Howling:5 things to look for: Overall

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From Michael Downey's original post "5 Things to look for in Series 5":

Over the course of the Series (5), Matt Smith and Steven Moffat have repeatedly said to look out for 5 things.

So, this thread is here if anyone wants to:

  • Provide additional evidence for this.
  • Discuss the kinds of things we should be looking for.
  • Suggest things we should be looking for that don't have separate threads yet (but you can just as easily create a new thread for it).
  • Argue about whether these things (in general) need to appear every story (as RTD's arc words did), every episode, or just multiple times-and, likewise, whether they have to be the entire season or not.

And meanwhile, I'll add links to each of the separate threads. --Falcotron 01:09, April 28, 2010 (UTC)

OK, here's all the separate threads. I think it'll be easier to discuss these things if each idea is kept separate:

Anyone else can create more threads as easily as me, in case I missed your favorite theory. --Falcotron 10:44, May 3, 2010 (UTC)


I have noticed a recurring thread

11th hour - The only one I'm unsure of, but I'm sure I recall Prisoner zero saying he/it was the last of its kind

The Beast Below - The last Space Whale

Victory of the Daleks - The Doctor curses at having to let the last Daleks free to wreak havoc

Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone - The last Angel is on the Byzantium

Vampires of Venice - The fishy vampires are the last refugees


Anyone else think this might be significant? PeresCoure

I am not sure you may be right. Clearly those cracks in time are devouring race's and planets, but whatever is controlling them is not clear yet. I'd say your pattern works except for victory of the daleks. In that one those Daleks were the last because of journey's end, not the cracks. Also to be fair there have been quite alot of creatures in doctor who that are the last of their kind, its a staple of sci fi, but you are right this series has had it virtually every week so it probably is a pattern. Winehousefan 21:45 9 may 2010 [UTC]


I wasn't saying that these are because of the cracks, (the Space Whale was due to mining etc.. not the crack), just that they have all been the last of their race. PeresCoure

right sorry your definately right then most if not all have been the last of their kind or close enough. I read the silurians are back in a couple of episodes, they might be the last silurians too because the silurians are usually on the edge of being wiped out. Your pattern may be broken next week this dreamlord guy might not be the a refugee or the last of his kind. I do think this is significant in some way because they did kinda draw up a big contrast between the daleks and those fish things. The doctor felt awful for letting the Daleks go, yet in vampires in venice he felt awful for killing those fishes and in contrast to the daleks wanted to help that last fish. I think it will come up in the season finale about how the doctor has seen so many creatures that are the last of their kind or caused so many creatures to become the last of their kind, like Davros went on about how the doctor made people into weapons in journey's end Winehousefan 22:20 May 9 2010 [UTC]

Doctor Who has dealt with the "last of their kind" thing in the past, in novels and comics as well as on TV, but I don't remember ever having a season (or arc of books or comics) where every race he meets are the last of their kind. So yeah, there definitely could be something to that.

Of course if the Sontarans are in the finale, it's a bit hard to see how they'd fit into that--there are zillions of them out there.... But that's not a show-stopper (especially since we don't know 100% for sure that the Sontarans are even in it.) --Falcotron 05:55, May 10, 2010 (UTC)

I had another thought here. Everyone's expecting the "5 things to look for" to be 5 big RTD-style story-arc clues. But nobody ever told us that's what to look for, just 5 things that appear in almost every episode. Maybe some of them are clues, but others are just thematic links instead.
Maybe something like this: The cracks and the finale-Doctor hints are just foreshadowing of plot points. Fairy tales and countdowns are just themes through the whole season (including the finale) and don't directly foreshadow anything. Silence is often both, but sometimes just one or the other. But all 5 of them are things to look for in every episode. (Not necessarily exactly those 5 in exactly that way, that's just an example.)
Does that seem plausible? --Falcotron 01:10, May 11, 2010 (UTC)
It does RTD did that alot to there were things that didn't really matter to the finale but were just themes like the doctor being the last of his kind, which though relevant to some season finales wasn't to all of them like doomsday. This silence thing I think is just a name for the threat that is creating it, there has been that before so I think thats what it is.Winehousefan 09:37 May 12 2010 [UTC]
This may just be some kind of catchphrase of Amy's or something, but she keeps saying "explain", in a style that reminds me of a Dalek.
Please sign you posts with 4 tildes (~).
Anyway, there's a discussion of Amy's "Explain!" on the DWO forums, and also on... I forget which blog (I thought it was Combom's, but I checked, and couldn't find it).
A few people think it's significant, that she's a Dalek android. I don't buy it. We already saw a Dalek android, Bracewell, and he didn't talk or act like a Dalek in any way.
Some people gave another counter-argument--we know Amy's in season fnarg-prime, and if he discovers that she's a Dalek android, that couldn't happen. But that one doesn't seem to hold much weight to me. Remember Kamelion, or the android Master in Shalka, or Mr. Smith in SJA?
If you want an implausible theory, I've got one that's a lot more fun.
In our universe, there are lots of British people who something use Dalek-y mannerisms. Of course this is because they grew up watching Doctor Who and pretending to be Daleks as kids. But the Whoniverse (as we know from Remembrance of the Daleks) also has a sci-fi show that started the same day, and was called something starting with "Doc".
The only problem is that Karen Gillan grew up during the era when there was no Doctor Who--it was canceled when she was 1 year old, they had a single TV movie when she was 9, with only a brief cameo by the Daleks, and then nothing until she was 18. But if that TV movie had been more successful in the US, the show would have been back as a BBC/Fox coproduction. And with Fox's involvement, there'd probably be 23 episodes per season with Daleks in a dozen of them. So, one little change, and, unlike Karen Gillan, Amelia Pond would have grown up watching first Paul McGann and then, say, Richard E. Grant, playing a character very much like the Doctor fighting some aliens very much like the Daleks, every other week. --Falcotron 10:22, May 18, 2010 (UTC)

A little point which may be relevant is that in the Eleventh Hour, the Doctor tells Jeff to delete his internet history in those words. This may be the writers' way of referencing the Doctor's revelation in Flesh and Stone that time can be unwritten. --MAX1592 00:55, May 19, 2010 (UTC)

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