Everyone has a valid opinion to make on the new series and people just have to accept that whilst they might like one episode, someone won't.

While I have embraced the return of Doctor Who and believe RTD has done an excellent job of rebooting/reinventing the series for new generation, which still also appeals to the old guard. I for one can't praise something just to toe the party line and because everyone seems to like it. I dont expect my views or opinions will change the world or sway anyone else's thoughts but we can at least have a bit of fun debating a series we all share a common love/passion for.

If RTD is taking us all on a wild goose chase with the bad wolf references then so what....No big deal in the great scheme of things and people discussing or debating it isn't doing any harm and if anything it has got people talking about the series again..not just with the loyal fans but the new audience too. RTD and the BBC must be well chuffed!

Why does everyone love The Unqiet Dead so much? Is it just me or did the "Releasing gas drags the gelth out of bodies" climax make basically no sense at all? Actually, could anyone explain it to me? I am probably just being thick.

And with respect to Jackie, I don't think we're really supposed to like her. She's not a great mum, she's lazy and shallow and her concern for her daughter is sporadic and needy. In my opinion it's a good portrayal of a pretty flawed person.

Hm....Very interesting!

My son is 14 and loves the show, along with me and my non-sci-fi fan partner. So, that pleases me - I also know a lot of `normal' TV viewers at work who can't miss the show!

Even though the last two episodes didn't work for me the same way the first three did I got such a buzz sitting on the train on Saturday hearing these three kids nag their parents that they wanted to get home in time to watch Doctor Who.

If the Slitheen do turn up again, then they are all just one jar of pickled onions away from slimy death.

aren't we all?

K

Now I'm wondering why Rose's 'supposedly' human DNA would reactivate a Dalek?

Surely if anything, the Daleks would be keyed/programmed to respond to the Doctor's DNA (the Ka Faraq Gatri), or at least the Gallifreyan's, since they were at war with Gallifrey.

Rose is Compassion, or at least has Gallifreyan DNA ?
Last edited by DenWatts : 25-04-2005 at 18:33

I have to agree that the creature effects were not good at all. The Pig alien was OK, but the men-in-suits Slitheen were on the naff side. (The CGI ones were good though.) Perhaps one of the problems is the way they move - or rather - didn't. They just stood around looking gormless. I saw an ep of Farscape from last week, and it featured a white alien lady - white makeup and flowing costume, but the way she moved and talked MADE the character believably alien.

OK, the BBC are out of practice, not having made Doctor Who for so long - so lets hope things will improve. Then maybe our US cousins will buy the show and improve on the Doctor's long term TV viability.

Don't people know how to use video recorders any more? (whether tape, hard disc or DVD?)

Aaw come on.. Theres nothing like a bit of anticipation by watching the show at the appointed broadcast time. I have had to watch all the shows so far fro DVD and the thrill is just not the same. (Mind you, I'd record the shows anyway - even if I was watching in "Real time".)

I think she is the Doctor's granddaughter (nice loop back to the 1st Doctor)- only a theory, but he cares too much for her.
He was willing to destroy Earth to keep her safe - perhaps to save Gallifrey?

Also can't wait for the regeneration, given the emphasis that RTD has placed on the character emotions. If she sees the Doctor as a father figure, could she possibly cope with the death of her father Mk II?

I posted that a few weeks ago, as well as it being a nice nod to the original series, and got laughed off the forums.

If I remember, I said it was when the Doctor told Dickens that Rose was in his care, almost describing her as a ward or something, that made me think of it.

I do think RTD is stressing families in this series - we've had a lot of it in the past two weeks, particularly Jackie's reaction to Rose being missing for a year and her trying to cook for the Doctor etc.

I wouldn't put it past him...

Rose "He's not my boyfriend, he's better than that, he's my..."

EDIT: On reflection, I think the best word that fits here is father.
Last edited by DenWatts : 25-04-2005 at 18:57

Or brother (big brother). That would make them equals as said in the documentary

CJ

Not that a real PM would do anything like that. I mean, he'd have to be the king of liars... or some kind of alien.

