#dw speculation

[vantherelentless]

Melody Pond

River Song

Carol Flood.

[causalityparadoxes]

Okay but the Rogue throwing the bouquet and the Doctor catching it. The bride's bouquet, superstition signifying the next person who will marry. The Doctor putting on the Rogue's engagement ring.

Its the fantasy era, whats a billion trillion to one when you have coincidence on your side. What story is complete without a marriage.

They are going to find him and they are having that goddamn wedding.

[ordemparcial]

i think conrad will be the villain in the season finale and they should've let kate kill the bastard

[dandelionjack]

random out of the blue theory-slash-headcanon regarding "Rogue": he's either a Time Agent, Division or CIA. the whirlwind romance was a honeypot for the Doctor, practically textbook spycraft. and it worked.

the Doctor loves to fall for morally grey rascals, right? so they, whoever 'they' are, construct a perfectly designed handsome bounty hunter for the Doctor to become enchanted by, complete with a 'heart of gold' and undue self-sacrificial heroism.

then a monster. there needs to be a monster. since this is all play-acting and showmanship, make them cosplayers. draw the Doctor in. make the puzzle irresistible for him.

break his heart. enthrall his mind. entice him to place the tracker ring onto his finger of his own accord. gather intelligence: confirm that this is The Doctor, the sole living Time Lord in the universe, highly dangerous entity, war criminal of his own admittance, and my oh my, what a prize. what a bounty on his head. but not quite yet. Rogue's recon mission along with his Chuldur fellow travellers was just for information, and they got that aplenty, TARDIS console tour and all.

all six of them were oddly calm as Rogue pressed send on the triform trap: they weren't going to a barren dimension. they were headed back to Headquarters, ready to report a successful task completed.

[peyotebritta]

What are people's take on this? The pyramids in the background seem to support the Sutekh theory or are they just mountains?. Triad = Pyramids. Sue's Tech = Sutekh ( a stretch, I know but the Osirans do have advanced tech to rival the time lords). Maybe Susan is a (unwitting) servant of Sutekh like this guy in Pyramid of Mars whose face we never saw:

Looking at the promo pictures, it struck me how similar this image is to Sutekh's time corridor:

Additionally, we see this sand/dust cloud in the trailer. Sutekh wanted to turn all existence to dust:

We know an ancient evil will be awoken from within UNIT using TRIAD technology. Sutekh has been trapped since ancient antiquity but almost escaped in 1911 from a time corridor in UNIT's basement. but the Doctor forced him to age 7000s years, presumably killing him. But if not, he could certainly qualify as The One Who Waits.

We also know S Triad = TARDIS which seems to suggest time lord technology or something similar. If she used a prototype that went wrong, it could have scattered her across time without her knowing and she's experiencing her other lives as dreams.

We also have the matter of the Doctor's TARDIS acting strange, perhaps TRIAD Technology is siphoning energy or life from the Doctor's TARDIS In order to work

Additionally thoughts:

we have a new Tales of Tardis episode airing the day before the finale that will feature Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson. I'm assuming they will be in the Memory Tardis, which we know feeds on stories. which could link to the tv show / unreality theory. Is the Memory Tardis Triad Tech? Maybe she is selling it as a commercial experience to relive memories but it's a Ghost Machine Doomsday situation and she doesn't truly know what she's messing with or that her dreams are actually happening irl as a side effect of using the tech.

Empire of Death- Sutekh is the god of death

Tom Baker is the only Doctor to not appear in Tales of the TARDIS, so the new episode will likely be a Fourth Doctor story. Pyramids of Mars is my bet but are there any credible ideas?

But how to reconcile this with the 'tv show in a tv show' theory and Ruby's parentage? And this is complicated by this claim from RTD that the finale will link back to the Pertwee era, suggesting someone like Omega? Or maybe Susan worked for UNIT back in the 70s and has been building the technology for 50 years andh as only now succeeded with the influence of TOWW.

Every clue seems to raise more questions. I'd love to get people's thoughts as I may be spiraling here.

One thing I am sure of? Susan Triad is not the one in control

[inhonoredglory]

The Susan twist isn't over!!

