I am finding how this series unfolds quite fascinating. The Doctor seems more vulnerable in this regeneration and his judgement, lets face it, is not great. True he saved the day on Platform One, with the help of Jabe but in the first story and the last one, the heroic honours were taken by Rose and Charles Dickens really. I am not suggesting that the Doctor has lost his touch when it comes to saving the day but we are certainly seeing quite a different set up in this series than we have seen in any other.

The Doctor at times does seem to be rather 'distracted' in that he is not focused on the here and now in the story but is thinking about the bigger picture, if that makes sense.

my sky plus missed first 15 mins too AND it looked like it was recording at the time AND it didn't say 'part recorded' when i checked.

tsk

You're doing really well.

This is another option that they could take, and I think it's as valid as anything else.

All I know is that this Doctor is not right. He's just sort of wrong.
Too many mistakes, too much needless deaths.
A Doctor from a previous series wouldn't be such a liabilty.

This Doctor is practically a walking disaster zone.

I like your idea about him being an incomplete Doctor due to a regeneration not being complete. It's quite plausible, because why should it be that the Doctor always somehow manages to regenerate conveniently without being disturbed?
Once or twice he might start to regenerate in the middle of a chaotic, dangerous situation.

We never saw Chris Eccleston regenerate from Paul McGann, so a lot is left open to the writing team.

This Chris Eccleston Doctor reminds me of a hospital drama that was on TV several years ago. Or was it a British film?
It was about somebody who really wanted to be a Doctor and bluffed his way into a hospital pretending to be a Doctor, but was completely incompetent and inept.

I suggested several alternatives, but out of all of them, I'm leaning more strongly to The Doctor being something like the "Valeyard" (I remember what it's called now, did I spell it right?). Anyway, whatever you call that Colin Baker thing in the novels. And also this incomplete regeneration of a Doctor who's a bit wrong, so to speak, that you've just suggested.
If I was putting money on it, I'd probably be leaning towards these two possibilities more than others.
At this point anyway.

I found it interesting what another poster said though.
The Doctor is half-human, so someone like Jon Pertwee's Doctor, or Tom Baker's Doctor could have had a son.
So Chris Eccleston could be that son. Doubt it very much though, extremely unlikely. That would be a very long shot.
It's still another possibility that's open though, however unlikely.

I think most of us got our Three Little Pigs mixed up with our Little Red Riding Hoods.

At what point?

What was said, and what scene was it?

This "Bad Wolf" thing sounds like it's a big deal.
And it sounds like it was a very deliberate objective by the writers to get everybody thinking like detectives in this mystery.

I don't think anybody really thought anything about a "Bad Wolf" comment meaning much in epsiode 1.

I wouldn't be surprised that as the series continues, there are loads of clues about what's going on in these early epiosdes that we just can't see right now.

I wouldn't be surprised if for say something is said in episode 5, for example, that suddenly leads us right back to something that we didn't notice before in the first couple of episodes.

You're reading through the thread, aren't you? Keep going

You're really not persauding me to upgrade my Sky package you know.

TSK all round, I think: I caught the beginning before I went to work & the little red light was definitely ON. When I got home the first 15 minutes were missing!

Is the Bad Wolf messing with our timers?


And talking of Bad Wolf - I had missed the possible reference in ep 1.

Trouble is, it sends me off on a whole new stream of conscience!

Had the whole Timelord race gone a bit Valyard? Let's face it, every time the Doctor went home another one had gone over to the dark side.

Hmm, theses clever clogs look great with my anorak!

We may be concentrating on the "The Big Bad Wolf" thing SO much, something else of great signifiance is going to slip by unnoticed. The word "we" should be replaced by the word "I" by the way.

I didn't pick up on the reference immediately either but did start to see a pattern emerging when it was mentioned in ep 3 and then we saw it scrawled over the side of the TARDIS in the trailer for ep 4. It was only viewing the earlier stuff again that we see the trail of the "big bad wolf" begin.

Perhaps I and a few others are reading way too much into something that might turn out to be a whole load of nothing but it is generating debate after debate on here and elsewhere which is great. I still think RTD wouldn't have gone to such lengths to keep a thread going episode after episode unless it was going to end somewhere....

Hopefully not like the X-Files with more questions than answers.

Number 8?
That's the episode called "Father's Day".

Don't worry - it's a common misconcepton amongst many people but I remember it all too well. There was actually a campaign in one national newspaper (you know the lot that "successfully bought back the Daleks" ) to "Save Our Doctor Who" and they released a record at the time of the 18 month hiatus - I recall Sue Pollard was one of the participants. And of course they claimed all the credit when it came back with The Trial of A Timelord season.

The film you might be thinking about Alrightmate is Paper Mask which, ironically, starred Paul McGann!

And it beat the royal wedding, and the grand national. It also, interestingly, beat Casualty (Which got 8.04 million).

