Ok. It's slightly a case of clever thread title and no substance...You can tell I'm a Moffat fanboy!whoosh!...but what are peoples thoughts on where this is all leading?

It feels terribly vague this season. Even though there has been alot of emphasis on the potential loss/death/misplacement of Clara and mentions of Hybrids and Confession dials and the afterlife and immortality it feels very tenuous thus far. It's as if they're sort of hinting at something but I really have no idea what.

What are peoples thoughts on how it all could pan out? I had long assumed that the hunt for Gallifrey would be a big part of this season but that seems to have been all but abdandoned for now. What's the big cliffhanger Moffat stumbled on quite some time ago? Is Missy back? Davros? We know Maisie is returning.

I'm just finding it all rather unfathomable at the moment.

Hmm... I think its clear something dangerous is going to happen to Clara, but if they actually go through with killing her off or just come very close to it but then have the doctor through a great last minute struggle save her is at this point anyone's guess. I'd love for them to actually kill off a companion for once, properly kill off a companion before their time and not just lose her or have her age to death or something, but I doubt they would do it, they are more likely to play it safe (sadly).

I think the Hybrid, whatever that is, will definitely be faced in the last episode and will be tied to the Doctors past somehow, so maybe they bring Galifrey into the mix with that story line.. how Maisie's character fits into all this I have no idea as surely she's not the hybrid, it be a let down if the big bad monster that was of Time Lord legends was actually a long living Viking girl from Earth...

(edit - good title by the way)

Pure guesswork but I think the pay-off to the Gallifrey angle is probably being held for either Capaldi's departure or Moffat's (or both).

'Big cliffhanger': bear in mind he talked up the River Pond is Amy's daughter revelation as a big cliffhanger and temper expectation accordingly...

The episode titles for the final two episodes seem to suggest to me a connection to last season's finale.

The pre-figuring (again, a guess, not from spoilers) seems to be towards Clara's death and possible dilemma for the Doctor. Does he go the Ashilda route?

The hybrid: I thought the phrase linked to Ashilda was probably a red herring after her first appearance but now maybe not.

I've come to realize that I like quite a strong arc and quite strongly linked episodes... but then Season 6 showed that perhaps Doctor Who is too prescribed and restrictive a formula to really allow a good pay-off to a complex arc (I'm thinking of the whole baby thing, and to a lesser extent the Doctor's supposed death) as the storyline must always ultimately be rendered inconsequential.

So yes, I have said absolutely nothing of substance in this post... and I still didn't manage to be concise :P

Haha! But yet you listed all the salient points and they come together into....What?!?! So isn't this indicative of a slightly wishy washy and vague 'arc?'. I'm getting worrying S7 type vibes.

I didn't mind the arc heavy stuff even if I hated the resolution of probably the most arc heavy season (6). At the moment it just all seems a bit aimless. And consider that once the Zygon two parter is finished we are one episode away from the home straight essentially.

Complete speculation, but I'm getting a Series 4 arc vibe - in that I think various different ideas and aspects are going to converge on eachother into the finale. I think each paired story has so far given us something a bit different, though it's wonderfully vague as to which aspects will be picked up again...

- Davros
- Missy
- Confession dial
- hybrids
- Minister of War
- Ashildr
- Bootstrap paradoxes
- Clara's doom

These seem to be the things that have either recurred, or are notably prominent. It's entirely possible that the arc will involve all of these - that final episode could be an extended length one for all we know.

If the Minister of War stuff proves to be of significance we can guess the finale will somehow involve some time between the present day and 2119 when it was referenced in Before the Flood. As for their identity, I think Ashildr fits the bill best - now that she's clearly made it to the present day and that her name means 'god of battle'. That she is also a hybrid means that I think it's wholly possible the arc will converge on her.

In turn that makes you wonder why the idea was planted by Davros. I think that there could be some kind of timey-wimey intervention, or some chance that the finale may even be partially set on Gallifrey. We briefly visited Gallifrey in Listen, before the Time War ever happened and whilst the First Doctor was still a kid. Series 9 could expand upon that idea further, though wouldn't be aiming to resolve the Gallifrey plot so much as allude to it again. You involve Ashildr in all of this, and she could end up being the hybrid creature Davros's prophecy spoke of. In a way that would be a bootstrap paradox (Doctor creates a hybrid, hybrid ends up going back in time and becomes a legend/prophecy, which in turn eventually leads the Doctor on his path that caused him to create the hybrid)...which would tie in nicely with the paradoxes we've seen so far this series and brings it all full circle in a way. Once again I think it converges on Ashildr.

