Droo: Fan theories - let me show you them
With less than 20 hours to go before Doctor Who Season 4 is all over, red rover, I finally broke and displaced my Slytherin icon with a TARDIS one. (Bye Potter. I no longer miss you.)
Last Saturday I watched Droo in a group of ten - nothing out of the ordinary there - but the room fell into a stunned silence and watched it all over again without pause. This has not happened for any episode since I came to the UK and started knocking about with the Battersea Badwolves.
After the second viewing, theories were flying thick and fast. If nothing else, it shows that this season's finale truly is a cliffhanger, and it feels like all bets are off. The levels of anticipation and excitement (and fear) run high.
I started to file away the theories I was hearing - not just on the biggie, but on other clifhanger resolutions, and plot devices/red herrings.
Then, at the Fitzroy Tavern last night, I started writing down in my own trusty companion ( Nancy Notebook ) all the ones I continued to hear. The fact I was doing this appeared to be popular, with Droo fans I recognised only by sight eagerly bending my ear to give me their prediction, or 'a friend of a friend's' prediction. A few even made off with Nancy Notebook to write them down for themselves.
Add to this the collection of theories I was sent today, collected by Tat from the web, and we have a humdinger of the uplifting, the plausible, and the utterly, utterly bizarre lengths that a mind spurred on by unfettered and excited fan conjecture will go to.
So below the cut is the list I have collected. It has not been excised or edited in any way. It does not include conjecture based on facts extraneous to the actual story (like stuff seen filming, purportedly for the 2009 stories - for that might be an elaborate coverup and cannot be seen as an incontrovertible premise in a syllogistic argument.)
If you have your own theories, or 'theories of a friend' that this list does not cover, please feel free to add them in the comments. Names have been removed to protect the identities of the nutters my sources.
Let's get the small ones out of the way...
The companion cliffhangers
1. Sarah Jane Smith.
a. K-9 will rescue her.
b. The other Smith - Mickey that is - will teleport in.
c. She tells the Daleks 'I know Davros!'
2. Ianto and Gwen.
a. Pete's world Torchwood Team will teleport in.
b. They back on to the invisible lift and escape.
The most faithful companion will die
1. The Doctor's hand. Can't get more faithful than his own dismembered body part. A little naughty rudeness about his hand never goes astray either. Lots of theories about the hand, so it has to get it's own list.
2. K-9. Geddit? The whole man/dog thing! Depending on who's talking, K-9's absence from ep12 was either conspicuous (so he'll show up now) or the deal breaker (noowhoo is made for irregular viewers, not fans - so they're not going to use the Dog Ex Machina because he's not been introduced as a Chekhov's Gun).
3. Rose. She pulls a heart of the TARDIS again. OR it just refers to her going back to the other dimension.
4. Captain Jack. Heart of the TARDIS 'AAAAAAARGH SUCK MY LIFE OUT' moment like Season One of TOrchwood. Except this time it works, and he's mortal again! (Let's just forget that Face of Boe moment, shall we??)
5. Donna. Ah, Donnan Donna. So many theories about you and about your entire existence, let alone your death. You get your own list.
6. The TARDIS. It opens its heart and does timey wimey stuff to save the Doctor, and dies. No TARDIS you cry? That's okay! The Timelords are coming and will bring new machines with them!
Thing. Aka: the dismembered hand.
a. The hand will pass over the DNA/power meaning the 'regeneration' is just of the damaged cells, not a full body transformation.
b. The regeneration will be a 'difficult' one, and the hand will 'shore up' the tenth incarnation - but only for a limited time (read, until 2010).
c. The hand gets glowy and blooms into an entirely new second Doctor.
d. Captain Jack and Co can't see the universe without the Doctor in it - so they take Davros' cloning machine (he's obviously got one - that's how he's been making Daleks out of himself and explains the 'Doctor's Daughter') so they take the Doctor's severed hand and clone a new David Tennant from it. But he can't remember any thing about the Doctor - he is an utterly new man. So Rose and friends watch him leave knowing that he doesn't know who they are! But they know that he has to go and be his own man and they know that they can't have anything to do with him because it would hurt them too much!
