I believe it has been commented on


Someone also asked why has she got some kind of weird bracelet


Someone else suggested its linked - the bracelet allows her to pass in/out of the matrix.

The episode didn't say this at all.


People thought they had died and have ended up in the afterlife.

Actually their mind has been sucked into a Timelord Hard Drive, and they will be stripped of emotions and put into a cyberbody.

The stuff about still being conscious, body donated to science, feeling cold, getting cremated - thats trickery to cover the fact of what is really about to happen to the dead people.

Except the earlier versions (in nu-who at least) required emotion suppression chips, which became an obvious weak spot, or could be defeated by a supreme act of will (Miss Hartman's duty, Craig's love for his child). Better to break the human's will first and make them give up their emotions voluntarily.


Yeah, that bit only works if you don't look at it too closely. You can't 'remove' a brain's wiring and put it back later - our personalities and minds are bound up with the meat. I suppose you could say that the brains are still functioning in the bodies, and they're only wired up to a giant shared virtual reality, a shared dream state like Clara experienced at the start of the episode.

I did realise that some sort of trickery was going on but I was taken aback that 'death' was being used in this way - maybe I'm being over sensitive about it but even to suggest in any way what was suggested (before the con reveal) just did not sit right with me.

Apart from all that, if it is only the minds that are being taken, then what happens to the bodies?? I'm thinking back to the droid that was impaled on the spike back in the first episode - seemed pretty dead to me!! Also the female soldier from the Dalek episode - could she still be alive then?? Do we have an explanation for this or is it yet to come??

Am I alone in having my suspicions about Seb? I think there may be some Timelord jiggery-pokery going on here.

If emotions are really deletable, then they still wouldn't need permission. Maybe the trick is to make the victim think they've been deleted.

I fear/suspect that much of season 8 will turn out to be a dream-state or shared virtual reality experience. If there's a "Bobby Ewing steps out of the shower" moment, revealing most or all of season 8 was a virtual reality experience, I would feel ambivalent towards that development. On the one hand I've not been comfortable with everything that Clara and the new Doctor have done, so I would be OK discovering that much of it never really happened, but on the other hand it would be a cheap gimmick.

It wouldn't be so bad if it was just the finale though.

"Nothing you think is happening, is happening"

I think symbolically, it works. In a way it's a nod to the original intention of the Cybermen - that they voluntarily gave over their humanity in order to survive. It's similar here - people deleting their emotions in order to survive the afterlife.

I'm reminded of Time Heist - and Psi's deletion of his family and friends to avoid causing them pain. I'm 99% sure that's no coincidence.

 

Why Russell T Davies & Steven Moffat don't care what Internet comments say about Doctor Who.

Casting Missy: Doctor Who Extra

Peter's hair

Its just my interpretation from the dialogue Missy had with the Doctor in that scene where she reveals she is a Timelady.

The minds are plucked at the point of death and put into the MATRIX, whereby they will eventually be "upgraded" - meaning stripped of all emotions.

The bodies are also "upgraded" by becoming Cybermen (hence all the skeletons in the Dark Water tanks).

The final phase is putting the "upgraded" mind back into the "upgraded" body - voila a Cyberman army.

Its a shame putting the 3W spin on death upset you - all I ask is to put into context its just a Sci Fi show and the idea of dead resulting in an afterlife is not new. Many years ago, the Greek nation believed that when people died they were taken away by a dark character on a boat to Hades and met by a man with a two headed dog. They lived in pain and suffering until they had served their penance. More recently, TV shows and films suggested dead people could be trapped in purgatory, sometimes the only way to communicate with loved ones still alive was to help Demi Moore to make pottery on a spinning wheel.Some people make entire careers by suggesting they can talk to the dead and send us messages from beyond the grave.

Maybe the Cybermen have become vampires They can only enter your house if you give them permission

Gotta say - still don't get the "Delete" Button either, but I guess we'll get an answer soon Semed clear though that Seb was deliberately trying to get Danny very emotionally charged, "wobbly" and susceptible. I think the kid re-appeared right at the end to try and help tip him over the edge ...

i.e. It's just not the fact that htere even is a delete button - the very fact that Seb even exists to welcome the dead, "fill forms" etc (and likewise Missy in earlier episodes). Why does entering the Matrix need such a welcome - is Seb and the delete button a kind of Lawrence Fishbourne - do you want the Red or the Blue tablet type of choice a la the movie The Matrix ....

Or just a convenient get out clause for yet another character to "escape" death again .....

Thanks for your explanation

Yeah, without being too morbid death has been a huge part of my life starting with my dad dying when I was 6. I always hated the idea of purgatory with a passion. Also when growing up as a catholic child we were taught that babies who died without being baptised went to a place called Limbo, where they stayed (and suffered) until people on earth prayed enough for their souls to be released and let go to heaven. I always thought that was horrific and they changed the doctrine many years ago so that Limbo doesn't even exist now. So you could say that I have issues with souls suffering after death!

As you say, the best thing is to try and let it go and just enjoy the show for what it is

Thanks again.

Actually, the bureaucratic form filling reminds me strongly of the end of Beetlejuice.
In that film there was a reason why some of the dead became civil servants in the afterlife.

I guess it's not really relevant though. I don't think we're dealing with the afterlife as such. We may not even be dealing with characters who really have died. What we may be dealing with is the consequences of certain characters believing that they've died and are in the afterlife.

The Doctor Who Facebook page has been fun today

this episode ..... just gave the the chills!

the whole feel of this capaldi DW is sooooooooo different from the speedyness and energy of the newWHO ..... but oh boy it's in no way taken away from it, it's like wonder has been taken back .....

it's like ICE forming .....

but my gawd, the wait for something like THAT was well worth the waiting!!!

now all we need is how the bugger got back here ..... and WHO else it too?????


the doctors true horror when he realised was stupendous!

wrong thread

Isn't it about time that at least this thread was un-pinned?
It's no longer the last transmitted episode, even if it was a two-part story.

Seb started a very long time ago