What this doesn't address is how Clara and Missy will play into all of this, if at all. There's been rumours that pre-asylum Oswin will appear also, and someone even suggested that maybe The Doctor encourages her to make a career change. Once again, that would be an example of a bootstrap paradox (Doctor meets Oswin in asylum, investigates and subsequently travels with Clara, loses Clara, visits pre-asylum Oswin out of grief and puts her on the path that will cross with him at the asylum).

Put more simply, I think the themes of the series are quite clear now...most predominantly war and mortality. What they all add up to is refreshingly unknown right now. It'll be interesting to find out what the next two-parter will contribute in terms of potential arc-content

The problem is that most fans seem to want to deconstruct everything. When they tried to introduce a complex character last season in Danny Pink a lot of people disliked his arc. He wasn't really a companion so he was seen as 'just' a romantic connection to Clara. Of course, he had a much deeper thematic resonance to the story than that but people perceived it as such. But he was also an ongoing character so people felt they had to like him, and complained that they didn't. Where is the rule that an ongoing character has to be unquestionably likable? Why can't they be multi-facted? You know, like real people are. But no, he was kind of, sort of a companion by proxy and so he has to be liked, he can't just be a protagonist. How can you make a character like that interesting?

On top of that there is the critic that wants to judge the writer by pre-supposing motivation. So Moffat was supposedly using the character to bash soldiers. Of course, anyone who understand drama and writing could tell that the theme was eventually going to pay off in a thoughtful way. But there's always that group.

I hope I'm getting my point across. It's hard to tell a complex story with sophisticated storytelling when the audience has that kind of deconstructionist mentality. The Doctor has to be like this, the companion has to be like this. This character has to either be a companion or not a companion and if he is he has to be like this and if he isn't why is he in the show and so on and so on. The audience has EXPECTATIONS. They have creative pretensions of their own. They're not wiling to just take what the writer gives them and then judge it.

When the characters are all so iconic and regimented in what role they play in a story and when there are strong conventions in place it's really limiting to a writer.

I'm more of a Moffat fan personally but I always come back to the genius of Russell Davies. His arc style seems to have been perfect for Doctor Who. Moffat tends to be over-ambitious with what he can do (which I love him for); the Danny Pink story was a great angle, thematically and dramatically, but Doctor Who apparently couldn't carry it. The audience didn't have the patience or the insight for it. But then when he tries to go for a much lighter arc like this season or Season 7 it seems unsatisfying and inconsequential. RTD seemed to get it just right. The man has an incredible sensibility for popular drama.

I'm starting to agree that Moffat can't do arcs. NOT because he isn't a good writer (he's fantastic) but because he just can't seem to pitch them right.

I agree with pretty much everything you said, though the one thing I struggle to do is really like the character of Danny...and I don't mean in the sense that I like him because he's a likeable character, I mean like him for what he brings to the show.

There were moments in Series 8 where the Doctor was relatively unlikeable...and I loved it. It created a superb sense of drama and tension that had been sorely missing from the show for a while, a gravitas if you will. Some characters you can love to hate, others you find unlikeable but they service the show brilliantly and in so many ways you can't imagine it without them (I'm thinking Cersei from Game of Thrones, or early Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or Sylar in Heroes, or Helen Cutter in Primeval, or the Cigrarette Smoking Man in The X Files...as some examples from shows DW has been likened to or vice versa). I agree totally that a character doesn't have to be likeable, and that multi-faceted characters are a real asset - and unfortunately one that often gets sorely dismissed by people wanting something a bit more immediately accessible.

In the case of Danny Pink though, I just think there was a lot of flaws. He was unlikeable, but also the romantic interest of a companion the show was trying to make us like after a divisive run in Series 7). Tying Clara to someone so unlikeable by extension made her unlikeable to many, and in some ways has made her far more divisive as a character. This ultimately makes Danny a problem from the start.
In extension of that though, whilst the ideas behind his character were definitely commendable and ambitious, I don't ever feel that Moffat delivers them in the most satisfying way... he usually drops the ball at the final hurdle. Never was that more true than with Series 8, where we got a final episode that squandered much of the amazing potential set up in the story before it...as well as the series-spanning arc before it. Danny was a huge part of that, and whilst his view of the Doctor as a general that had to keep his hands clean was a fascinating slant that complimented the 'am I a good man' angle nicely, it was never sufficiently wrapped up for a character that was destined to leave. He never saw the Doctor any other way, he never allowed the Doctor the benefit of the doubt - and as a viewer who knows more than Danny and who knows just how much the Doctor has been through (fighting on the frontline, for one thing) it never did the character of Danny any favours. It made him extremely prejudgemental, it made him too often become Clara's elephant in the room. He wasn't unlikeable because he had an unlikeable personality, he was unlikeable because they bothered to open a void of depth to his character and then never sufficiently explored or resolved it.