Unless, she's thinking dream man. Seriously. For a lot of switched on girls of Rose's age, a sophisticated, dangerous, older man is the ideal lover/ mentor/ father figure all rolled into one.

If we're thinking of the same guy, his name is Corey Johnson and he was in The Mummy. He was one fo the americans who opened Imhotep's tomb.


Matrix is the surname of Arnie's character in Commando, so I'm not sure who you're thinking of there.


(Ok, so it doesn't add much to the Dr Who discussion, but, hey, I happened to know!)

Just a little something I saw...

At about 39:37 into WW3, look at the name of the drycleaners:

MADDOCK

Just been thinking about Rose and her DNA activating, we know the next episode is 1 singular Dalek. What if her DNA changes the Daleks, which we see in Eps 12&13, which in turn causes the destruction of gallifrey.

That is exactly what I was thinking in my post above....

Rose is the catalyst that changes the outcome of the Time War. Like in Evil of the Daleks when the Doctor introduced the human factor to the the metallic monsters, it changed the way they developed as a race...

History may repeat itself.....

...been away this weekend and couldn't read the threads. Tried on my mobile but even with 3G it takes ages to scroll through!

Enjoyed this week's - improvement on part 1 anyway. Even laughed out loud at one point.

I shall have to read the instructions of getting DS on WAP all over again.

Now to start blowing up my inflatibe Dalek for next week.

Big Puff.

H

It may well repeat itself.

I always like to go back to first principles, so my first reaction would be to ask why would her DNA reactivate a Dalek?

I think there has to be a lot more to her than meets the eye.

Presumably this Dalek would have been touched by all the humans that were involved in its recovery and imprisonment.

So what difference does Rose make?

Here are my thoughts on how the series is developing, and ideas as to how the structure might be formed, and how certain things may fit into the picture as a whole.
I wrote the bulk of this about 2 weeks or so ago. So maybe nothing here will appear that fresh now. I thought I might as well get it posted anyway or I'll end up never getting round to it.
I've probably posted it too late really, and it probably won't come across as well as it might have done a week or 2 ago.
Anyway, here are some of my thoughts.

The Parallels with Modern Warfare

It appears to me that Russell T Davies is approaching the characterizations of his characters with a degree of ambiguity, and is wanting to get people to view characters from a less black and white perspective.

I got this feeling early on when The Doctor confronted the Nestene Consciousness, and surprisingly didn't go ahead and try and kill it, he wanted to reason with it first. He went on to try to start a dialogue based on what appeared to be the galactic equivalent of a UN peace treaty, which the Nestene itself must have also signed up with in the objective to try to adhere to some galactic rules and laws.

And The Doctor has shown darker shades to his personality, he definitely shows some negative aspects to his character, and at times comes across as an outright judgemental snob.

So I got hints at the very start of this series that Russell T Davies is trying to avoid the cliched approach that makes it obvious who the "goodies" and "baddies" are supposed to be. And I don't think he is spoonfeeding the viewer as to who are good and evil.

I get the feeling that things are not going to be cut and dried, and that there is going to be ambiguity that forces the viewer to think a bit more in much of this series.