She's the Doctor's child. Dad a postman? Mom a dinner lady? That's TenRose coding 👀

She's the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler's kid crossing dimensions and scattering herself in time and space.

Just like her mother.

[fan-of-chaos]

At this point I have 3 theories about who Mrs. Flood could be:

1 . The Master, somehow. The evil vibes, the way she acts and speaks, the comment about "she had so many plans" are all things that would fit Master. (Counterpoint to the theory -> the whole talk about meeting the Maker and tearing down golden gates)

2. Clara, somehow?????? Because of "that clever boy comment" and the way she was dressed, the same clothes Clara wore at some point. (Counterpoint to the theory -> IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSEEE)

3. My newest theory, one i think might be the most probable one. THE FUCKING. TIME ENTITY WE MET IN FLUX!!

BC IT CAN MIMIC SHAPE!!! And what we see in episode 8??? Mrs. Flood mimicking other thing from Doctor's history!!! Familiar clothes, familiar catchphrases!!!

AND THIS??? Talking about the end of the Doctor??

And it would be powerful enough to be confusing in the way Mrs. Flood is!! I am connecting the dots!!!

[who-datgirl]

Okay y’all so I have been thinking about the finale since Friday and the more I puzzle on it, the less I believe Ruby’s fairy tale ending was genuine. I of course was a big proponent of the “Ruby is River’s daughter theory”, but I am starting to be one of those people who think she is an unknown member of the pantheon. More specifically, I think she may be the daughter of The Trickster, I’ll go into why.

Let’s start with Ruby’s “mom” in the flashback, her hooded face with humanoid lips visible gives me serious Trickster vibes from SJA. A constant lament was “WHY CAN’T I SEE HER FACE?” Well, The Trickster really doesn’t have much of a face aside from ruby-red lips and sharp teeth. Honestly, why would a 15 year old have such an ominous cloak and where did she get it between the maternity ward and abandoning Ruby at the church? Granted a 15 year old still high on painkillers from giving birth could definitely do some zany shit, but it seems like a stretch to me. If my hunch is somehow correct, I would go so far to say that in the time window they did not see Ruby’s parent crying under the hood, but rather laughing maniacally. In fact, I honestly thought she was laughing when I first watched that scene. If the “mom” is actually The Trickster, then he would definitely have been laughing as he takes great pleasure in messing around with The Doctor and their companions.

The Trickster is the god of traps, which typically involves some narrative that a person falls prey to in order to be ensnared by the trap set for them. Ruby as the child of that entity could totally be able to create narratives that people would happily believe and become a part of, or to put it succinctly: a story. It isn’t any further of a stretch than the god of games having a child that is the god of music.

I think as the season went on, Ruby subconsciously created her own happy ending and bio parents piece by piece. Finding her parents seemed to be a process of creation as it unfolded. The DNA scan in 2046 only showed Ruby’s DNA twice. After defeating Sutekh though, 2024 UNIT was able to seamlessly find some ordinary and flawed woman eager to reconnect with and apologize to her abandoned child. Her bio mom is even willing to reach out to a presumable one night stand from 20 years ago, catch up with him, and see if he wants to become a father figure after two decades. Also the origin of Ruby’s name through a street sign that seemed to not exist in the footage, until it suddenly did, felt like an actual change to the timeline. I have nothing against this ending per se, it just all felt deliberately too perfect as if reality was bending entirely to Ruby’s deepest desires. To top it off Ruby somehow pulled the exact narrative of 10 and Rose’s goodbye for 15 and herself, almost as if unconsciously she tuned into one of The Doctor’s deepest heartbreaks to reflect how horribly she felt about leaving them.

I don’t think Ruby’s real story is close to done. I think her perfect ending will start to show cracks, and the reality of it will seem more created than true. Eventually we may even see her wake up to the truth of her power in time for The Trickster to come in and truly fuck around with things for her and 15. It would be interesting to see her owning her power to send her own bio parent into a narrative that The Trickster could never escape.

