Tackling the unanswered questions in Doctor Who

WARNING: contains some real, but mostly pretend, spoilers written by someone with ill-informed opinions and no knowledge of anything related to Doctor Who prior to Christopher Eccleston. Welcome to Nerd-bait.

I love the Steven Moffat/Matt Smith series of the Doctor – I really do. Not just because Smith’s mad, frantic childlike Gallifreyan is a welcome relief from Tennant’s self-assured family-friendly version, but because the stories actually make sense.

Moffat introduces a threat, then outlines the rules to that threat and finally manages to resolve it with a brilliant solution that works within the parameters of those rules. Russell T Davies would bring in some technicoloured daleks and then give the Doctor a hitherto unseen power with which to win. Or just a bigger weapon.

The only problem is, although I love guesswork and speculation as much as the next Lost geek, Moffat has loaded his two-part series opener with so many unanswered questions and tidbits of foreshadowing, that grasping any real facts about what’s to come is as fruitless as trying to make sense of Matt Smith’s Bo Selecta face.

Like meeting those dementor-like villains, The Silence, I have come away with a head full of suggestions and no real memory of what it is I’m supposed to be questioning. So, here are a few reminders of what needs to be explained in forthcoming episodes, along with some cleverly-deduced and well-reasoned answers.

Who is the little girl?


With all eyes on the young ‘un who begins to regenerate Timelord-style at the end of the two-parter, it seems safe to assume that she is the time-travelling daughter of on-again/off-again pregnant Amy Pond right? And then she is sure to grow up to be the cougar-like River Song. How do I know? Is it because of the double-edged reference to her “old fella” (apparently about the Doctor but more likely about daddy Rory)? Is it the fact that the little girl and River are never seen together, because this is a paradoxical no-no in the Timelord world? No, it’s because ‘Pond’ is kind of like ‘River’ and, as the Doctor asks in the last series, “When is a Pond not a Pond?”. Right? Exactly.

So why doesn’t grown-up River remember what she did as a little girl? Oh…well…because of time mind-wiping stuff involving…crossed vortexes and…er…Cybermen.
Who kills the Doctor and why?


We initially see the little girl in the astronaut suit – the same one that pops out of the ocean and kills the future Doctor at the start of the series opener. And, following the logic above, River is sure to have some connection to the suit. Considering she is in prison for killing “the best of men”, it’s a no-brainer – that’s River Song in that suit, that is, and no mistake. This is why the Doctor lets her kill him. Because he loves her. Or something.

And why is she killing the Doctor in the first place? Oh…well…because of paradoxical alternate timeline stuff…involving another Timelord and…Tardis energy.
What the hell is Rory?


So wait, Rory was a living person, but then he became a plastic auton thing that has lived for 2000 years….and he acts exactly the same way? Shouldn’t he be mad from boredom. Or, I don’t know, wise or something? But then there’s that tricky line he says to the Doctor about how his 2000-year existence is a “door that he can keep shut”. It seems obvious to me that he is the embodiment of two Rorys, occupying the same space but travelling along two different timelines – one is normal and one is the waxwork version. This would also explain why Amy is preggers one minute, and do-able again the next.

So why are their two alternate timelines occupying the same space? Oh…well…because of a paradox that is created by…er…a previous Doctor. No wait, a future incarnation of the Doctor. But still played by David Tennant. Twist!
Who was that woman in the hatch?


Those playing close attention to the second episode will remember a mysterious woman opening a hatch in a door, peering at Amy and saying “No, I think she’s just dreaming”. Who is it? That’s easy – it’s a Timelord/possible time-travelling alien who may or may not be Romana, who is the Doctor’s granddaughter from a previous series (which I haven’t seen because those episodes are all old, innit). And what does she mean about Amy dreaming? Well, it seems pretty likely that Romana-ish is searching through a future Amy’s memories and, in this instance, she just mistakes the situation for a time when Amy is really asleep and dreaming.

And why is she searching through Amy’s memories? Oh…well…because Amy holds the key to saving the Doctor…and the universe from…er…an evil version of…K9.
Why is Amy so important?


All throughout the first series, it has been suggested that Amy is more than just a useless scream-happy Tardis plus-one. For example, she didn’t get sucked into that crack thing in her room, and she did something at the end of the last series that I’m sure was pretty mysterious. And the Doctor is always checking her out and stuff. So why is she important? Well, taken all of the above into account, it’s obviously because she gives birth to the next generation of Timelord, which grows up to be River Song, but is also a clone of the Doctor, who can keep on regenerating indefinitely (thus working around the ‘Timelords can only regenerate 12 times’ problem for franchise fans). But of course, I don’t need to spell that out for you.

So why does Amy give birth to the next generation of Timelord? Oh…well…because her and Rory do the sex thing while travelling in the Tardis through a…wormhole…and therefore conceive a…sonic…baby. Thing.
See? It’s all pretty obvious if you pay enough attention to the clues. I’m sorry Mr Moffat but you have to try much harder than that if you want to leave me guessing.