Or conversely
d.2 At the end of the episode the 'real' doctor goes off for television adventures and the 'cloned' (David Tennant) one from the doctor's hand goes off with Rose and has film adventures.
e. The dimemebered hand Davro's missing hand = Davros is the Doctor from a parallel universe/dimension!
The Doctor always wanted to be Ginger... (Donna).
a. The Tricksters Brigade is still around - Donna still has a bug on her back. Consider the present tense statement of the prophet in Fires of Pompeii - There is something on your back. A bug story within a bug story to get your reset switch?
b. Donna knows how to steer the TARDIS - she'll go back in time to put things 'right' - sacrificing herself in the process.
c.Why is Donna's Grandad obsessed wth aliens? Does he know something about her being left on their doorstep by little green men? Or that her existence is not entirely on the up and up?
d. Donna is actually another red head pretending to be Donna. She's actually the Rani...
e. On a related note: The Temp. Noble, Donna. = Time Lord Lady. (Temp being Latin for Time n'all...).
f. Donna as time-lady - she's pulled a pocket watch-style trick, and only realises it now - thus regenerating herself and saving the Doctor. She can pilot the TARDIS after all - something the Doctor can't quite believe she's doing... it wasn't coincidence the Doctor kept meeting her family, her time-lady powarz was pulling the Doctor's time lines in alignment with hers.
g. Donna is actually a descendant of the Doctor. We were hearing a double heart/ master-esque drum beat when she was on the stairs in the Shadow Proclamation.
h. Donna will be sent back to retrieve the Timelords, like Dalek Kahn was.
i. Donna is the Doctor's mother.
j. Donna is the Master. See all the regeneration theories drum beat the fact the Master will save the doctor if he thinks his existence is on the line. And remember the Master's ring being picked off the ground at the end of Season 3? Do ya? Do ya? Well Donna wears a fat-arse ring....
k. Donna is the White Guardian. Saved the Doctor in the Time War, is going to do it again.
l. Donna is Lucy Saxon or a Toclafane (I really don't follow the logic on this one, but it had something to do with a far too conveniently placed Dalek to shoot the Doctor, and how the Master must have set it up).
m. Donna is Romana. (double heart beat again)
n. Donna is Riversong. (Um... no??)
o. Donna is a waiting DNA repository for the Doctor, and is actually part of him.
The "Häagen-Dazs" Key
1. Is a key for a TARDIS, and Donna is actually a TARDIS
2. Creates a new Doctor.
3. If spelt "Osterhagon", then an anagram is "Earth Goes On".
4. The Burning Man website (he burns like the sun?) is about Earth Guardians and has a Mister Osterhagen and a Mr Bee as members. No actual conjecture as to what this might mean plot-wise though...
5. Earth is populated with mind-wiped Timelords, and the key is to release the group consciousness.
6. Is the Key to Time. And can unravel all sorts of timey wimey stuff.
Others!!
1. Harriet Jones is not dead. Just her computer. And she's actually a Timelord as well. Her constant badge showing? That's just psychic paper!
2. The Doctor will regenerate into half an Ood, because he can hear the song where Donna can't.
3. Three-fold man? We're not going to get just one doctor, we're going to get three!
3. Three-fold man? We're going to get two and Jenny!
4. The Doctor is going to regenerate into Riversong (ummm. I see lots of flaws here).
5. The Doctor is going to regenerate into John Simm.
6. The Gravitational Engine is the work of the Timelords, not the Daleks - they haven't mentioned it at all - they're just interested in Earth/luring the Doctor...
7. We are yet to see the biggest threat - the one that actually made the stars go out one by one.
8. The degeneration - We'll get Peter Davidson back.
9. RTD has quit so that he can play the Doctor next.
10. Partial regeneration - Tennant will be back as a Scots Doctor.
11. The fact that on the BBC they've used only onestation ID preceeding each episode, and it's the Neon lady - that links to the Blackpool lights, and therefore to the Doctor regenerating into David Morrissey or Sarah Parish, and the blue dress on the Neon Lady is coloured by mercury vapour, which apparently has some big esoteric meaning - stuff the rest of the world watching - IT'S ALL ABOUT THE STATION BRANDING ADS!
And Finally
12. The Bees will save Earth, because the Daleks are allergic to bee-stings.
One thing that did come up is there did seem to be a lot of predictions about undoing what has been done, that we're going to get a big reset switch, a la Season One and Season Three. Who, or what, is the switch, and how far back the reset goes is up for grabs.