Maybe it does boil down to being overly ambitious. With only twelve regular episodes a year there's only so much you can do, and I can't say I'm particularly enamoured with the way Mickey or Rory were written either - so it seems that three's a crowd when it comes to male love interests with the female companions so far, for me at least. I could see the good intent there, and it was wonderful to flesh Clara's life out a bit more - but that's just it - Danny was always just an extension of Clara's life, rather than a character who warranted the depth of ideas he was afforded.

To be honest, I'm enjoying the final series of Downton Abbey more than the current series of Doctor Who at the moment. Even the X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing seem more enjoyable.

That is a worrying sign.

Would you mind keeping it on topic? This thread isn't about bashing the show. God knows there are enough threads for that. And it really isn't to find out peoples opinions on Strictly Come Dancing or the X Factor. It's about the arc for Season 9. Thanks.

I see the arc as being "The Butterfly Effect" - how decisions taken by a time traveller can ripple forward.

All of the "two part" stories so far have had this underlying concept behind them :

Doctor goes back to young Davros and shows mercy which ripples forward ...
Doctor goes back to 1980 to prevent the Fisher King etc which ripples forward ...
Doctor makes Ashildr immortal which ripples forward ...

Also the possible clue to the suggested Gallifrey arc being part of all of this in The Woman Who Lived is not Ashildr but the "Eyes of Hades" imo. i.e. the gateway to another dimension.

EDIT : Why not Ashildr ? Because it's too obvious. Also suspect the "Minister of War" will turn out to be either the War Doctor or Missy.

You may be right but sometimes Moffat just goes with the obvious. Sometimes he plants ideas that seems specifcally planted to be plot points but are ultimately red herrings.

Many said that River being Amy's daughter was 'too obvious', particularly after the timey-wimey Series 5 finale, but he went with it. Some said that Missy being The Master was 'too obvious' but again he went with it.

If nothing else Moffat has definitely figured out a way to pull the proverbial rug from beneath viewers, and keep everyone guessing as to which way his arcs will go.

I agree however it's not just a Moffat thing - it's the art of a good storyteller. I think that Ashildr will play a part in Clara's alleged death in "Face The Raven" and the Doctor will be left with a dilemma. Does he go back and change the past so that he doesn't resurrect Ashildr and save Clara (with all the forward ripples that would then cause) or does he allow Clara to die. It would also feed into the possible reason for a Doctor only episode in episode 11 i.e. his torment of the fateful decision of allowing Ashildr to become immortal.

Long since given up on working out whats going to happen
Moffats arcs tend to go off on a tangent anyway. just going to watch and see what happens.

Kind of interesting that the arc isn't clear in a way, as I'd like to think it might be like series 4 where we have a few seemingly unconnected murmurings of different elements, then they all come together in the finale.

Getting a strong sense of the afterlife being a theme once again though, based on things said in the latest episode, rumours about Clara, and of course the episode titles of the last two. I hope I am wrong about this being the theme though, as besides the fact that i wasn't particularly impressed with dark water/death in heaven, it would seem like Moffat was really struggling to come up with idea's if he visited one theme twice in two seasons as his big finale.

Rather than trying to guess how the whole thing will play out, let me instead offer some candidates for the evidently important role of the Hybrid. Assuming Davros's "half Time Lord, half Dalek" is his own vain interpretation, and not part of the actual prophecy, the Hybrid could be:

(A) The Doctor, half Time Lord, half human (on his mother's side).

(B) A Time Lord/Dalek hybrid. Could Missy's "clever idea" at the end of Episode 2 be to keep herself alive by offering to bear Davros's baby?

(C) A Zygon/human hybrid. With squillions of Zygons in human form mingling inconspicuously with the local populace of Earth, the odd inter-species Ugandan discussion seems inevitable.

