So I watched Listen for the first time last night, and have now been baffled ever since.

If Orson Pink was meant to be in Clara's time line, then HOW? Because that would have meant that Danny didn't die (i'm not watching them in sequence btw) for that to happen surely? (It would also have meant that Clara didn't die...but that's beside the point really considering as we still have the finale to come.) Can someone explain it to me? Am I being thick?

No. It's an unresolved plot line. IIRC, though strongly hinted at, it was never stated explicitly that Orson Pink was a descendant of both Danny and Clara, but with both now dead it is, for now at least, an inconsistency. Again, IIRC, they only found Orson because the Doctor and Clara were following Danny's timeline in the TARDIS, so logically there should be a genetic link between Danny and Orson. The only remaining possibilities I can see are that Danny is not really dead or can be resurrected, or Danny had a child with someone he met before Clara.

I also mentioned the 'loose thread' with Orson earlier today.

However, I'm beginning to think that too many scripts are devoted to extending random 'timeline mysteries' so maybe they can let this one lie and have Orson as a more indirect descendant.

Join the back of the queue!

I want to know why Rory was "the man who dies and dies again", first. And what happened to the plastic Doctor. And how the Doctor dying was a fixed point, if he didn't really die. Etc.

Oh, and why did Orson have the Doctor's toy soldier?

wasn't it given to him when he was a child scared of something under his bed?

No, that was Danny Pink (Rupert).

The fact that Orson was in possession of it does rather suggest he ultimately inherited it from Clara and Danny.

Sometimes you've just got to call a friction contrafibulator a friction contrafibulator - And no matter what may not have been stated explicitly, it's blatantly obvious that the intention was to establish Orson as a descendant of Clara & Danny in the mind of the viewer. And not in a "sleight of hand" way, like the Doctor saying the hybrid is "Me" last night probably is.

Agreed, really, I think this one is likely to be filed in the 'continuity error that will not be resolved' box!

Haha, relieved I didn't miss something really important. It really confused me. How irritating! Maybe the guy who played Danny Pink quit after they'd written it?



I thought it was the doctor she'd given it too?:: after giving it to Rupert and it handed back by Orson? Which also means she visited galifrey?

Monday afternoon brains

Time can be rewritten and all that...
I suppose there is no real explanation beyond that.

Yes, this is one of the big annoyances of Moffat. That and his wibbly wobbly timey wimey cobblers (his is a darker, more mature show. Apparently.)

They're both just window dressing for being unable to write and produce episodes within your own tenure on the show without leaving gaping plot holes, contradictions and loose ends everywhere.

True. But would you hate it if a future episode had Clara and Danny resurrected and they went happily skipping, hand-in-hand, off into the sunset?

Yes because another annoyance I have with the show is that virtually every recurring character in it dies and then comes back. It's one of the less attractive clichés of sci-fi for me, and I'm sad to say Doctor Who seems to do it more than anyone else, especially under Moffat.

Don't worry, I'm already fully braced for Clara coming back to life in some form, even if it's just her mind uploaded to that Timelord hard drive so she can live forever with Danny Pink, like two perpetual Facebook friends. Or 'Me' going back in time and taking the curse from Clara, who therefore never dies (time can be rewritten), leaving 'Me' to finally die thanks to the raven. This ends with the Doctor leaving Clara behind because he feels she's become too reckless and will probably end up getting herself killed again one day.

Not worried.

Bit of a loose-loose scenario for you and SM then? You've given him no room to redeem himself in your eyes.

I think six years is long enough to reach conclusive opinions on his tenure. Do you think it likely he has another six left ahead, and the ability to change the show significantly?

I understand, but is there nothing in his tenure that he's done that you enjoyed?

Nah, EastEnders wins the prize for that these days, and that not even meant to be sic-fi.

The 5th series, the 50th and Paul McGann's special. Nothing else springs to mind. I think it says it all that I am going to have to search for a full list of episodes, go through them one by one to remember what they were about and remember what I thought of them. What I can think of are lots of very frustrating episodes like Journey to the Centre of the Tardis, The Rings of Akhaten or Sleep No More.