There is just too much that went unaddressed. How did Ruby conjure snow? Why was Maestro so disturbed by her hidden song that they said there was something seriously WRONG with her (Maestro literally refers to her as a CREATURE)? How did she fold her own timeline back in 73 yards? Why were people so terrified of or infuriated by the apparition that we now know was Ruby? Did the Ruby in the distance tell people about her ties to the Pantheon of Discord? Did the apparition know the truth of Ruby that is hidden even from herself? Why would Sutekh care about the hooded parent more than anything else he creeped on during his centuries attached to the TARDIS? Is he a Jerry Springer fan, obsessed with “you ARE/ARE NOT the parent” reveals?

One final thing that makes me think they may pull a child of The Trickster into the story. In SJA before Elisabeth Sladen passed, they were planning on revealing that her adopted daughter Sky was really The Trickster’s child all along. The episode never aired as SJA could not go on without Elisabeth. I could see RTD honoring her show by making that story canon through Ruby. After all, Ruby too is an adopted daughter.

[digitalwizard01]

Theres people out there saying 15 is gonna regenerate this week, which I don't think is true because the next Doctor would have been announced by now if it was. But if it is true I'd lowkey be a little pissed that he didn't get a single iconic villain episode. No Daleks, no Cybermen, no Angels, no Master. Like that seems disrespectful to me

[matt0044]

Why I feel The Rani and Sutekh's returns work better than some feel.

Given how the Doctor's established as an immortal being and one who's lived for a looooong time with many adventures, there are bound to be many adventures that, be you Classic or New Who viewers, we were not privy to. That means many friends returning we might not've seen before or grudge matches with old foes just rearing their ugly heads as far as we're concerned.

So those going, "Who?" at the Rani, well, that's more a feature than a bug. Mind you, it depends on how the finale plays out but all we need to know is that the Doctor knows Mrs. Flood's real identity under unfavorable circumstances. Not doing "homework" is often part of the charm for me because not knowing the Doctor's full past is part of the character.

Same with Susan. The Doctor having a granddaughter would add to his vast, mysterious past.

This was always something when it came to NuWho and reintroducing elements of Classic Who. While I will admit that some restablishment could do with more heavy lifting, viewers only need know that the Doctor hasn't always left the best of impressions prior to his Nineth Incarnation.

Though... I ponder if they should do "Previously On..." segments similar to Twice Upon A Time which utilized footage from Classic Who. Like highlights from "Prisoners of Mars" are played before Empire of Death. Like we get clips from "Mark of the Rani" and "Time of the Rani" to precede the next episode.

[katoska]

I know my view that Conrad was never a lying grifter and was instead a bonafide psychotic (literal hallucinations and delusions) conspiracy theorist isn't exactly popular (go search his name on my blog to catch up if you do want to see where I'm coming from with this), but I'm gonna play within that headcanon for a bit:

I think Conrad giving the Doctor Poppy as a daughter was meant be as loud a message as Conrad dared to send to say that he believes in Ruby's stories now and is asking for help.

Cause like, the only people in control of the world are the Ranis and Conrad. And of those, only Conrad would have known about Poppy (as well as about Rogue; cause I don't think that message really came from Rogue, I think Ruby told Conrad about her adventures and he faked Rogue to send the Doctor a message. No wonder the effects looked bad).

Thing is, well, the first thing is, that those messages played right into the Rani's hands by making the Doctor doubt, so if Conrad meant them as rebellion, he failed big time.

The second thing is that the Doctor wasn't in any doubt in Lucky Day that Conrad already believed in aliens but had been lying about it like a lying grifter, so the intended message (as I see it) mightn't have come through. Though idk what else the "Poppy is real. Don't you see what that means?" could mean if not at least a realisation that Conrad sent him Poppy, if not also that Conrad has only recently come to believe Space Babies happened for real. Mind you, the Doctor, at least most days, is still perfectly willing to save even lying grifters if they ask.

[amuseoffyre]

Thinking about the current series of Who again in the context of the overall arc beginning with the Toymaker episode and the running thread of media and self-awareness within the show.

The Toymaker set things in motion with Stookie Bill, invading and overpowering the world through the very first television broadcast and "if the very first image has been hiding in every screen ever since, sneaking into your head, carving a wave and waiting", wouldn't something like that leave a mark?

