You might find it here http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GroundhogDayLoop, under "Music Videos"

ukaunz wrote:

You might find it here http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GroundhogDayLoop, under "Music Videos"

Ah, thanks, it was 'Seven Days'. Not a very interesting song otherwise, IMHO. What a great page, I had no idea that that particular storyline was that common. 

Yes, I was pretty certain that it wasn't going to top last week's episode, and it didn't, but still pretty good.  Some thoughts ...

Spoiler »Loved all the references!  (I'm sure I didn't get them all).  Some nice little points for fans.

I was disappointed about the hybrid.   So all the prophesy meant was that a hybrid would literally stand in the ruins?  And it didn't really matter who or what the hybrid was?   After a build-up over the whole series, that fell a bit flat for me!  (And I'm not convinced that two different people of different races = a hybrid, even if they're very close!  If anything Doctor-like Clara was more of a hybrid herself, a human made living dead by Timelords). 

At first I thought Clara was a splinter Clara who didn't know the Doctor, then that she had had her memory wiped, like Donna, and then, of course, it turned that the polarity had been reversed!  There was some disagreement in this household over whether this was a good plot point or not.  Personally I liked it.  What happenned to Donna was tragic, and I didn't really want to see a repeat of it.  What happened to the Doctor seemed more gentle: he didn't forget everything, only who Clara was.  He must have felt a bit uncomfortable about his four and a half billion years of torture to save an unknown person, but at least he knew that it worked, and that she was out there somewhere.   His "duty of care" line (repeated from an earlier episode) was touching.  

The "good" thing about the Doctor having Clara's memory wiped is that he can now start fresh: going into the Christmas episode and the next series he won't be grieving. 

Clara seemed pretty perky at the end, and I suppose it turned out that she wanted to be the Doctor more than she wanted to be with the Doctor.    (Was there possibly some sexual/romantic chemistry between her and Ashild'r or was that wishful thinking?).   It was almost a happy ending for her, off in her own personal, stolen (after her telling Hartnell which one to steal!), retro Tardis to have adventures with an immortal friend.   I wonder if they'll be back?

I'd like to have seen more of the Timelords story.  Did they really trap the Doctor in his confession dial just to try to find out information about a folk tale?   What had happened to them at the end of time - what DID destroy them, if not the hybrid/Doctor/Me?   Is Gallifrey now "found" and can the Doctor go back if he wants?

I wondered what happened to the immortal highwayman (I've forgotten his name) it would have been nice to see him again!  And to see Missy and find out what her clever plan was!  But I suppose they couldn't have tied up every single loose end.

Last edited by Liberty (December 6, 2015 10:03 am)

Wow, I just watched Hell Bent and I want to discuss it, but it's so late and I ought to go to bed... But here's a list of my thoughts/questions/things I liked etc.