The Doctor's encounter with The Nestene Consciousness reminded me of something else,...it reminded me of real life world events of the last few years, and could tell that they have seeped into the writing of Russell T Davies.
Put in basic terms, in that first episode, The Nestene Consciousness reminded me of The USA, The Earth was playing the role of Iraq in this instance.
The Nestene had been attacked before (practically destroyed), and told the Doctor it was within their constitutional rights to invade Earth.
America had been attacked, and believed it was in their constitutional right to attack Iraq.
The Nestene wanted to plunder the Earth and take it's resources for itself, OIL being one of the resources that The Doctor mentions.
Some argue that America wanted to invade Iraq to take it's oil.
When The Nestene finds that The doctor is in possesion of a vial of anti-plastic (A Chemical Weapon)which could destroy them it gets very paranoid and anxious, the Doctor pleads and insists that he isn't their enemy, and maintains that the vial of anti-plastic was just insurance. When the Tardis is revealed to them, The Nestene is afraid of the superior technology, according to the Doctor, and immmediately invokes what could be described as a pre-emptive strike by initiating the final phase of the invasion which it felt was it's constitutional right.
America apparently suspected that Iraq was in possesion of chemical weapons, and felt paranoid enough to believe that Iraq was a threat. Some at the time suggested that any weapons that Iraq may have could have been seen as insurance against any threat from other countries such as Israel.
America was apparently afraid of Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction, it feared certain technologies, and itself invoked the final phase of an invasion maintaining that it was their constitutional right.

I don't think that these similarities were coincidental by any stretch of the imagination, and real life events were influencing some of the themes and ideas that Russell was playing with in that opening episode.

In episode 3: The Unquiet Dead, we see gas based life forms called The Gelth, who are apparently surviors from the Time War, trying to cross a time rift so that they can inhabit earth by using dead humans as hosts to exist in.
There is a conflict of opinion between Rose and the Doctor as to whether should allow these lifeforms in, who claim that they are few in number.

The gates are opened, and it transpires that they weren't few in number, they were many. Too many, they threatened to invade earth, and kill people in order to allow their number to use the human bodies as hosts.
As I'm sure you can guess right now, that this mirrors the argument raging on right now about Asylum Seekers and illegal immigrants in Britain right now.
How do we tell if the Asylum seekers are genuine or not? And what happens if there are too many? Will they obtain houses that would normally belong to a resident of the UK? What happens if any of them are terrorists who wish us harm? Only in the story the homes can be represented by dead human bodies to live in.

In these episodes so far, real life contemporary events are being mirrored in this series of Doctor Who. The same kind of real-life questions and dilemnas are being replicated in the writing of this series of Doctor Who. A case of art imitating life.
The whole series is structured around a fictional Time War.
So if real life contemporary subject matter is seeping through in the writing of this series already, then what's to stop this trend continuing in future episodes? Seeing as a massive Time War is the framework around which this series is constructed, and given that we know at least 3 more episodes feature war and invasion, I'd say that the chances are pretty strong that this trend of mirroring real life is to continue in most, if not all of the remaining episodes of the series.

There are still many themes surrounding real world recent events on the world stage that can yet be explored by the writers in the remaining episodes of this series.

We have been promised by Russell T Davies that people will cry over a Dalek. Daleks are the bad guys aren't they? Why would anyone cry?
We have seen a clip of a Dalek in chains, held captive by someone. This is to occur in episode 6: Dalek.
Going by what appears to be a pattern that is emerging, this looks set up to be an episode that deals with a theme that could well mirror the events at Guatanamo Bay in Cuba, where American authorities hold captive many people for purposes of interrogation, and use of techniques that resemble torture are utilised.

This looks to be a very interesting episode, and I'd like to know what thoughts and feelings that this episode may invoke.

Looking at what episodes have been listed, and using their titles and synopsis as guides, we can possibly obtain clues as to what thematic subject matter mirroring recent real world events may be explored in the particular episodes.
Obviously this would be educated guesswork based on what appears to be an evolving pattern, but the clues are there nonetheless.

Good and Evil

What we can gather by the first episode: Rose, definitions of good and evil may not be clean cut differentations in this series.
Things can be twisted around and distorted, good and evil is very much dependant on what side you are viewing a situation from. As this is fiction, role reversal games can be played to explore angles that would normally be seen from the perspective of what we might normally see as the enemy.

