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Post theories pertaining to current/upcoming Doctor Who episodes here. They should probably stay here until, say, a year after airing?

WARNING! THERE MAY BE UNMARKED SPOILERS!

Rassilon is the Big Bad

The Time Lords were doing fine during the Time War. However, the Time War Götterdämmerung was planned specificially for the Ultimate Sanction . The Time Lords can't simply lose to a bunch of saltshakers!

Everything, especially the destruction of Time Lord civilization under the Daleks, was Rassilon's fault to force the Time Lords to accept the Ultimate Sanction. Why did the Daleks, a bunch of saltshakers with plungers for arms and could not even move upstairs, destroy the superior Time Lord civilization to the point that Gallifrey has been reduced from Crystal Spires and Togas into a Crapsack World, a Landscape of Hell infested with horrifying Lovecraftian Eldritch Abominations of "Meanwhiles and Neverweres"? Somebody manipulated the Time Lords into deliberately losing. Why not send a more competent Time Lord to kill Davros instead of that wimp the Doctor? Because it was necessary to make the Daleks be aware of the Time Lord civilization and declare a total war of extermination so that Gallifrey becomes said crapsack world. 'Genesis of the Daleks? Just as planned. How did the pathetic saltshakers get hold of Time Travel tech? Somebody leaked it to them. How did Davros grow from a cripple who does not even believe in aliens, into the reality-conquering hypergenius? Because someone conveniently left some Time Lord schematics for him. The Daleks, despite their inferior flying saucers, managing to defeat Tardises which were literally made out of Alien Geometries? Somebody sabotaged the Tardises. And while by all possibility the Time Lords should have been winning this war, who comes up with a Class Z Apocalypse plan that would put Davros' reality bomb to shame? The Lord President Himself and the Founder of the Time Lord Civilization, Rassilon.

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That is why the Doctor was spot-on right about the Time Lords having become more evil than the Daleks. If Rassilon was the true mastermind of the War, then why? Because of his final plan, the Ultimate Sanction, repeating what the Great Old Ones have done in the previous spacetime continuum to become Eldritch Abominations: to sacrifice all of Time itself, essentially delete fucking everything, so that the Time Lords would Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence as God. To do what the Time Lords always had the ability to become: YHVH.

The progression of Time Lord civilization is reminiscent of the Technological Singularity. Basically, our technology and science would accelerate to the point that we could do "Godlike" abilities. But if our science becomes so Sufficiently Advanced that our smartphones could Magic anything, why still limit ourselves to frail, puny bodies prone to pain, death and disease? The logical solution, therefore, was to finally get rid of these fragile bags of meat and integrate ourselves into our technology to its full potential so that we may become Gods able to manipulate anything by our thought. Ever since Rassilon and Omega brought the Eye of Harmony into Gallifrey, basically putting a Negative Space Wedgie in a can which could only be possible through using some irrational Magic, the Time Lords have began to enjoy a Renaissance of scientific enlightenment where they invented the Tardis, each a pan-dimensional Yog-Sothoth where You Cannot Grasp the True Form and therefore is disguised as a police box, whose explosion can unmake the entire fucking universe as The Pandorica Opens demonstrates. Yet we have the Time Lords themselves in weak corporeal bodies that can be tortured for each and every regeneration, there are many scenes of the Doctor being locked up and helpless, and when a Time Lord misses his Tardis, he's completely helpless. If their technology was literally Reality Warper levels then why would they stick to frail bodies? Therefore, Rassilon has a good reason therefore to pursue the theorems that led to the Ultimate Sanction. But why can't he? Because the majority don't want to.

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Sacrificing the entirety of Time to achieve Godhood would offend the vast majority of Time Lords who believed in the Law of Non-Interference, and also tried to persecute Magic. Even the only upgrade they received from their technology was the Regeneration gene. The morality of the Time Lords would, of course, be represented by everyone's favourite chap with a police box: The Doctor. If the Doctor ever found out about the Ultimate Sanction, a massive rebellion will ensue. That was why Rassilon and the Omniscient Council of Vagueness that continued his work really needed the Doctor constantly preoccupied on that Insignificant Little Blue Planet Earth. The Doctor must be kept away from Gallifrey as much as possible through wacky adventures.