We know the Toymaker has 'children' of a kind in the shape of Maestro, a creature that consumes and manipulates music. We also know a fragment of the Toymaker (eta. forgot it was the Master trapped in there) was picked up by someone/something at the end of the episode.

We also know there's something bigger than Maestro on its way - The One Who Waits.

It got me thinking about the genre jumping this season has been doing all over the place and the way different kinds of media and watching and use of media is critical to every bit of the plot.

The Church on Ruby Road - Ruby's life is very literally the subject of a television show which is the trigger for her becoming the target of the Goblins (Documentary)

Space Babies - a group of children confined in a space station with tasks and jobs and monitored by someone unseen who is watching them and will speak to them through an audio system (Big Brother)

The Devil's Chord - Centred on real musicians saving the day with a show-stopping finale significantly with "we should visit [Star Trek]", Maestro playing the Who theme music, diagetic sound being mentioned and multiple characters breaking the fourth wall, suggesting self-awareness of being part of the media (Musicals)

Boom - A dramatic war story where someone goes in search of their lost father on the battlefield spiced up with conspiracy of Big Capitalism's war profiteering (War films)

73 Yards - All the broadcast and media related elements that help Ruby piece together her role and defeat the villain of the episode without doing anything herself with all cameras pointed and focused on her - she is the object who is being watched but uses that as a weapon, turning the MP character into the subject (Horror/Fairytales)

Dot and Bubble - this one speaks for itself, really. The echo-chamber of 'influencers' sustaining themselves on a self-feeding fatuous loop of people so awful that the AI designed to protect them eats them XD (Youtube-style media)

Rogue - they're cosplaying Bridgerton. The Doctor, Rogue, Ruby, the villains. They're all cosplaying Bridgerton and say as much in the dialogue. It's a play. A drama within a drama. About watching and waiting for the narrative beats and recognising the arcs and trying to rewrite the story (Bridgerton)

Then we have the recurring character (played by Susan Twist) who appears through all of the episodes, which is what's bringing me back to Stookie Bill and the concept of someone being present inside the story from the beginning.

What if she is the one who waits? She keeps recurring in every storyline they stumble into because - like Stookie Bill - she's "hiding in every screen ever since, sneaking into your head, carving a wave and waiting".

And, because my brain makes giant leaps of logic, it made me think of the most famous icon of the BBC from back in the day: the Test Card F screen, that was put on the screen when no shows were playing. It was on screens across the world for decades. It was iconic and it was a sign to wait for your shows to come.

One who waits with a puppet and a game :D

[causalityparadoxes]

My favourite thing from the new episodes is the lore they're building around Gods (or those from outside the universe) being able to interact with the 4th wall.

I cant quite remember but I think the Toymaker made a few nods to it? The Maestro absolutely did. They took the 4th wall and said hey babes! Pay attention to me ;) right now ;) LOOK AT ME

But the DOCTOR. Oh my god the DOCTOR Literally saying "I thought that was non-diagetic" The fact he can hear the shows backing music!!! (Does he just tune it out normally??) Absolutely insane concept i love it.

You could argue they alluded to this with the 12th Doctor playing the show's theme tune but to outright state it. My god where are they going with this i am obsessed

Similarly him winking to the camera at the end. Very reminicent of the 4th doctor skirting the same line.

But to have what were little silly allisions pointed out and clearly wrapped into the story? As a way of showing showing us WHO is godlike and WHO has connections to outside the universe? Again i am obsessed.

I'm guessing it will tie into their continued explorations of the Timeless Child. I am so excited to find out. I am so excited for more silly 4th wall breakers or perhaps one who makes it terrifying.

As a last, this also implies Mrs Flood is a God. Not surprising but interesting... I have absolutely no idea what to make of any of this.

