Doctor Who finished off season 9 tonight, and in true Doctor Who style, we have a lot of questions.
The season 9 finale of Doctor Who was packed with guest stars, gave us a good cry, and also left us a bit confused.
Showdown at Gallifrey
For all the build up of the Doctor going to Gallifrey that was hyped by the BBC, the Doctor had little interaction with the Time Lords and their leader Rassilon (Donald Sumpter). It begins with the Doctor visiting the barn from the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special, and reconnecting with the memories of his youth with the Master.
The reminiscing down memory lane comes to a halt as the Doctor’s lunch is interrupted by Rassilon and his troops. After drawing a literal line in the sand, it becomes clear that the Doctor is respected by perhaps all on Gallifrey except Rassilon. Troops put down their arms to join the Doctor. When asked by Rassilon what they’re doing, they make it simple. They are siding with the hero who won the Time War. Rassilon is left powerless as the Doctor and the troops return to the city.
Hunt for the hybrid
The Doctor gets the Time Lord Council to confess why they summoned him. Gallifrey is currently positioned at the edge of the end of time. How many times in reboot Doctor Who have we been here again?
There is a Matrix prophesy that the Hybrid is an unstoppable creature bred from two warrior races (the Time Lords suppose these races to be the Time Lords and Daleks but they don’t know for certain) who will appear “…in the ruins of Gallifrey and unravel the threads of time, and destroy a billion billion hearts to heal its own.” The Time Lords want the Doctor to keep them safe from this prophesied creature. The Doctor seems to agree to help, and says he’ll need an extraction chamber to consult an old friend.
Back from the brink
The Doctor uses the extraction chamber to get Clara from back in time. Specifically, he gets her in-between heartbeats, or to be more exact, the heartbeat before her death. Clara, much to her dismay, realizes she has been snatched seconds from her death, which is a fixed point in time. She’s not quite alive, but she’s not quite dead either. She’s in-between. The Doctor is trying to fight this fact, which could prove disastrous. The Doctor initially evades the Time Lord high command, and takes Clara into the Archive, which is like the memory bank/database of all past Time Lords. To go there, one risks insanity.
Trip to the future
While in the Archive, Clara discovers the full truth of what happened to the Doctor when she died. She knows he’s going to extreme ends to save her. He’s been in mourning for billions of years. He manages to steal a TARDIS and take Clara to the end of time, where they encounter Ashildhr, the only immortal left. The Doctor had hoped that removing Clara so far into the time stream would jump-start her so she could be alive again. Needless to say, it doesn’t work because you really can’t fix death or change fixed points in time. Clara is more willing to accept her fate than the Doctor is. Ashildhr reiterates the truth that Clara already knows, and has accepted.
The Hybrid reveal
Ashildhr puts it all together. The Hybrid is actually two people, a powerful combination (which isn’t really the definition of a hybrid so much as it is the definition of a duology, but we digress). The Hybrid isn’t one person comprised of two parts. The Hybrid is Clara and the Doctor working together, “companions who are willing to push each other to extremes.” Together they are invincible.
The Doctor still can’t accept that Clara will die, so he wants to wipe her memory like he did with Donna Noble and have her live in the past, between heartbeats, but alive without him. The Hybrid will be broken apart but not destroyed.
The double-cross
Clara overhears the Doctor’s plans and reprograms his device to erase memory. Instead of Clara losing her memory, the Doctor loses his. He has distant memories, but he can’t remember her exactly. They can each exist apart if the Doctor doesn’t know of her. In the end, Clara makes the tough choices, and dare we say the right choices, that the Doctor isn’t willing to.
The Doctor loses consciousness and lands back on Earth in the U.S. in the diner where Amy and Rory once found him. Go figure why Clara picked that location. The waitress at the diner is Clara, but the Doctor doesn’t know who she is. In the end the Doctor walks outside, and out of Clara’s life after having a touching conversation with her about memory. He finds his TARDIS with Clara’s picture on it with the help of a stranger, but he doesn’t recognize Clara’s portrait.
In the meantime, Clara is joined by Ashildhr. The diner is actually a TARDIS in disguise. Although Clara is still one heartbeat from death, she and Ashildhr take off for a giant adventure through time before that heartbeat happens. Eventually, they will show up in Gallifrey, where the Time Lords will put Clara back on Trap Street and her death will be complete.
Unanswered questions
What was the timeline of this season? There seem to have been points where the Doctor was aware he lost Clara. Was he revisiting Clara’s pre-death timeline, was it premonition, or was it just major foreshadowing?
Will Clara’s family, her father and grandmother, ever learn of her fate? Can we say, “Holy dropped plot point, Batman!” We think we can.
How long will Clara and Ashildhr take the long way ’round back to Gallifrey? Is Clara going to spend the rest of her borrowed time avoiding the Doctor? Can you kill undead Clara, or is she kind of an undead immortal on borrowed time travelling with Ashildhr?
What happens to Ashildhr? The Daleks in the Archive seemed to spend a lot of time saying, “Exterminate me.” Is this a hint of what is to come? Will Ashildhr meet Captain Jack next season?
Are the Time Lords going to be patient with the Doctor’s antics? Will the Time Lords be placated, or just plain pissed-off? When and how will they be back, and will we have a proper Gallifrey episode?
The Doctor is next going to have another adventure with River Song. How does this all work out in his timeline?
Doctor Who returns at Christmas with the annual Doctor Who Christmas Special.