AWKWARD ZOMBIE

THAT WAS OKAY! THAT WAS AVERAGE! THAT WAS HALFWAY DECENT! THAT! DIDN'T! SUCK! BALLS! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!

What the hell are you talking about, that was the worst episode since Angels Take Manhattan. ATM still beats this, but this is almost up there.

I'm just glad that they didn't reveal the Doctor's name. Think about it, it could've been a hell of a lot worse. I was expecting something worse than Angels Take Manhattan, and I just got something that (I think) was mediocre! Sure, it wasn't good by any means, but it exceeded my expectations and I'm just pop flyin' about that. At least it wasn't a great big ball of disappointment like Nightmare in Silver.

River: [Astonished] How are you doing that? I'm not really here.
Doctor: You are always here to me. And I always listen. And I can always. See. You.
River: [On the verge of tears] Then why didn't you speak to me?
Doctor: Because I thought it would hurt too much.
River: I believe I could have coped.
Doctor: No. I thought it would hurt /me/. And I was right.
[They facebattle romantically]

HOW DOES THIS NOT FILL YOU WITH EVERLASTING, SEETHING RAGE

Plus the conversation between John Hurt and Matt Smith makes it sound as if Hurt is a previous regeneration rather than a future regeneration, which makes my second to previous post all the more possible.

No comment.

Personally, I think Rings of Akhaten was the low point of the season. Because just nothing happened for most of the episode.

I found this episode okay. And why would a little romantic scene between the Doctor and his wife fill you with rage?

Also also about that John Hurt thing and the Sun article: they were still wrong in at least 1 part: they said the Doctor doesn't remember that regeneration but it was made quite clear in the episode he knows exactly what he is. The Valeyard maybe? Or what would have become the Valeyard? The Doctor said "He's me but he's not the Doctor"... after which the credits call him the Doctor but I'll take the man's word for it.

Meh, I still think Manhattan was far worse than anything we've seen so far, even Love & Monsters. It had so many plot holes, so much lost potential, and it was so cheaply emotionally manipulative that I retch whenever I think about it.

oh please be the Valeyard so this is a million times less horribly disappointing

I haven't seen the series since like the middle of season 6, because it just got really unfun to watch. I've been kinda hopefully waiting for the special, very much just riding on the chance that I might just like Tennant enough to ignore anything too terrible.

But if they pull a "oh he FORGOT a regeneration lol" i will fucking drop this series entirely right goddamn there

He definitely did not forget. He tries to explain to Clara what he is but it's wibbly wobbly.

An entireregeneration is his secret. The only gap in the show is from the movie to the 2005 revival, which would put this regeneration after 8 and before 9, which places him during the Time War. The scenes in Eccleston's first episode where he seems to be inspecting his face in the mirror in Rose's apartment like he just got the face make a bit more sense now. Regen from 8 into Interim Doctor during Time War, regens at the end of the Time War into 9, then stuff happens and Autons in London. What 11 and Interim Doctor talk about seems to be referring to the Time War. SPECULATION AHOY


EDIT: He could still be the Valeyard. He escapes from the Doctor's timestream cave thing with 11 and Clara, which fulfills the requirement of emerging towards the end of the Doctor's 13 lives. He, like the Valeyard, also rejected the name of Doctor and the expectations that go with it.

I thought about all of that a bit more and actually, I find it fits into the established canon very well.

We know the doctor starts to grow cold and distant if he's without companions too long. During the time war he must have been VERY alone. That probably bred the Valeyard/Nottor/8.5 whatever you want to call him until we get an official name.
And while the Doctor obviously always did his best to save people, the 9th always made a point out of saying it. "Nobody dies tonight!" etc. and wouldn't kill to save his life even. He might have actually kept telling that to himself instead of the others, after all the tragedies of the time wars and whatever happened with 8.5 he needed to reassure himself of his promise.

"I know you were specifically mentally conditioned to be obsessed with me, and that you think i can't see you and it kills you, but I'm not going to acknowledge your existence because I might be sad. Now I'm going to facebattle you and we're both going to be pop flyin'. And then we can cut to those WACKY comic relief characters with their WACKY faces!"

It was terribly written, and ended up turning the Doctor into an emotionally manipulative bastard. Because who cares about the woman's emotions, right?
All i could think of during this scene was how sexist Moffat is in his writing.

i'm all for disliking moffat but

isn't this basically the entire point of the show since the second episode with 9

I do see your point, and I was kinda thinking the Doctor was being pretty selfish in that scene, but I've been thinking about it. I think he probably knew that River could cope, but he wasn't sure about himself. After all, she once said that she thought that when she met the Doctor and he didn't remember her, it would absolutely destroy her. But while it was clearly very hard on her, it didn't destroy her. River is very strong in every way, and the Doctor recognizes that. I think it's possible that he has more faith in her than he has in himself; he knows that she could deal with him talking to her, but he doesn't believe that he could handle it. He thinks that if he did that, he might have some sort of emotional breakdown, and that would jeopardize what he was working towards and everyone he's working with.

Or maybe he's just a selfish dick. What do I know?