Hrm.

[mtemplar_fic]

Looks like we'll be finding out the canon identity of one of the characters in The End of Time in The Writer's Tale: The Final Chapter. *waits impatiently*



From Blogtor Who: Released next week is The Writer's Tale: The Final Chapter - the "sequel" to last year's excellent book from RUSSELL T DAVIES and BENJAMIN COOK. It's another in-depth discussion of the creative life of Doctor Who covering Russell’s final year as Head Writer and Executive Producer of the show.

The book looks at the period where DAVID TENNANT "wobbled" on his decision to quit and STEVEN MOFFAT came in as show~runner, casting a new actor to play The Doctor. Readers also get to find out about the true identity of "The Woman" in The End Of Time and Martha's proposed parts in Torchwood: Children of Earth and The Sarah Jane Adventures. A full review will be posted next week.

Interesting! Although, I am sort of enamoured of leaving the identity of Claire Bloom's character a mystery.... The Writer's Tale: The Final Chapter will be released on January 14th.

Link to original post (with pics) here: http://blogtorwho.blogspot.com/2010/01/writers-tale-final-chapter-preview.html

EDIT 1/8: Dang. She *was* supposed to be his mum.

Comments

[principia-coh.livejournal.com]

Oooooooh.

Julie Gardner indicated that a lot of people were slotting her as the Doctor's mother, but that seems patently silly to me. More likely Susan, Romana, or even Flavia. Unless her reference to being "lost" meant the period during which she went bad, in which case it could be the Rani.

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm sort of hoping that's not the case, ie Julie Gardner's comment. I'd prefer Romana or Flavia, or heck, even the Inquisitor lady whose name I'm blanking on right now.

And even then - why the weeping angel poses for the femme Time Lords? That's what I'd like to know about, more so than the identity of Claire Bloom's character.

[garpu.livejournal.com]

Darkel? She got her mind blowed up good by Brax and Pandora. :)

[principia-coh.livejournal.com]

Inquisitor? You mean the prosecutor from Trial of a Time Lord? If you're counting actual canon, she wasn't given one.

I'm pretty sure, if I go back and check the commentary again, that RTD said he was mostly having the faces hidden so a) people didn't go 'hey, it's The Woman!' and b) having the other person hidden gave later writers something to play with if they decided to revisit the situation.

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

I suppose I can forgive RTD for that, as (if I'm remembering correctly) the female TLs functioned more as oracles on Old Gallifrey per the NAs, but that still really bugged me. Along with the TLs going back on the Master's personal timeline - I didn't think they were able to do that. But, given the events of WoM, maybe they can... hrm.

[principia-coh.livejournal.com]

I believe that the only reason they were able to do so was because they had direct access to the Untempered Schism; if Big Finish ever get their mitts on the RTD era, I wonder if they might do one of their Unbounds on 'what if they'd hit the Doctor instead of the Master'?

The TLs can always go back on someone else's personal timeline. The only reason they wouldn't have been able to is if one of them had been his chaperone at the viewing ritual. And, as you say, the whole 'you can't go back on your personal timeline' may have been more sort of a 'don't cross the streams' Important Safety Tip (thanks, Egon) rather than a literal inability to do so.

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

Why I Hate DW Canon, or Lack Thereof, 101.

You think you finally have a handle on this stuff, ie Gallifrey resides in a temporal anomaly away from the rest of the universe, allowing Gallifreyans to acquire their unique perspective on time. The Gallifrey Timeline is constant, though - ie Time Lords physically cannot go back on Gallifrey's (and therefore any Gallifreyan's) timeline. Enter the Daleks - they crack the anomaly and synchonize with Gallifrey's timeline, which is the explanation as to how the Doctor keeps meeting them in chronological order. Then in comes RTD and the whole 'Time Lock' idea, and this nice, neat little explanation goes completely out the window.

*grumbles*

[principia-coh.livejournal.com]

Eh, the canon for explaining how Gallifrey works has always been all over the place.

The 'Time Lock' thing seemed to me largely like Krikkit getting dropped into its Slo-Time envelope in H2G2, to be honest - except it wasn't just Gallifrey, but the entire battle arena and all the combatants being shoved into a big fat box away from the rest of the universe.

Given that Karn and Gallifrey were ostensibly in the same solar system, it makes me wonder what the actual canon position would be on its continued existence.

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

Maybe that's what 'The Moment' is supposed to be. *ponders*

I dunno - we see Karn for some of Eight's BF audios, is there anything beyond that?