Who says that the Doctor's homeworld Gallifrey are the good guys in this Time War?
And it's very easy to assume that we are the good guys, because we like to think that we must be. But wouldn't the enemy see themselves as the good guys too?
So who says that in this series that Earth is on the side of good?
Maybe humans are the bad guys in this story.
There is already debate about whether Britain is seen in the world as being on the side of good in the recent war in Iraq. So this is a concept that may be explored in this series of Doctor Who. The concept of Earth as being on the side of good may be completely twisted on it's head. We'd like to think of ourselves as good, but wouldn't all sides in a war think they're on the side who can morally justify their actions?
It depends from what perspective you look at a situation from.
I don't think it's obvious yet whether Earth are the good guys.

It also isn't obvious that Gallifrey are the good guys.
And it isn't obvious whether Earth and Gallifrey are fighing on the same side, or if they are enemies in this Time War.

In Episode 2, Humans survive. The Daleks may destroy Gallifrey, but from what we see on screen 5 billion years into the future, Humans are around, not Daleks from what we are aware of.
So defeating Gallifrey can't be the defining war.
And there's nothing to say that Gallifrey and Earth are on the same side.
As human history has shown us, all sorts of alliances can be forged and then later broken, and are often made as a means of convenience in order to aid self interest. Over years, a friend can become an enemy. Even over the space of a mere decade.

Maybe with a straight choice between the Daleks and humans, humans are possibly the lesser of two evils.
We are in reality, arguably to some, in that precise situation in 2005 real life, where the morality of the coalition is questionable to some in the world regarding the Iraq war.

Other themes involved commonly in modern warfare.
Almost all war fought on earth also needs propaganda, and religion is almost always used.
Modern warfare has taught us that weapons and guns aren't usually enought to win a war in themselves. You more often than not need to "Win the hearts ands minds" of millions of people to get away with it.
Propaganda and religion are powerful tools to be utilised in this aspect of war.
And if my idea that Russell T Davies is inspired by real life events, and exploring areas of significance in recent modern warfare that may be fuelling much of the backdrop in this series, then these two subject matters may also be explored in later episodes.

What Episodes?

Here is the list of episodes with brief synopsis according to the Radio Times:

Episode 1: Rose
Rose meets the Doctor (hurrah!) and the Autons (Boo!).
Written by Russell T Davies
Directed by Keith Boak

Episode 2: The End of the World
Aliens galore as the Doctor takes Rose to the year five billion.
Featuring Zoe Wannamaker.
Written by Russell T Davies
Directed by Euros Lyn

Episode 3: The Unquiet Dead
To Victorian Cardiff, where the duo bump into Simon Callow's Charles Dickens, plus a few spooky aliens.
Written by Mark Gatiss
Directed by Euros Lyn

Episode 4/5: Aliens of london/World War Three
London's in peril from a new alien invasion. Penelope Wilton and Annette Badland guest-star - but as goodies or baddies?
Written by Russell T Davies
Directed by Keith Boak

Episode 6: Dalek
So will you weep for the poor little Dalek? Russell T Davies says you will.
Written by Rob Shearman
Directed by Joe Ahearne

Episode 7: The Long Game
Sinister goings-on at a satellite TV station of the future. With Simon Pegg and Tamsin Greig.
Written by Russell T Davies
Directed by Brian Grant

Episode 8: Father's Day
There'll be trouble if you go trying to change history - as Rose discovers to her cost.
Written by Paul Cornell
Directed by Joe Ahearne

Episode 9/10 The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances
Richard Wilson starts as a doctor (no, not THE Doctor) in this two-parter set during the Blitz.
Written by Steven Moffat
Directed by James Hawes

Episode 11: Boom Town
The Doctor comes across someone he thought was long dead. Uh-oh!
Written by Russell T Davies
Directed by Joe Ahearne

Episode 12/13 (TBA)/The Parting of the Ways
More Daleks? We reckon so.
Written by Russell T Davies
Directed by Joe Ahearne

And here are possible contemporary themes corresponding to episodes that could be said parrellel real life events.

Episode 1: Rose
As explained above, this episodes has hints towards invasion, constitutional rights to invade, and invasion as a means to plunder resources.

