With only three days to go now until the Doctor Who finale I've been driving myself near crazy with trying to second guess what the Toclafane could possibly be.
So far all we know as definite facts are:
The Toclafane is a Gallifreyian name for a fictional fairy tale creature much like the 'bogey man'.
They're very pally with the Master. Very happy to do his bidding and follow his slightest whims.
He calls them his children and as some of them talk with child-like voices. (One of the voices is by the very same actress who played the Gelth way back in series one – now is that a clue too, or just lazy casting?)
They're psychopathic, have absolutely no moral compass whatsoever. (The Gelth were about killing people so they could inhabit their bodies).
There's an awful lot of them.
That they're desperate to escape the darkness and the cold and having to run, and run, and run... might be a clue. (The Gelth wanted to escape their own impending devastation. Clue or recycled plot device? Are the Toclafane talking about the end of the Universe?)
To know what they are would break the poor Doctor's hearts. Obviously a very big clue.
From the preview:
Martha and two other people have captured one of the Toclafane and are taking a look inside. (This makes me presume that whatever they see in there has to be easily recognisable. A tiny human perhaps, or a brain, or a Dalek, or a chocolate orange...)
That there's an awful lot of -spaceships or rocket missiles or something out in the middle of somewhere and it looks like the Toclafane are guarding them. The write up for this episode talks about the Master setting up a Time Lord Empire. So basically he's building himself an invasion fleet. Oooooh.
[[[He's nothing but ambitious that Master. His 'to do' list must read: 1. Defeat Doctor. (Check.) 2. Take over Britain. (Check.) 3. Take over Planet Earth. (Check) 4. Build invasion fleet. 5. Take over solar system. 6. Take over galaxy. 7. Take a little nap. 8. Take over universe.
He was absurdly high-achieving in his last 18 months. But then he did have the Tardis – maybe he did a bit of naughty criss-crossing of his own timeline to get more things done.]]]
Other things that may or may not be relevant:
During the Time War the Master met the Dalek emperor and said he was so scared he ran away and disguised himself as a human. (Although it's important to bear in mind – he is a liar and a sneak.) But like the Doctor in 'Human Nature' -throughout his human life he must have had subconscious memories of his former lives and was working away long term at something. I very much doubt it was to save the human race – maybe the main reason he couldn't get the spaceship working because deep down he didn't really want the thing to work. He was unknowingly self-sabotaging. After he regained his full memories and pulling out the little bit of circuitry from the computer and sneeringly proclaiming 'Utopia' before legging it to the Tardis may well have something to do with something. Otherwise that was way too big a loose thread to leave dangling...
What was Utopia about exactly? Merely a long distance signal that lies beyond reality calling out to humanity saying 'hey there, come here'. Sounds more likely to be a trap. Could the present day Master have been sending out a signal into the far flung future to lure the last of humanity into a trap. Sounds like a Paradox machine would come in handy there. Although that begs how the question of how the last of humankind got put into those floaty little spheres?
So. Speculation time:
We know that Cybermen are all about taking out brains and putting them into robot bodies. Maybe they're ultra-futuristic cybermen? Except cybermen were never that hot on emotions. And cybermen were so last year. Or maybe the Gelth managed to take over their brains after the fact? Nah. That's too far fetched. Why would they follow the Master? Cybermen or the Gelth. Gratitude for being rescued from the darkness? Seems unlikely. Also the Gelth wouldn't break the Doctor's hearts particularly.
What would break the Doctor's hearts?
Well that really only leaves us with Time Lords or Humans -or even a mix of ...both
That the Toclafane could be all that remains of the Time Lords -that would definitely be heartbreaking.
And say, talking as in literally - the remains – possibly of those that fell in battle/or got captured by the Daleks in the Time War and the Dalek Emperor did to them what he told the 9th Doctor he did to the humans in 'The Parting of the Ways' -dicing and slicing and pulping them to put them into shiny new housings to act as slave soldiers? That would certainly put the shits up the Master and make him want to run away just to escape a similar fate. It would also suit his purposes in the wake of the Dalek's total defeat to make use of this new slave race of Dalek-ised Time Lords to create his new Empire. That would be pretty upsetting to the Doctor. But then they aren't very Dalek like. Why would the Dalek emperor want childlike slaves – when loyal Dalek-like slaves would be of more use to him.
Ahh, Empire. Now that reminds me. The Empire state building. Now didn't the Doctor leave all that Dalek genetics lab equipment hanging around at the end of that episode? Along with big chunks of Dalektainium metal at the very top there. Not to mention an awful lot of bodies – human-pig hybrids, Dalek-human-time lord hybrids lying around (The Doctor never cleans up after himself – have you noticed that? He defeats the baddy and just leaps into the Tardis and he's off. That's what got him into trouble in the first series. After 'the Long Game' if only he'd hung around long enough to help explain things – all those hundred years of chaos that led to Satellite 5 becoming the Game Station need never have happened. All those loose ends Doctor, you've gotta learn to finish a job properly.)
I digress anyway -if the Master could've gone back to the Thirties he could have had a lot of fun with all what was left over, but we know the Tardis was crippled so he couldn't go back to that time. But then maybe he didn't even need to go back at all – maybe he met up with Dalek Caan, who after his quick emergency temporal shift and who had meanwhile had a change of mind over the whole 'racial purity of the Dalek race' thing, and come around to the thought that maybe Dalek-human-time lord hybrids were a good enough idea after all. But say, even better remade in a nice compact squishy Dalek form and especially placed as the chewy centre in a new improved crisp outer shell? Deliberately genetically engineered to be kept at a retarded level of development in order to make them easier to manipulate? Who better to team up with to achieve that aim than a evil timelord rather than the annoying goody-two shoes one? Such creatures would be certainly be inclined to follow a timelord as their master.
Although that doesn't explain why these particular Toclafane should be afraid of the dark and the cold... and what the drift thing was that the Master had to generate to bring them through?
Argh. See what i mean about driving myself crazy...
Oh well, only two and a half days to go now....
No comments:
Post a Comment