They played a snippet of that "song" - with video - on UK Gold - they were having a Doctor Who weekend. It was the weekend the new series started; it was quite possibly the worst thing I have ever had the misfortune to endure and believe me, when you've got a Fiancee who likes Phil Colins, that's saying something.

Yes and that record was Doctor In Distress- By Who Cares, pretty terrible it is too! And fancy calling the band who cares? they've discredited their attempt already.

Yes I am

Thanks, I just read your reply to somebody else, and I know where it was said now.

The way you describe that first reference to "Bad Wolf" has got me thinking in a new direction now.....

..."Bad Wolf" may not be a reference to The Doctor,...it may be a reference to the Tardis.

If The Nestene Consciousness mouthed "Bad Wolf", and The Doctor's first reaction is to look around at the Tardis,...then it comes across to me that The Doctor isn't thinking of "Bad Wolf" as a reference to himself.
If he was, then why would he look at his Tardis?
It seemed like he might have been literally looking at the very thing that he himself sees as the "Bad Wolf".

Plus, next week "Bad Wolf" is painted onto the Tardis. Which may be reffering to The Doctor, but it alos may not, it might be a direct reference to the Tardis.

So,...is "Bad Wolf" less to do with The Doctor, and more to do with the Tardis?

Maybe the Tardis gets stolen.
It always seesm to be left alone unguarded for long lengths of time.
When in that first point of reference to "Bad Wolf" by The Nestene Consciousness, the Doctor's reply was "No, I was there" or words to that effect.
So maybe The Doctor is saying that he was there with the Tardis, and knew he was there with it at the time of whatever went so badly wrong.

Did somebody steal the Tardis?
Is The Tardis itself the "Bad Wolf"?

Good call. I hadn't thought of that. Remember the Doctor's words..."It's identified it as superior technology. It's terrified!"

Thanks.

Paul McGann?
Now that was a freaky coincidence. What were the chances of that happening?

It has been confirmed elsewhere by someone with links to the production that "Bad Wolf" is indeed a continuing theme and plays an important part in the story.

I have a feeling we'll have to wait until episode 13 to find out, though.

It was when you said The Doctor whipped around and looked at The Tardis when "Bad Wolf" was said that made me think it was The Tardis itself.

If you didn't mention the Doctor's actual reaction to those words, I just wouldn't have even thought about it.

The words "Bad Wolf" are mentioned, he looks directly at The Tardis.
If you put yourself in the Doctor's position, and imagine you were him, surely your instinctive reaction would be to not look at The Tardis if you yourself were this "Bad Wolf".

If the Tardis was The Bad Wolf, then I would imagine natural instinct would be to react by looking at it.

If you The Doctor were the "Bad Wolf", then why would you instinctively look at the Tardis?

I think I'll watch that first episode again to see how the scene panned out.
From how you described it, it looks very much like the reference to "Bad Wolf" was very carefully played down as though it was deliberately intended to hide it a bit, without things becoming too obvious early on.

Ah! So we are not reading too much into this then?

Hopefully more clues will follow in the coming weeks but as you say it most probably won't be resolved until ep 13.

Plenty more time for us to speculate and come up with even more theories...

Yes, I'd agree with all that.


I'd appreciate a second opinion I hope it's not a case of me seeing what I want to see, or hearing what I want to hear, but if there are references in episodes 2-4 then I thought that there must be one in episode 1.

Hmmmmm....this gets more curious

So if * bad wolf* is a reference to the tardis
or even if it isnt,
could it be an abbreviation of something ?

W.O.L.F ?

What could be good And bad and have the letters W O L F
in reference to the tardis or the doctor ?

mind you, i could be way of the mark lol !

If you have a theory or idea then please share it with us...more the merrier as it keeps the debate and excitement going.......

I don't get this. Why does everyone think there is something wrong with the doctor? I mean, there have been a lot of Deaths in the series but all have been victims of the circumstances everyone was in. In episode 1 Clive dies - the Doctor never meets him! In episode 2 there are a lot of deaths but they aren't his Fault. The only one that he could have saved was Cassandra but if you look at it she became a victim of her own Crime (and her own quest for beauty - she doesn't have the tools to even move or moisturise herself!)

In ep 3 there are again a few deaths but caused by the Gelf. My take on the doctors actions are that he is desperate to help someone who has been affected by the war – it really clouds his judgement. I think as we learn more about the War we will start to understand why he was so desperate to help.

There have always been plot deaths in Doctor Who. In the Robots of Death people are being killed off every few minutes! What I’m most liking about this series is that the doctor is putting the pieces together (i.e figuring out what the creatures are, where they are from and how to speak to them), but others (such as Rose and Dickens) are putting the final piece of the puzzle together. It really allows those characters to shine. Watching Dickens beaming at the end was a joy – you can really see how the adventure made him feel alive again. This is all more about characterisation than the doctor being ‘wrong’.

Jmi