Episode 2: The End of the World.
Can’t really see anything obvious.

Episode 3: The Unquiet Dead.
Asylum seekers.

Episode 4/5 Aliens of London/World War 111
Our nation’s leaders not being how we see them to be, government deception of the public, hiding the truth.

Episode 6: Dalek.
Got to be a direct parellel with the issue of torture, interrogation, and the moral questions surrounding present day methods of extracting information from prisoners held in places such as Guatanamo Bay.

Now at this point it’s getting tricky. More need to speculate and guess. Trying to make estimates based on episode titles, and what those episodes appear to involve based on information already out there and plain rumour and speculation.

Episode 7: The Long Game
Apparently, according to the synopsis, this episode involves a person called The Editor in control of a TV satellite station.
So propaganda and misinformation being broadcast to the public is a very possible scenario that might feature here, and would link to the overall theme of war.

Episode 8: Father’s Day
This episode features Rose going back in time to when her Father was alive, and her Father dies.
From what we’ve seen so far, and bearing in mind that the Slitheen have been around a while on earth, and that there has been a government conspiracy, then I’d take a stab in the dark and speculate that this episode might feature a David Kelly type storyline. Possibly Rose’s father being alive would uncover the conspiracy, or something like that. Pure speculation here.

Episode 9/10: The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances
The possible parallel to real world events….Chemical Weapons, Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Episode 11: Boom Town
Not a lot known about this episode.
The title could be taken literally as a town that prospers from money and wealth, or if the episodes carry a war type theme running through them that hint to issues that occurred in real life, then maybe suicide bombers are a theme that the title hints at.
I think religion of some kind, or even a pseudo-religion may feature at some point, and maybe this episode is the one that it crops up in.

Episode 12/13: TBA/The Parting of the Ways
Another invasion episode. I can’t even guess if there is a specific theme other than invasion here. Could be anything.

Earth

Or the chip eaters.
Episode 1: Thematic structure referencing human culture in the present, busy world, regular direct references to money, obsession with self, and fear and paranoia ensuring humans take their eye off the ball, and end up letting the wrold slip away from under their feet.

Episode 2: The consequence of human culture in the future. In episode 2 we see an example of what we evolve into. Cassandra being greedy, self obsessed, selfish, ruthless.
A hedonistic voyeurism, where the death of worlds is seen as "fun" and entertainment. The great and the good are "rich".

We see RTD give us a snapshot of cultural life today, and what we tend to stress value on now, and then in Episode 2, we get to see what we can become as a consequence of leading a chip eating, television watching culture, who are just saving ourselves (looking after number 1, I'm alright Jack)
Cassandra; "Earth is the hotbed of civilisation, humans "mingle" and become mongrels. Jabe and the Forest of Cheem are examples of such human descendants in the future.
The Doctor in Episode 4: Aliens of London...just after the supposed alien spacehip crash-lands into the Thames, he is more than happy, and said it now gives humans the opportunity to "Expand"...i.e. go forth and explore the Universe.
Proto-humans, and Digi-humans are other expressions used by Cassandra to imply that humans evolve into other aliens.

It's not beyond the realms of possibility that some of the aliens who try to launch invasions of Earth, are indeed products of Human evolution in the future.
Maybe most of these aliens we see in the series are a product of natural evolution of the human race.

The Doctor seems to relish the thought of the potential of humans are capable of. In episode 1 he maintains to the Nestene that these "stupid people are only just starting, they are capable of so much more". The Doctor uses this as a defence to stop the Nesten attacking them, but the Doctor may not realise that what he just said was the main problem. The Nestene are afraid of what humans become, and what humans become is the root of all their problems, so what the Doctor said is not a good defence of humans, and is like a red rag to a bull as far as the Nestene is concerned.