Last Saturday I watched Droo in a group of ten - nothing out of the ordinary there - but the room fell into a stunned silence and watched it all over again without pause. This has not happened for any episode since I came to the UK and started knocking about with the Battersea Badwolves.
After the second viewing, theories were flying thick and fast. If nothing else, it shows that this season's finale truly is a cliffhanger, and it feels like all bets are off. The levels of anticipation and excitement (and fear) run high.
I started to file away the theories I was hearing - not just on the biggie, but on other clifhanger resolutions, and plot devices/red herrings.
Then, at the Fitzroy Tavern last night, I started writing down in my own trusty companion ( Nancy Notebook ) all the ones I continued to hear. The fact I was doing this appeared to be popular, with Droo fans I recognised only by sight eagerly bending my ear to give me their prediction, or 'a friend of a friend's' prediction. A few even made off with Nancy Notebook to write them down for themselves.
Add to this the collection of theories I was sent today, collected by Tat from the web, and we have a humdinger of the uplifting, the plausible, and the utterly, utterly bizarre lengths that a mind spurred on by unfettered and excited fan conjecture will go to.
So below the cut is the list I have collected. It has not been excised or edited in any way. It does not include conjecture based on facts extraneous to the actual story (like stuff seen filming, purportedly for the 2009 stories - for that might be an elaborate coverup and cannot be seen as an incontrovertible premise in a syllogistic argument.)
If you have your own theories, or 'theories of a friend' that this list does not cover, please feel free to add them in the comments. Names have been removed to protect the identities of the nutters my sources.
Let's get the small ones out of the way...
The companion cliffhangers
1. Sarah Jane Smith.
a. K-9 will rescue her.
b. The other Smith - Mickey that is - will teleport in.
c. She tells the Daleks 'I know Davros!'
2. Ianto and Gwen.
a. Pete's world Torchwood Team will teleport in.
b. They back on to the invisible lift and escape.
The most faithful companion will die
1. The Doctor's hand. Can't get more faithful than his own dismembered body part. A little naughty rudeness about his hand never goes astray either. Lots of theories about the hand, so it has to get it's own list.
2. K-9. Geddit? The whole man/dog thing! Depending on who's talking, K-9's absence from ep12 was either conspicuous (so he'll show up now) or the deal breaker (noowhoo is made for irregular viewers, not fans - so they're not going to use the Dog Ex Machina because he's not been introduced as a Chekhov's Gun).
3. Rose. She pulls a heart of the TARDIS again. OR it just refers to her going back to the other dimension.
4. Captain Jack. Heart of the TARDIS 'AAAAAAARGH SUCK MY LIFE OUT' moment like Season One of TOrchwood. Except this time it works, and he's mortal again! (Let's just forget that Face of Boe moment, shall we??)
5. Donna. Ah, Donnan Donna. So many theories about you and about your entire existence, let alone your death. You get your own list.
6. The TARDIS. It opens its heart and does timey wimey stuff to save the Doctor, and dies. No TARDIS you cry? That's okay! The Timelords are coming and will bring new machines with them!
Thing. Aka: the dismembered hand.
a. The hand will pass over the DNA/power meaning the 'regeneration' is just of the damaged cells, not a full body transformation.
b. The regeneration will be a 'difficult' one, and the hand will 'shore up' the tenth incarnation - but only for a limited time (read, until 2010).
c. The hand gets glowy and blooms into an entirely new second Doctor.
d. Captain Jack and Co can't see the universe without the Doctor in it - so they take Davros' cloning machine (he's obviously got one - that's how he's been making Daleks out of himself and explains the 'Doctor's Daughter') so they take the Doctor's severed hand and clone a new David Tennant from it. But he can't remember any thing about the Doctor - he is an utterly new man. So Rose and friends watch him leave knowing that he doesn't know who they are! But they know that he has to go and be his own man and they know that they can't have anything to do with him because it would hurt them too much!
Or conversely
d.2 At the end of the episode the 'real' doctor goes off for television adventures and the 'cloned' (David Tennant) one from the doctor's hand goes off with Rose and has film adventures.
e. The dimemebered hand Davro's missing hand = Davros is the Doctor from a parallel universe/dimension!
