion of two universes connected by reflection. Is one the reflection of the other?

Both Doctors did, however, knew River and she knew him. Maybe their timelines are only in reverse in a different universe to the one the Doctor normally inhabits. Maybe there's a Universe in which time runs backwards?

My hunch is that we will meet several universes in this series. The Doctor's Wife is set in a junk yard universe.

Just before the Doc dies, he said to Amy 'whatever happens next you must not interfere'

To me this suggest's he has prior knowledge of what is going to happen.

Also I think that line by river about a timelords DNA being well sought after, is the throw away line that has massive consequences that has been hinted at..

It's a line from Amy that is the 'throwaway line' (the whole thing about the line came from an interview with her)

Oddly enough - I think (almost) the exact opposite.

I think the real Doctor was the one who was "shot" and the one one we've seen since then is "fake" - he can't fly the Tardis properly, shows a lack of care for his companions, can't remember kissing River Song.

Whatever the "astronaut" used that made a big green glow needn't have been a weapon - it could have been the device needed to extract some regeneration energy to create the fake Doctor and it's easy enough for the real Doctor's "corpse" to escape the burning boat.

It's very telling that Canton made such a definite statement about the Doctor's body being the "real" Doctor - without even talking to him never mind touching the body and he had the gasoline - that had to have been set up by someone who knew that he was not only going to "die" but that the "body" had to vanish.

My theory - for reasons we don't yet know (at least not entirely) the "real" Doctor needed to be somewhere (or somewhen) else without anyone knowing so he either created a clone/android/whatever copy of himself or - more likely - contacted himself from another time to stand-in. That would fit with the rather odd decision to abandon the little girl and go off galavanting around the universe as if everything's "normal".

In this context, both Doctor's are "real" but "our" Doctor is not the one who just played silly beggars on a pirate ship. Putting it all together - including what we know about Moffat's love of time-related twists and the obvious connections to series 5 (the flat etc) - I reckon the "current" Doctor could be little Amelia Pond's Doctor - the one who flew off to test the Tardis and didn't return for years (something he could have "undone" with another quick trip in the Tardis).

Few problems with this one:

The Doctor wouldn't remember kissing River, because he simply hadn't done it yet. Whether a clone, duplicate, whatever - he hadn't reached that point in their mutual backwards timeline to be that close to her.


Easy for a burning body to escape a boat while people are watching?


Yes, he was set up by the Doctor, same as the rest - he knew exactly what was going to happen, but there's nothing particularly suspicious in this, as the Doctor knew too.


In which case the Doctor we're watching wouldn't have been aware of Rory's time as the Last Centurion, among other things.

If the "fake" Doctor is from further in his past (and River Song is going backwards as she says) the "real" Doctor may have a couple of snogs left - because they will/would happen months after his crash at Ledworth.


No-one saw the body buring - in fact, we saw the doctor's face and clothing completely untouched through the flames. Don't forget, it was evening, the boat was several yards out in the lake and you wouldn't be able to see past the smoke and flames.



I didn't say it was suspicious. No-one else had specific instructions such as "bring a box of matches" - in fact, Amy, Rory and River Song got map co-ordinates to completely different location at a completely different time to Canton and nothing else. Only Canton was included in any way in whatever the Doctor planned beyond providing credible witnesses. I used "set up" in the sense of the situation being planned - not in the "conned" sense.

It doesn't help to say that "the Doctor knew" when there are clearly two Doctors. Did the current Doctor "know"? Would Moffat really create a situation that he knows will unravel relatively soon - like having a doctor that still looks the same in 200 years - something that will be "wrong" the minute Matt Smith moves on and we get a new Doctor? The chances that the "dead" Doctor was from 200 years in his own future are so remote as to be disregarded - unless Moffat already plans on ending the series forever with Matt as the Doctor.

From what I've seen of Moffat, he thinks these through to the last detail - he wouldn't make a mistake as obvious as that so I think it's fair to say that the 1100 year old Doctor - the one that showed real affection for Amy and knew what was going on was the real Doctor and simply lied about his age.


Why not?

I didn't say that the "earlier" Doctor just turned up out the blue - I suggested that he was asked to stand-in by the 2011 Doctor. He would have filled him in on the relevent details - maybe not quite enough though.

A couple of ideas...

Q. Why couldn't he fly the Tardis properly in episode 2?

A. Because he hadn't spent much time in the new design.

Q. Why was he all over Amy when they met in the desert but has been rather stand-offish since?

A. Because he hasn't known her long enough to become that close.

Q. Why did the siren take the Tardis?

A. Because it was not fully repaired - (the "real" Doctor has the fully working Tardis)

There's more but I'll save them for as answers for the objections

I quite like your theory MinkytheDog, it does fit in with SM's love of the timey wimey. I do have a feeling that the ages of the two doctors aren't what they seem but struggling to get my head around how it would work.

If the Doctor we've seen from the point of the diner is fresh from meeting Amy as a kid, that would surely mean that eventually he'll meet her as an adult (the Eleventh Hour's events) and have to pull off a convincing act of not realising years have passed since his promise to be right back, pretend not to know anything about Amy etc?
Think there would also be some timey wimey stuff in how he gets the right clothes (the bowtie outfit that he steals in the Eleventh Hour) to look like the 'right' Doctor to all the companions.

Your Q and A points make sense but I think there are other explanations:
Q. Why couldn't he fly the Tardis properly in episode 2?
A. This is continuous with his flying skills being made fun of by River in Series 5 - he's a clumsy Doctor and it could just be to set up River as being more skilled than the Doctor...reasons for which will hopefully become apparent.

Q. Why was he all over Amy when they met in the desert but has been rather stand-offish since?
A. It's got to be clear from his perspective that something fishy is going on - he meets them at the diner where they are obviously upset (River slaps him for something he hasn't done yet, Amy hugs him and exclaims that he's ok - these things must tip him off that something's up and so he could be stand-offish because he's worried.)
Also, when they met in the desert, assuming he told the truth, he was 200 years older than the version from the diner - if he knows Amy better it makes sense that he'd be more familiar. Or it could be because he'd been on the run for 200 years and hadn't seen Amy in a very long time compared to 903 year old Doctor.

Q. Why did the siren take the Tardis?
A. Could be that it was damaged some other way, could be that she considered it to be a part of the Doctor so when she took the Doctor she took the Tardis, could be it's actually the Tardis from the other universe...could be a plot hole.

Anyway, I think there's been quite a few hints that the Doctor knows more than he's letting on so I am beginning to wonder if, conversely to MinkytheDog's theory, he's an even older version of the Doctor, already having averted his apparent death at the lake. In which case we'd just be skipping 200 years of the Doctor's adventures (a bit like the things 10 did off-screen before going to the Ood and eventually having to regenerate)

The Siren didn't take the Tardis. The Doctor, trying to fly the Tardis, did something wrong that caused the Tardis to initiate some emergency procedure. It them landed in the nearest safe location, which happened to be on board the other ship.

We know from previous stories that piloting a tardis into overlapping space can be a tricky/dangerous thing!

It wasn't my question originally about the Tardis but thanks Ja88ed, I must've missed that in the episode.