In Episode 4, when the alien spaceship crashes, the Doctor is optimistic to Rose, and tells her this is an opportunity for the human race to "expand". He thinks that the human race expanding and travelling the universe is a good thing.
But here again is where the problem lies. It is maybe the BIG mistake that the Doctor is making. It could be that the human race expanding and exploring space is the reason why the Time War started in the first place.

The Doctor, by his very act of encouraging humans to be more advanced than they are now is the crux of the problem. He sees the negative aspects of humans, and feels that by encouraging them to better themselves the consequences will be good. But it could be this that is the fundamental mistake he is making. Although he thinks this is a good idea for humans to develop, his interference in promoting this is what may lead on to the humans being even more dangerous.

His very existence now, and actions he takes right now, could be the very thing that leads to tha very thing he wants to avoid. But he doesn't see the error in his ways.
Whatever is happening right now, and the Doctor's participation in events, leads to a predestined fate he may think he is avoiding, but in actuality is leading everything to the very fate he would want to avoid.

The Doctors own interference in events now could mean that he is opening a Pandora's Box, where he is helping the human race advance before they are ready, and unleashing the negative potential of humans on the universe.
Humans may be the ancestors of the Daleks.
The Gelth may even be Humans of the future, or the Gelth may even be Daleks, we only see the spirit form of the Gelth, the Dalek is just a metal shell.

Many of the aliens we see could be descendants of humans. They maybe all represent the greedy, selfish sides of the human character. Their negative character traits are also what could be described as the negative traits of human nature.

Religion/Pseudo-religion

Apparently one episode carries a story involving a Big Brother reality game show. If this is true, then it would be likely to be another hint towards the theme of controlling the public via the media with a propaganda style theme. It could probably also be a substitute for religion, as worship of these types of shows can border on being almost pseudo-religious in nature.

It would also tie in with the idea of human society being obsessed with frenzied worship of anything that encourages their base urges to be addicted to hedonistic, empty entertainmment.

Again, it would tie into the snapshot of British society alluded to back in episode 1, and occasionally throughout the series whenever The Doctor shows contempt for the chip eaters who just work sleep and watch telly, being oblivious to what really matters in life, and eventually "letting go" and losing what's important in life when it's all too late.

Maybe greed for living a hedonistic, selfish, self-indulgent way of life is a possible metaphor for religion that may be used if religion in itself doesn't become a feature of this series.
I think worship of some kind will feature in one way or another. There have been enough digs at human society in the story so far to imply this as a possibility.

I do think that the human race at some point in the future develops a form of religion, or pseudo religion.
The references to Big Brother give us a clue there. Amongst money, status, and self interest, television culture is something that the public seems to worhip more and more these days. Even the reference to Heat magazine is another tiny little clue about where the writers are coming from.

British society right now tends to worship a nothingness, and latches onto crazes, and embraces them fully as the next "wicked" "cool" thing.
With the absence of religion in society, the worship of all things to do with money and celebrity status fills this vacuum.
When in this state of consciousness, its very easy to introduce thought control, and manipulate the public.

When the public are wrapped up in modern culture, they tend not to notice things like "invasions happening right under their feet", like the Autons, or the Slitheen.

I think a lot of this is reflected in the writing, where the writers have made a point of the Doc being arrogant towards humans in general, and refering to them as chip eaters who watch telly, and regularly pours scorn on them or derides them.
In episode 2 we are given the ultimate example of a voyeuristic society where people actually see the death of a planet as entertainment to gawp at.

I think that many indications are there that the human race is fickle, and that our way of life is such that a new idea can be introduced, and embraced wholeheartedly if presented in an effective manner.
So a new religion can potentially crop up at any time.

In episode 11:Boom Town, a character is introduced to the story that the Doctor thought was long dead. It sounds possible that this might be another Time Lord. It's entirely possible that from a human's eyes, somebody like a Time Lord could be worshipped as a god.



(Big)Bad Wolf

What does this mean?
I won't go into this too much as plenty has already been speculated about this so far, and I don't want to risk repeating too much of what others and myself have already posted elsewhere.