[dandelionjack]

an essay about Rogue, The Chimes of Midnight, and how i believe all this ties in to the overarching themes of the series EVEN IF the inside-a-tv-show theory proves untrue

“Rogue” named himself after a stock character. he is the archetypal Handsome Rogue because there has to be a Handsome Rogue role in a period drama story set in Austenesque Regency England.

it’s all theatre — smoke and mirrors. just like the war waged against imaginary foes in boom (because there needs to be an Enemy in a wartime story) was theatre; the creation of the Bogeyman in space babies (because there needs to be a Scary Monster in a children’s bedtime story) was theatre; The Woman following Ruby in 73 yards (because there needs to be a Ghost in a folk horror story) was theatre. dot and bubble less so, but it’s wise to note — the dots created the slugs after all. they invented the slugs so that there would be a tangible Creature for the finetimers (and the Doctor) to fear, rather than simply being betrayed by their own technology. because that’s exactly what the false, harmful narratives colonialists tell themselves — stories of taming and conquering a wild Mother Nature and her ferocious beasts — have trained them to expect from the world. the dots were telling a story too, or rather putting on a play.

the penultimate episode of any doctor who series, if not always leading directly into the two-parter finale, will typically begin to tie up loose narrative strands that have stretched across the entire season. at a first impression rogue doesn’t seem to be doing that. but then you take a closer look at the antagonists: creatures that play a role for fun without the slightest regard for those around them. lethal LARPers. cosplayers out to kill. to put it pretentiously, a hyper-realistic theatre of cruelty.

to nobody’s surprise, i’m bringing up my favourite eighth doctor audio drama — the chimes of midnight. edward grove gives every person trapped in the time loop a designated role: the chauffeur, the doctor-detective, the plucky young lady of the house, the lady’s maid, the scullery girl, the housekeeper. they keep playing these roles, over and over, until they begin to forget their original identity, until the part they’re playing takes over their entire sense of self. the servants keep dying over and over because they cannot transcend their roles, because they believe themselves to be “nothing but a scullery maid”. they are reduced to the parts they play in the narrative until they become nothing outside of it, until they become confined to a single location.

the chimes of midnight is set in Edwardian-era England, a time of restrictive, prescriptive class, status and social roles which defined a person’s life and career trajectory — this strict delineation is driven to its logical conclusion and deconstructed under the unnatural conditions of Edward Grove. similarly, rogue is set in a Regency-era mansion — another historical period defined in the popular imagination by its complicated social rules, elegant courtship dynamics, strict class barriers, gossip and elitism. these two doctor who stories don’t have any intentional watsonian connection, but they are deeply linked on a thematic level.

high society is forced theatre. a 24/7 LARP. play your part, put on your costume, don’t interrupt the performance. the audience is waiting. they’re oh so hungry for tragedy.

the biggest part of them all, the most sought-after role, of course, is The Doctor. a standard to live up to. a name to wear like a banner, a pledge, a promise. he has to be like this because this is what he’s like.

the Scullery Maid scrubs the kitchen floor. The Detective searches for clues. the Chauffeur starts up his car. the Duchess hosts a glittering soirée. the Rake hides a secret fling with the Wallflower. the Rogue breaks hearts and broods on the balcony.

and the Doctor? the Doctor dances. “onwards and upwards”. forever in perpetual motion, spinning and spinning and spinning across the stars. never pausing to breathe. never stopping.

p.s.: so, pray tell, what is Ruby Sunday in all this? “The Companion”, of course. smart, funny, sassy, quick-witted, brave, cheeky, curious, self-sacrificial. she almost feels generic because she’s meant to be. she wasn’t born. she was written. an essential part of the story too. circling the Doctor like a satellite forever.

[theheroheart]

So we're pretty 100% of Rogue being an alien.

But I was watching the behind-the-scenes stuff, and... judging on this, he's a race called Assarian???

The first time it's mentioned, it sounds like it could be just like, the race that Rogue originally got the ship from maybe? But the second time...

Saying the crew built the spaceship specifically for "the Assarian" - singular, not plural for the race, but referring to an individual - Rogue.

(I can't find any info about this race. There's the "Aesirian" which is close, from a Nine/Rose/Jack comic. The Aesirian were apparently destroyed during a war which included the Time Lords. There's also a time lord named "Vassarian", but with no "the".)

[ravenofazarath2]

It could just be a coincidence (though in a series about how coincidences aren’t just coincidence, I doubt it), but I’m wondering if Belinda Chandra is somehow related or connected to Rani Chandra from The Sarah Jane Adventures. And, since the Rani is a Classic Who villain, maybe Belinda is actually her?