A lot of enjoyable moments spring to mind instantly from the rest of the show's history, which offset the silly moments like burping bins, cartoon sound effects (later reused by Moffat) or Richard Briers playing Blakey.

And they wonder why the ratings are down.

That, plus (from what I could tell from the glimpses I get of the show) the producers appeared to strangely draw inspiration from The Killing for the Lucy Beale murder plotline that took a year or two to unfold.

But seriously - No, Doctor Who kills off and brings back far more people than Eastenders. And Eastenders does it out of desperation to boost ratings, hoping they can recapture past glories. Moffat does it deliberately.

SM deliberately brings back dead characters, and you dislike that (fair enough, in and of itself - though, as you say yourself, it's been done a lot in Doctor Who anyway), but you're OK with the same thing in Eastenders because they're desperate? So when Eastenders does it, it's not in any way a deliberate choice by the writers and production team?

I suspect the real reason is that, like me, you don't actually care what happens in Eastenders.

Wasn't it explained that Orson was just one possible future? Bit like in the moon episode when Clara said 'but the moon doesn't break up because we've been to the future and it's still there' ??

I, for one, am happy for it to just be an unresolved plot line so long as I don't need to see that twit on my TV, again


Hate it? Hate it?! I'd DESPISE it. No one will have ever seen fury like mine if that were to ever come true

No? From where did you pluck such a notion?

By definition, if I'm saying they're desperate, I'm being derogatory about them. I don't watch the show, nor do I care about it, but I still had a rational opinion that bringing Dirty Den back from the dead was a silly idea, and something that went beyond the normal boundaries viewers expect of the show. It's not unlike Bobby Ewing just walking out of the shower or aliens abducting people in Dynasty, or whatever it was.

I feel the same about Kathy Beale's resurrection, except this time they should have known better from experience. I gather her return has seen the opposite effect on the ratings than the one the producers intended?

As for Doctor Who, Mummy on the Orient Express was supposed to be Clara's farewell adventure. Whilst on the 'train', she saw the Doctor use people as guinea pigs, happily letting them die. What would have been wrong in having Clara disgusted by his behaviour and leaving for good then, allowing the Doctor to travel on his own for a couple of episodes and reflect on whether he's a good man or not, before finding a new companion?

Although as other have said elsewhere, the whole "Am I a good man" thing was just depressing, especially immediately after the joyous events of the 50th and Smith's last episode.

Tennant managed to do an angsty Doctor, yet somehow he was never depressing!

Maybe Danny Punk had a brother, a twin brother even, and Orson is descended from him?

A brother who also fell in love with a time traveller who was in possession of that toy soldier?

It simply seemed to be the implication of what you were saying, that somehow it's ok because they're desperate, but not ok when SM does it.

Sorry if I misread your intent. How I interpreted what you wrote is one valid interpretation, but nevertheless incorrect.

Evidently you missed my final remark and smiley. I don't like soap operas in general myself.

1. He wasn't. He died in Curse of the Black Spot and obviously when he lived out his natural in 1930's. All the other 'deaths' were illusions or in alternative timelines.

2. If you mean Doctor Goo out of rebel Flesh, he dissolved but it may be possible that a copy of his memory survived at a molecular level in the sonic screwdriver, which is presumably still in the castle or has been picked up by a future clean up squad. In short, whereabouts unknown...or storage in the screwdriver didn't work and he ceased to be.

3. The events at the lake are the fixed point, not the Doctors death. As far as The Silence are concerned, The Doctor died. We, know different because we saw him hide in the Teselecta and fake the death we thought was real in The Impossible Astronaut, right kids?

4. Orson got the soldier as it was a family heirloom;

TARDIS visits children home, the toy soldier gets its significance to Rupert
Rupert becomes Danny and soldier becomes heirloom
Orson eventually inherits heirloom and gives it to Clara
Clara gives soldier to crying boy Doctor.

And to answer the OP, The TARDIS was following the plastic soldier, not The Pinks. Clara is no more related to Orson than she is The Doctor, but she ends up taking The TARDIS to the barn (Pink free, you will notice) so that the plastic soldier can fulfill its destiny and help The Doctor tackle his fears.