We’re two episodes into the new series of Doctor Who and from what we’ve seen so far the arc plot is going to be even more complex than last year. Here are a few theories that have occurred to me over the last couple of days. They aren’t spoilers in any meaningful way as I don’t know any more than anyone who has seen the first two episodes of the series and has spend an unreasonable number of waking hours trawling the internet for clues about what is going on.
However, you might still want to avoid the rest of the post on the off-chance that I get something right.
Let’s start with a few obvious things:
- The eye-patch lady is going to be important. It’s possible, of course, that she just appears in Day of the Moon as an expression of Amy’s confusion in the children’s home. But if that was the case, I’m pretty sure that Frances Barber wouldn’t have taken the job. She might be keen to be in Doctor Who, but she wouldn’t do it for a single ten second appearance. She’ll definitely be back. And she’ll be important.
- Craig Owens will be back. Ok, we already know that James Corden will be returning but it’s now almost certain that the abandoned spaceship upstairs from his flat was a Silence vessel so I think that he’ll be playing Craig again.
- Amy is having some kind of “Schroedinger pregnancy”. Whether or not she is pregnant won’t be resolved until the probabilities are collapsed by some action that the TARDIS crew take later on in the season. And my suspicion is that she will will be pregnant – for reasons that will be clearer after my next few points.
Then, a few theories that are a bit more out there, but still supported by some evidence:
- Amy’s daughter is the little girl from the spacesuit. We’ve seen photos that strongly imply that.
- The little girl either is a Time Lord or has somehow acquired some Time Lord attributes (like the ability to regenerate). This will be due to Amy and Rory travelling in the TARDIS for so long. Amy’s fears about the baby having a “time head” will prove to be prophetic.
- The Silence are interested in the little girl because of her Time Lord abilities. Remember what River said about Time Lord bodies at the start of The Impossible Astronaut.
- It was River in the spacesuit at the beginning of The Impossible Astronaut. This ties in with what she said about killing the best man she ever knew. Not sure about this. There were no surviving witnesses who knew who it was – so how would she be convicted and imprisoned?
And some stuff that is pretty much guesswork:
- The little girl will grow up to be River Song. But would that invalidate the ending of Forest of the Dead?
- There’s an upcoming episode called “The Doctor’s Wife”. And there’s a character in that called Idris, who is described as an old friend with a new face. That’ll be one of River’s earlier regenerations. And, given the title of the episode, I’m going to guess that this is when The Doctor and River marry (or, at least, come as close as they ever do to marrying).
That’s nine predictions. It’ll be interesting to come back after the end of the series how close I got.
What do you think? Any alternative theories?
‘Idris’ is curiously similar to ‘Tardis’, don’t you think? I don’t know more about this than you, but I’d be hard-pressed to believe that’s a coincidence.
Another thought: there have already been multiple references to the fact that The Doctor and River Song are moving in opposite time directions.The audience seems to be moving in the same direction as The Doctor, which if true & consistent would suggest that every time we get a new episode with Song, we’re seeing something earlier in her personal timeline. Given that, an episode title like “The Doctor’s Wife” might imply an inflection point, where everything leading up to that has their timelines converging, and everything after is flinging back apart somehow. The idea that the “astronaut” is Song as a child could, in a way, play into this somehow.
If River were in the suit as a child, she did a fine job of acting like she’d never seen it before as an adult. Plus, what would her motivation be as a child to shoot the Doctor?At least, if it’s her as a (probably younger) adult, there’s a way to construct a story that gives her a grown-up motivation.Having said that, the Doctor did say reassuring things to the suit’s owner before he got shot, which is more consistent with it being someone immature. Or Amy. :-)
I don’t think it’s River as a child in the spacesuit. I think it’s her as an adult (but still younger than we’ve seen her before).
Guesswork/1No, it wouldn’t invalidate the ending of Forest of the Dead: River tells the Doctor he wouldn’t regenerate, so it is reasonable to assume that she wouldn’t either.If, that is, any of this series is amenable to a ‘reasonable to assume’ argument. Don’t get me wrong – I love it (have done for 40-odd years). The speculation is half of the fun: the other half is when the writers come up with something even better than we thought.
Another thought: Didn’t the eye-patch lady say something about “she’s just dreaming” ? Maybe the whole season is Amy Pond’s dream?That’s the biggest cop-out a TV show can pull, but maybe they’re trying anyway.