Spoiler »- So, I guess I wasn't the only one who took a while to figure out what was going on with Clara in the diner, and then when I thought I'd figured it out, I was wrong (I thought it was Clara who had forgotten who she was).
- Clara asks the Doctor if he's been travelling and he says "yeah, from time to time".
- Is there a song called "Clara's Song"? Was the Doctor playing her theme?
- I wish I knew more about the history of Gallifrey and the Time War. I feel at a disadvantage, not knowing what is going on!
- Was that barn in a previous episode? It looks familiar. What did that Sister mean about the Doctor going "back to the beginning"?
- How did the Gallifreyan woman recognise the Doctor?
- Going by the context, I'm guessing Skull Moon as was a battle of the Time War?
- The Hybird "will unravel the web of time and destroy a billion billion hearts to heal its own. "
- "On pain of death, no-one take a selfie!"
- Doctor wears a ring? I hadn't noticed before.
- "We're on Gallifrey. Death is Time Lord for man flu!"
- "Ugh... Back to normal, am I? The only time I've been a man, that last body. Dear Lord, how do you cope with all that ego?"
- The Matrix...
- Story about the student in the cloisters, that was the Doctor, was it?
- "I was a completely different person in those days. Eccentric, a bit mad, rude to people."
- Clara: "OK, listen... I have something I need to say. [...] My time is up. Doctor, between one heartbeat and the last is all the time I have. People like me and you, we should say things to one another. And I'm going to say them now..." And then the goodbye scene... Damn you Moffat, it was like reliving the tarmac scene! What did Clara say to the Doctor!?
- Original Tardis interior? Awesome!
- I just knew it would be Me
- Still no definite answer about the Hybrid, just theories. So the Hybrid is two people? Not actually a genetic hybrid?
- All the talk about Missy, the lover of chaos, pushing the Doctor and Clara together, and the Doctor insisting "we're just friends"... why does this make me think of Sherlock?
- "What Clara told you in the Cloisters... You said memories become stories when we forget them. Maybe some of them become songs." Is he going to spend the next season composing a song?
- Clara and Ashildr taking off in their own Tardis. Sexual tension? Possibly, haven't there been hints that Clara is bisexual?
- New sonic screwdriver! My son loves it and wants one.

Last edited by ukaunz (December 6, 2015 11:58 am)

So for the last few months I've been watching the NuWho episodes from the start, trying to catch up so I can understand all these story arcs and characters etc. On the weekend I watched The Stolen Earth (S04E12) and was thoroughly confused. Did I miss something?? I knew some of the characters...  Donna and her family, Martha Jones, Rose, Captain Jack, Harriet Jones and Sarah Jane Smith... And I vaguely knew about UNIT and Torchwood... But all of a sudden it was like I'd missed an episode or two. Since when does Sarah Jane have a teenaged son? What is this Mr Smith computer? Have we been introduced to Ianto Jones and Gwen before, because I certainly don't remember that happening, although it felt like I was supposed to know them. I kind of know about Davros from Classic Who and later episodes of NuWho... I know nothing about the Shadow Architect though. I really felt like I was thrown in the deep end with this episode! It was exciting though! And kinda funny... except for (oh no!) another regeneration, and now I'm going to miss David Tennant But I will get to know Matt Smith better, and meet Amy and Rory

Last edited by ukaunz (December 7, 2015 2:53 am)

ukaunz wrote:

So for the last few months I've been watching the NuWho episodes from the start, trying to catch up so I can understand all these story arcs and characters etc. On the weekend I watched The Stolen Earth (S04E12) and was thoroughly confused. Did I miss something?? I knew some of the characters... Donna and her family, Martha Jones, Rose, Captain Jack, Harriet Jones and Sarah Jane Smith... And I vaguely knew about UNIT and Torchwood... But all of a sudden it was like I'd missed an episode or two. Since when does Sarah Jane have a teenaged son? What is this Mr Smith computer? Have we been introduced to Ianto Jones and Gwen before, because I certainly don't remember that happening, although it felt like I was supposed to know them. I kind of know about Davros from Classic Who and later episodes of NuWho... I know nothing about the Shadow Architect though. I really felt like I was thrown in the deep end with this episode! It was exciting though! And kinda funny... except for (oh no!) another regeneration, and now I'm going to miss David Tennant But I will get to know Matt Smith better, and meet Amy and Rory

I think I can answer some of your questions. 
We haven't been introduced to Gwen and Ianto in DW before, but at the time "The Stolen Earth" was shown on TV there already was "Torchwood". So if you knew "Torchwood", you also knew Ianto and Gwen. If you didn't know TW, then you most likely hadn't seen them before. I knew TW before I knew DW, so for me it was nice to see Ianto and Gwen in a DW episode.
Shadow Architect...? I guess you mean the Shadow Proclamation where Ten and Donna travel to in order to find out what happened to Earth, right? I think Ten (and possibly also Nine) mentioned the Shadow Proclamation in earlier episodes, but we first saw them in "The Stolen Earth". So you didn't really miss anything there.
I can't really answer your Sarah Jane question, but there is a spin-off called "The Sarah Jane Adventures", and I suppose that in this show you would learn why she has a teenage son. I haven't seen it though.
 