It appears at this moment in time that this expression refers to the Tardis and/or superior technology.
It might mean more, or something else entirely, but right now I don't have much that points to anything else.
In Episode 1, The Nestene Consciousness said it when it first saw the Tardis, and it invoked fear, paranoia, and anxiousness.

The Moxx of Balhoon spoke to The Face of Boe in Episode 2, and said "Indupitably, this IS the Bad Wolf Scenario. I find the laxity of the unknown (missing word) multiverse...<fades out>"
Again, in Episode 2, the small blue aliens who moved the Tardis repeated "Bad Wolf", although you don't catch it on first hearing.

In Episode 3, things take on a different light...When the servant girl Gwyneth reads Rose's mind she says that she knows Rose has seen "The Big Bad Wolf".
The word "Big" adds more mystery to this running theme.
In the trailer for episode 4"The Aliens of London, we see "Bad Wolf" spray painted onto the Tardis...Not "Big" Bad Wolf.

At this point in time there is more evidence to support the idea that refers to the Tardis itself. It may refer to either The Doctor, or Rose, but there is less evidence to support that at the moment.

According to Episode 2, we know that on platform one of the observation space station, religion, weapons, and the use of teleportation devices under the peace treaty.
A Tardis being a teleportation device, must be seen as a threat, and appears to have been something prohibited due to a war.

Bad Wolf ,Tardis breaking into a time line, or a dimension???(As in the Wolf breaking into the houses of the three little pigs)
It appears that Bad Wolf is another “meme”, and it looks like we might have to wait for further episodes to air before we can go much further in knowing what it will mean. There has already been much speculation about the meaning of Big Bad Wolf, that we may have come to a dead end for now. So I won’t go on about this any further here.


Tardis Technology

Obviously the Tardis has time travel technology, but what may also be of use is another technology it contains.
Telepathy and the abilty of thought control.

This type of technology would be very powerful, and in a war would be very useful in controlling people and keeping them "on message". Thought control would be a very powerful weapon to employ in a propaganda war.
Episode 2 highlighted these powers. Not only can it enable messages to be interpreted a certain way, the tabloid media would love to be able to use "psychic paper" as demonstrated in Episode 2.

The technology within the Tardis not only holds the secret to Time Travel, it also has the potential power to brainwash people.

Superior technology in the hands of humans would be the key element that would make Earth major key players in this Time War.
I don't think it's any mistake that the charcter that Bruno Langley plays in a future episode is that of a young "scientific genius".
It is almost a major clue that in a future story that Earth is trying to develop a technology of some sort that is a key part of this story.
It's not like he's cast as a chef, or a bank clerk, or something.

Meme

"The adherence of the repeated meme"
In episode 2, the appearance of the IPod and Britney Spears jokes are examples of a meme. And there the concept is introduced to the viewer of the show, coupled with the script reference when Cassandra's cyborgs are used to explain the concept, and subtely help the viewer link the Ipod and Britney jokes to the term.

i suggested that the term "Bad Wolf" could be a "meme" in this story. And although possibly merely being the tag of a kid spraying graffiti, can transform into something of far greating meaning and significance thousands of years into the future.

But the meme can take form in other ways.
It is often used to decribe political, religious, and cultural ideals that feed into themselves and become a distortion of themselves over time.
it's possible that "Bad Wolf" not only turns into a representation of an idea where the words take on a different meaning, it can actually become more than that when a form of idea becomes a meaning of great cultural significance, and even possibly becoming a form of pseudo-religion in itself.

A belief system is a meme, and I think that this will be a key feature later on in the story.


The new UNIT fictional website warns of a file-sharing computer virus being accidentally downloaded from the internet.
An internet virus is also a form of a "meme". A meme by it's very nature is viral.
"All your base are belongs to us" is an example of an idea that becomes an internet phenomena.
Thus a form of Pseudo-religion can be formed.