Yes, the end of the first series starring Mister Capaldi marks the end of another season, at the end of which Clara Oswald was very much alive, much to the chagrin of Wonder Wifey. She had hoped to see Clara blown to smithereens, or vapourised, or electrocuted, or get a really bad hangnail*.
Don't give up hope! There's still the Christmas Special. And who gave the casting director the idea to use Nick Frost as Santa Claus, pray tell?
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| I had to ask ... |
Only on a whim, and I had to be terse and brief, as the notepad I was using was actually a post-it pad, and a small one at that.
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| Regular notebook to the left. Tiny notepad to the right |
If you carry on I will gleefully give away plot points. You do remember that Missy is actually The Master?
The possibility of The Doctor being reincarnated as a female has been an item of fan speculation for ages - Joanna Lumley doesn't count!** - although it would be an extremely brave person who decided to try that out. Going for an old, craggy-faced Scot as The Doctor, instead of some androgynous pretty-boy is quite daring enough.
| The Master, with an e-cig. That man was ahead of his time! |
Did You Notice -
The "Chaplet Memorial Home"? An homage to the character of Dodo Chaplet, one of the First Doctor's companions.
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| Doughdough. Close enough |
"There Is No Clara Oswald!"
Nice try, Clara. However, you've only got one heart, and The Doctor has two. A Cyberman would doubtless be able to detect that, so why didn't they -
- ah, yes, because this is pre-watershed and you can't really have a set of great metal gauntlets groping a young lady's chest.
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| The only kind of stripped chest you will see on BOOJUM! |
Osgood - Doomed By Wonder Wifey
Osgood is very close to the equally doomed Ives from the Seventh Doctor comic strip, although Ives gets killed by a giant flying killer Bible*** and poor old Osgood gets disinegrated in a flash of fire^. Wonder Wifey had expressed an admiration for her - a sure way to guarantee that a character gets killed. Contrarily, her hatred of Clara seems to guarantee that the gel will surive into her ninties.
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| Burl Ives. Close enough |
Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart
Nice to see the Brig getting a nod in a portrait, and his daughter running UNIT.
"Terror At 20,000 Feet"
I wonder if it was the director's intention to have this film referenced? You know the one, a Twilight Zone episode where William Shatner's character sees an hideous flying monster attempting to destroy an airliner's engines in flight^^. Well, that's what popped into my cranium when I saw the airborne Cybermen closing in and landing on the jet carrying Missy and The Doctor. Especially so when they dragged Sanjeev Baskhar out the window.
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| "BOO!" |
Which Cemetery?
Conrad is curious about which cemetery, allegedly in London, was used. He thought it might be Highgate but images of that don't tally especially well. Any answers on a postcard to the Mansion or in the Comments.
| Well, this angel has cause to weep. Let's leave her alone, eh? |
Another Homage
The march of the Cybermen down the St Paul steps is a direct reference to a scene from "The Invasion", where Lethbridge-Stewart revealed his promotion to Brigadier^^^.
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| Sixties-pattern Cybermen |
| The not-quite-as-scary 2014 equivalent |
Or did Missy descending into the graveyard rather look like Mary Poppins From Hell?
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| Mary Poppins |
| Hell. (Not to scale. For comparison purposes only) |
Almost the last scene shows Clara finding Kate Stewart alive, to the Doctor's incredulity. After all, she was blown out of an aircraft a couple of miles high and really ought to be a puddle of gore spread across twenty square yards. What can have - and then he sees a lone, rogue Cyberman off in a corner.
Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart.
Who gets a farewell salute from the Doctor.
*This isn't really a spoiler. Come on, how many Companions have died? You get one point for Adric, and five for Katerina. So the probability is pretty low.
** Because I say so, is why.
*** It's a long story. Maybe some other time.
^ Which makes one wonder why Missy didn't also get second-degree burns as she was clutching Osgood to her bosom. Steven? Can you explain?
^^ Hey, don't knock it! Hideous flying monster's have so little else to divert them.
^^^ That makes him a General, but he was too modest to boast about it.
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