The Doctor always wanted to be Ginger... (Donna).
a. The Tricksters Brigade is still around - Donna still has a bug on her back. Consider the present tense statement of the prophet in Fires of Pompeii - There is something on your back. A bug story within a bug story to get your reset switch?
b. Donna knows how to steer the TARDIS - she'll go back in time to put things 'right' - sacrificing herself in the process.
c.Why is Donna's Grandad obsessed wth aliens? Does he know something about her being left on their doorstep by little green men? Or that her existence is not entirely on the up and up?
d. Donna is actually another red head pretending to be Donna. She's actually the Rani...
e. On a related note: The Temp. Noble, Donna. = Time Lord Lady. (Temp being Latin for Time n'all...).
f. Donna as time-lady - she's pulled a pocket watch-style trick, and only realises it now - thus regenerating herself and saving the Doctor. She can pilot the TARDIS after all - something the Doctor can't quite believe she's doing... it wasn't coincidence the Doctor kept meeting her family, her time-lady powarz was pulling the Doctor's time lines in alignment with hers.
g. Donna is actually a descendant of the Doctor. We were hearing a double heart/ master-esque drum beat when she was on the stairs in the Shadow Proclamation.
h. Donna will be sent back to retrieve the Timelords, like Dalek Kahn was.
i. Donna is the Doctor's mother.
j. Donna is the Master. See all the regeneration theories drum beat the fact the Master will save the doctor if he thinks his existence is on the line. And remember the Master's ring being picked off the ground at the end of Season 3? Do ya? Do ya? Well Donna wears a fat-arse ring....
k. Donna is the White Guardian. Saved the Doctor in the Time War, is going to do it again.
l. Donna is Lucy Saxon or a Toclafane (I really don't follow the logic on this one, but it had something to do with a far too conveniently placed Dalek to shoot the Doctor, and how the Master must have set it up).
m. Donna is Romana. (double heart beat again)
n. Donna is Riversong. (Um... no??)
o. Donna is a waiting DNA repository for the Doctor, and is actually part of him.
The "Häagen-Dazs" Key
1. Is a key for a TARDIS, and Donna is actually a TARDIS
2. Creates a new Doctor.
3. If spelt "Osterhagon", then an anagram is "Earth Goes On".
4. The Burning Man website (he burns like the sun?) is about Earth Guardians and has a Mister Osterhagen and a Mr Bee as members. No actual conjecture as to what this might mean plot-wise though...
5. Earth is populated with mind-wiped Timelords, and the key is to release the group consciousness.
6. Is the Key to Time. And can unravel all sorts of timey wimey stuff.
Others!!
1. Harriet Jones is not dead. Just her computer. And she's actually a Timelord as well. Her constant badge showing? That's just psychic paper!
2. The Doctor will regenerate into half an Ood, because he can hear the song where Donna can't.
3. Three-fold man? We're not going to get just one doctor, we're going to get three!
3. Three-fold man? We're going to get two and Jenny!
4. The Doctor is going to regenerate into Riversong (ummm. I see lots of flaws here).
5. The Doctor is going to regenerate into John Simm.
6. The Gravitational Engine is the work of the Timelords, not the Daleks - they haven't mentioned it at all - they're just interested in Earth/luring the Doctor...
7. We are yet to see the biggest threat - the one that actually made the stars go out one by one.
8. The degeneration - We'll get Peter Davidson back.
9. RTD has quit so that he can play the Doctor next.
10. Partial regeneration - Tennant will be back as a Scots Doctor.
11. The fact that on the BBC they've used only onestation ID preceeding each episode, and it's the Neon lady - that links to the Blackpool lights, and therefore to the Doctor regenerating into David Morrissey or Sarah Parish, and the blue dress on the Neon Lady is coloured by mercury vapour, which apparently has some big esoteric meaning - stuff the rest of the world watching - IT'S ALL ABOUT THE STATION BRANDING ADS!
And Finally
12. The Bees will save Earth, because the Daleks are allergic to bee-stings.
One thing that did come up is there did seem to be a lot of predictions about undoing what has been done, that we're going to get a big reset switch, a la Season One and Season Three. Who, or what, is the switch, and how far back the reset goes is up for grabs.