Last edited by SolarSystem (December 7, 2015 7:21 am)

I love all your points about Hell Bent! 

Spoiler »I think the barn was also in "Listen".

One of my favourite little references was when the Doctor was asked to put down his weapon, and he put down the spoon - it reminded me of Robot of Sherwood!

I'm still not happy with the Doctor and Clara being the hybrid, IF that's the case - surely a hybrid should be two in one, not .. two in two?  I know they overlapped a bit, but I'm kind of unhappy with that.   I presuming that destroying hearts referred to the Doctor burning himself over and over in Heaven Sent, so it makes sense that he thought he was the hybrid.  But in the end ... it doesn't matter?  If this was something just personal to the Doctor and Clara, why would it be a Gallifreyan prophecy?   Did I miss something?   I think I'm going to have to watch it again, maybe with subtitles to make sure I'm getting it all, as I definitely missed some bits of dialogue.

Thanks for answering my questions guys

Haha, don't worry Lily, I was joking! They are very old episodes after all, and I know a lot of spoilers (and I was quoting River Song, couldn't you tell?)

Last edited by ukaunz (December 7, 2015 7:56 pm)

Liberty wrote:

I just think the dialogue is really clear, and his distress is evident: it's not just because what he has to do seems onerous but because he remembers doing it thousands/millions/billions of times before.   I agree that it doesn't make sense for the copy to remember, but I think he does.  Unfortunately, he only remembers at that time, just before he dies.   I few posts back, I posted what he says, and I find it really difficult to interpret it as anything other than him suddenly remembering.   I'll just have to think of it as "magic" .
 

Maybe he experiences some 'memory echoes' from the copies. That's something I just made up, but DW logic pretty much works this way.  And I guess there might not be an actual in-universe explanation for all the clues to be there. The plot required them, and as far as I'm aware it's very hard to plot a story like that. 

Thanks to whoever worked out that the quotes and spoiler tags don't work together. I didn't understand it. 

Hell Bent

Spoiler » Just like last year I thought the trailer promised more than the actual episode could deliver, but this time I expected it and it was still a great episode. 

I loved the bar scene prologue where it looks like Clara doesn't remember, and then the twist on the end. Totally fooled me. 

It was great to see Galifrey, for me it was really the first time because I only started watching last year. 'Death is Timelord for manflu' LOL! 

I also thought of Robots of Sherwood when the Doctor put down the spoon. Little injoke I guess.

The hybrid: do we now know for sure what the hybrid is or was everything speculation? They made it seem like Ashildr's theory was the correct one, but she was also guessing. I loved the Doctor's snarkiness about the prophecy: 'what colour does it have?' Maybe the prophecy really is so aspecific that it might as well have been two people and Ashildr was right. And him destroying hearts referring to him destroying himself, I totally missed that but of course! That's brilliant. 

The biggest surprise for me was Clara's return. It felt so right after she'd been killed a bit offhandedly in episode ten. This was a more worthy farewell and what a great twist again. And now she and Ashildr are off in their own tardis, I hope we might see them again, in a small part in a future episode or something. Like Lily, I got the impression that Moffat might not be so good at killing characters than we sometimes seem to think. 

That scene where the Doctor talks to Clara and he doesn't remember her just broke my heart. It reminded me of people with Alzheimers or other neurodegenerative diseases who lose their memories in a process that can only be described as very slow dying. And then the paint that fell off the tardis when he left underlined that whole theme. Very moving.

Looking forward to the Christmas special, meeting River for the first time (I really need to catch up with the older episodes too). Wonder where she'll be in her timeline, it's reversed, isn't it?'

That is absolutely wonderful...!