Grand Theories of Batshit

[taleya]

There is one thing that is fairly evident at this point in the series, even only two episodes in. We are not seeing events as they occur "in real time" in the series, and we are seeing timelines within timelines. There have been hints on and off (starting with the fact that we are seeing the tail end (for lack of a better phrase) of a ourobouros in the first episode), but the strongest supporting indicator is the odd moment in Day of the Moon with the non-existent panel, and the words "I think she's just dreaming." This intimates that what we are seeing could in fact be flashbacks, a memory stream, or even a faked state. There are two possibilities for this: The clone ep is coming up this season - with a Doctor who Amy and Rory cannot tell from the real one. This means that not only his body, but at least his personality, quirks, and a great deal of his memory are also duplicated for the simulacrum to be indistinguishable by people who know him rather well. We also have the sub-dermal transmitters being laid in place. It's a reasonable jump to assume that if they can wire to a cartilage and neural network, they could also be used to retrieve this information in a full sensory experience.

It's also important to remember that Day of the Moon is not "episode two of season six" - it's episode 15 of a twenty-six part adventure. Smith's first two seasons are very strongly intertwined. And running throughout both is the idea of time being rewritten, erased, and going wrong. Quite very possibly due to the machinations of the Silence (as seen in the Lodger). We've also had indications that Rivers timeline may no longer be running truly backwards in time with the Doctors. Which raises the very interesting question re: Amy's pregnancy - the TARDIS scanner shows her pregnant/not pregnant/pregnant. Are we seeing a machine screw, the fact this is a faulty recollection, or was the child literally conceived in a different timeline? There have also been a few continuity errors: River's timeline, and the Doctor's claim to have "never tried wine" (again: the Lodger, and his reaction was pretty much the same as in Impossible Astronaut). Are these separate incidents due to clumsy writing (unlikely), or indications of a greater overarching plot - are we seeing two timelines at once (as posited when watching Smith's first season) and if that's the case, have we been watching two different shows at once? (awesome, if true.) If Space and Time are part of this overarching plotline, (and in Day of the Moon, there are indications that Space and Time are designed to be considered part of the canon. The reference to servo-couplings, without an explicit explanation of what they are or where they are ties in very neatly with the repair job seen at the start of Space (in fact, Rory actually drops thermo couplings) and of course the pregnancy tie in with Amy's Important Question) then the precedent has already been set for a malfunctioning TARDIS to create duplicates out of phase and as we all know "...someone's attempt to build a TARDIS" (The lodger)

You could also play with the Dream Lord angle. It's entirely possible that residual infection from the Psychic Pollen from the Candle Meadows of Karass Don Slava (Amy's Choice) is causing this entire season. There's the dual theme of pregnancy throughout. Of course, growing up with a crack in your wall, the whole of universe entering into your head, and being erased...and the fact that the entire existence of the Doctor and the TARDIS (arguably the most powerful ship in the universe) was retrieved based on memories in Amy's mind adds that additional possibility that she may, entirely unintentionally, be fucking everyone up the arse. She wants, she doesn't want, she wants, she doesn't want, and the duality of that may be rippling outwards.

Of course, if you want to go the clone theory, let's go full on. The child regenerates. Amy and Rory are rumoured to have a falling out (after she drove a truck into a house purely on the basis that if reality didn't contain him, she didn't want it, and he waited two thousand years for her). The child is widely theorised to be Amy's. So let's go for it. Go full on batshit. What if clone!Amy and Clone!Doctor get it on, Rory is left by his poor little Clone!self and the kid is half timelord, half human (or three quarters human if you follow movie canon). Or it's a mash of all of them. Or equally the child is born or conceived at a time of flux and the much-touted Artron Energy emitted by a regenerating Timelord is used to fully manifest it into reality. Then again, Moffat did personally intervene to ensure that Jenny from The Doctor's Daughter didn't die, so....

There is also the fact that in Time and the Rani, McCoy states his age as exactly 953. So RTD's age poncing is bullshit anyway. (Sorry guys, Old School canon wins over Nu. Don't like it? I has a pair of buttocks you can apply yon lips to :P) And seeing as 8 is canon (Human Nature, televised version) then we have an even longer age, of only to account for the fact that McCoy got old between Survival and Enemy Within, and where Ace got off to. If you want to go extended Canon, he's well over 1200 at this point. So you can also set yourself a headcanon in which the clone is actually reflecting the Doctor's TRUE age and is the one who died in Impossible Astronaut:P

Then there's also other naggling questions. In Vampires of Venice, Signora Calvierri said "We saw silence, and the end of all things..." She may not be strictly speaking of the events regarding the Pandorica, but also of the Silence. If this is the case, why flee to a planet positively infested with them? And where did all the Star Whales go - in The Beast Below Amy is 1306 (or 1308, there's a two year difference between the spoken and the graphic) and Liz says there were millions of Star Whales in the early days of space travel, but they all "disappeared" - from a population of millions to only one survivor in around a thousand years? (torasin's answer: Space Japan) And why would the time machine in The Lodger, which is shown later to be very indicative of Silence technology have humaniform holograms and attempt to attract human pilots, forty years after humanity was programmed with a beserk button at the sight of a Silence? (actually, that one answers itself if you think about it :) A lot of little continuity errors I have the feeling will, in retrospect, turn out to be quite important.




In short: I am rambling and Moff is feckin' godly because this is going to prove a hell of a lot more involving and intricate than anything nuWho has produced before. Awesome.