[garpu.livejournal.com]

I thought your explanation was how things functioned?

[garpu.livejournal.com]

Were they actually Time Lords with precognitive abilities? WAs any reason given for it being mostly women with them?

[larissa-j.livejournal.com]

Wasn't the Doctor's mother human? How can she be a Time Lord then or am I mixing fanon with canon?

[principia-coh.livejournal.com]

You're mixing the 8th Doctor's offhand comment (which has since been handwaved off by TPTB as him joking) about being half-human on his mother's side with official canon, which still doesn't place him as anything but a full Time Lord.

Of course, saying he's half-human on his mother's side might mean one of his grandparents on his mother's side was human, if we're going to take the line at face value and then be pedantic about grammar.

[larissa-j.livejournal.com]

Aha. Okay. I guess I'll have to wait and see.

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

It's *very* controversial. Eight makes the comment in the movie version that he's half-human on his mother's side. Since then, there was a Q&A posted on the official website that confirmed this as true, but was later retracted. It keeps going back and forth, hence the controversy.

[shield-wolf.livejournal.com]

Sorry to be so annoyingly late here, but hasn't SM also publicly come down on the "half-human" side of the controversy as well, meaning that this is all going to be reversed during his era if the subject ever gets mentioned again?

(Ye gods, sometimes I hate the "flexible" canon of this show....)

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

That I do not know, but if you find a link, feel free to shoot it in my direction. :)

[garpu.livejournal.com]

Hrm. I kind of like the mystery of it, too. But I thought they already came out and said she was the Doctor's mom on the commentary?

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

Did they outright say that? *hasn't listened yet, obviously*

[garpu.livejournal.com]

Hearsay, since I haven't listened to it either...been waiting until stuff is on DVD, since they seem to be the same.

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

The commentaries on the DVDs are different.

[garpu.livejournal.com]

huh...seemed like they were using the podcasts for a lot of them on the series shows? Hrm. I'll have to go back and listen. :)

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

It might not be all, but quite a few are different commentaries. For example, DT is doing the commentary for EoT on the DVDs.

[garpu.livejournal.com]

I still need to get those on pre-order...

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

Yes, you do. I did attempt to enable you. *grins*

[garpu.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes you did. :) I'm not sure I want my credit card info going out over the school's wifi, however. (At least I know how I"m firewalled at home.)

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

Good point.

[garpu.livejournal.com]

But I will be home in a few hours. :)

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

*dances*

[garpu.livejournal.com]

Today is going *so* slowly. There's a pile of computers for me to image, but no place to actually do the imaging. :/

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

Sorry. :(

Pardon my ignorance, but what is 'imaging' a computer?

[garpu.livejournal.com]

Sorry, using a disk image and overwriting what's on there. Same computer, same specs, just multiple ones. Or trying to save myself some time, rather than install the same OS, drivers, and software onto 5 computers.

[principia-coh.livejournal.com]

No, 95% of the commentaries differ between the DVDs and the podcasts. There are a few where some of the people overlap between the two versions, and the infamous case of the Series 3 DVDs, where 2Entertain used the podcast on the R1 DVDs for LotTL (ostensibly over music rights, although more likely because some less-than-friendly-to-the-Bush-administration comments were made).

The ones for both parts of TEoT are specifically very much different, as RTD notes in the podcasts.

[morgaine-nicely.livejournal.com]

i hope they leave it as is, i personally wouldn't want him to have a "Human" mother...i dunno just one of those things. humans always were ten's fave people (as they were the other doctors...) kinda reminded me of data on next generation always "wanting" to be human, and was close but never exact.

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

Too late - they *did* go that route. *sighs* I think I would have prefered it remain a mystery.

[principia-coh.livejournal.com]

No, Julie Gardner said a lot of people seemed to be making that assumption. I would guess this is probably because people who don't really get the whole regeneration thing see Claire Bloom shares some characteristics of coloring with David Tennant and is older than he is and go 'hey, it must be his mom!'

I just hope she's not meant to be Susan, because that would be kinda rude to Carole Ann Ford if they didn't cast her, since she still acts and does Who.

[platypus]

I suppose it'll be what's rumored, but can't say I really care one way or another. Though I am amused when anything contradicts that line in the TVM.

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

Probably. She'd still be in the same place to Ten as she was (ie very dead), though, although now knowing he was the cause (even if enabled)? Equals MORE ANGST, at least if RTD were involved. Ah well.