(D) Something we haven't seen yet. In Series 6, the Teselecter didn't appear until Episode 8, but was crucial to the resolution.

(E) Dalek Sec, half Dalek, half Mr Diagoras. I know we saw him exterminated in Evolution of the Daleks, but little things like that haven't stopped Moffat before.

(F) Ashildr, half Viking, half Mire. Moffat has already made the Doctor refer to her as a hybrid, so she seems to be intended as the eye-catching distraction from the real thing, (Then again, that could be a double bluff.)

We haven't been told anything much about the prophecy itself - who made it, when, and for what purpose. It's possible that the Doctor is going to travel back in time and utter the prophecy himself in order to motivate himself to leave Gallifrey and start his adventures . . .

'Hybrid' was mentioned once in a throwaway line. I'm not sure it is significant at all.

In an apparently throwaway line, sure. But this is SM writing. He enjoys and routinely employs misdirection to entertain the audience and keep them guessing.

As yet, it could be a "red herring" or the "real deal".

It's like a murder mystery where the writer throws up multiple candidates as the potential murderer, but only one of which turns out to be the murderer.

Not sure what else has been offered up yet though!

It was mentioned in two stories actually. The main one was in an the opening story and was pretty prominent a mention and it was hinted that it was to do with the entire reason the doctor left gallifrey int the first place.

The second mention, in the girl who died, I believe was a throwaway line, just purely to keep the word 'hybrid' floating about in our minds.

It baffles me how so many people seem to be connecting the more prominent first story mention, with the throwaway second mention to conclude that ashildr is the hybrid, when the first was about a half dalek, half timelord hybrid, and the second was just a unique way to describe a girl now implanted with alien technology and possibly as a bit of misdirection for those who didn't pay proper attention to the details of the hybrid. The two mentions of the word have no connection as far as I can tell.

Out of all the theories I've seen so far about what/who could be the hybrid,or what mix it might be I don't think i've seen one about a half dalek, half time lord, yet that was the only type of hybrid actually mentioned on screen. It's like people like to sweep details of what we saw under the carpet just because they don't fit their theories.

The only arc I've really picked up on is the 'Clara's going to die' one which has been rather heavy handed.

I think it's more complex than this. A strict reading shows that the first mention of the Hybrid falls into two parts: Davros first talks about a prophecy current in Gallifrey concerning the Hybrid, the product of the union between two "warrior races", then goes on to talk about this Hybrid being half Time Lord, half Dalek. It is (doubtless intentionally) ambiguous whether the "half Time Lord, half Dalek" description applies to the Hybrid as described in the prophecy or is Davros's own interpretation of it. My previous post was based on the assumption that the latter is the case, but it does (BIB) include a half Dalek, half Time Lord option, in which Missy saves her own skin by offering to supply the Time Lord half of the blend.

After the prominence given to the notion of a hybrid in the opening two-parter, any subsequent use of the term in this series is bound to draw attention. I think the use of the term with reference to Ashildr is a Moffatian red herring (but possibly Moffat intends me to think this). I'm not trying to sweep anything under the carpet, but I believe Davros's account of the prophecy allows room for more interpretations than you do.

I have to ask: In what ways do people think Clara's exit has been foreshadowed so far?

Or is it people projecting onto the stories because they know Jenna is leaving?

No actual spoilers please or anything inferred from a spoiler!

I've been watching, the same as everyone else and nothing has jumped out at me so far, except for the Doctor being especially gloomy at times, which is surely open to other interpretations (like being Scottish, for example ).

mayonnaise.

copy + paste to at least 2 members unless you want to be engulfed by mayonnaise.

Nor me. Nothing has led me to believe there is a foreshadowing!

Well, not until the very last two lines of The Woman Who Lived:

Yes, I guess could be foreshadowing. If it is, it doesn't suggest there'll be a happy ending for Clara. Although... SM likes to play mind games with the audience.

I suppose that's the whole point of foreshadowing; it's meant to be subtle and it only becomes clear that that's what it is after the exit is known.

So we have half dalek/half timelord and a hybrid.

Who would possibly be the half time lord? We have a hybrid. And we have a half dalek (sort of) Clara stuck in the Dalek on her first episode.

And for what it's worth regarding story arcs - there are some thoughts that Ashelda may try playing God. By stopping the doctor preventing Clara's death so she faces her fate - that which the Doctor has denied her.