Keeping the Doctor on Earth, however, backfired. The Doctor became more and more fond and compassionate of humanity to the point that most of his Companions were human and sometimes female. This will set back the Ultimate Sanction by a long time. However, they also had a new puppet up their sleeve. To create ruthless monsters that will become so advanced that Gallifrey Itself shall fall. The ones whose chief instinct in life is to EXTERMINATE all that is not them at every point in space and time. The Daleks. Here we come to the most critical pivot of the Ultimate Sanction plan: Genesis of the Daleks

Before Genesis the Daleks were among the wimpiest of the enemies of the Doctor. They are limited to the static electricity provided by their city and they could not even climb stairs. However, each and every Dalek was a Determinator to Exterminate and dominate all the universe, which was why the pro-Sanction Time Lords took so much interest in them. Now, let us analyse Genesis. In the first scene, the Doctor is sent on a mission to kill Davros and prevent the existence of the Daleks once and for all. First, why the wimpy and weaponless Doctor instead of an elite assassin with lots of bombs, and second, this violated the Time Lord policy of non-interference. Said Time Lord interfered because he was a rogue Time Lord, and second, the Doctor was chosen because of the morality he developed during his adventures with humanity. The Doctor had the perfect chance to blow up the Dalek incubator, but responded that he has no right to take the life of a child just because he knows he will become a genocidal dictator. Because of this pivotal mistake, the creation of the Daleks was only delayed not erased, and with a revived Davros in stasis and who also developed a new obsession to surpass the Time Lords in sheer awesomeness.... oops.

Now we have Davros stealing the Hand of Omega, Daleks that levitate, Dalek flying saucers by the infinitillions, Dalek time travel, Daleks with Emergency Temporal Shift to always teleport so that you can never kill them, Dalekanium living metal that regenerates from time-traveler touch, and finally, the Time War Ragnarok where Gods battled Gods. Nice job, Doctor, the Daleks have ascended from laughingstocks to Machine-Gods that would make Unicron look like a junkyard. And meanwhile, Rassilon smirks "All According to Plan". The complete catastrophe of the Time War and the legions of Eldritch Abominations with their Armies of Meanwhiles and Neverweres will traumatize the Time Lords so much that they have no choice but to use the Ultimate Sanction and become Gods....

Well if it wasn't for the Doctor making an Ass Pull with the Moment and the time-lock that sealed Rassilon with the abominations for all eternity. But of course, the Time Lords being timelords have created backup plan after backup plan for this, which would explain why the Daleks always escaped somewhere else instead of being killed off once and for all.

Steven Moffat is in the employ of the psychiatry industry.

He's trying to warn kids about how scary life can get whilst giving them hope. The Eleventh Doctor is televised psychiatric treatment. (Televised psychiatric medication is theoretically healthier than drugs because one's knowledge of somebody else's dream can be managed through their own dreams, while many drugs linger in the body after being administered.

Why else would someone want to continuously scare kids week after week?

The job of the Eternal is to run away when the Doctor comes calling.

River Song would not allow Eleven to exterminate the Daleks (as Human!Ten did) because Amy Pond sees the new Daleks' value (If the Time Lords re-program the Daleks to work for Gallifrey, they can prevent the extermination of the Time Lord race). Daleks can be used for planetary defense.

This will end with the Doctor chasing down the Eternal armed with one of the Anti-Dalek guns, Amy in tow. There will be Scooby-Dooby Doors and Benny Hill will be playing in the background. It will be awesome.

It certainly makes the name "Eternal" make sense. Daleks want to be around forever, designating one to make sure they will all be around forever when they have a habit of driving themselves to extinction seems more than prudent. That was (more or less) supposed to be the point of the Cult of Skaro, too, in addition to their mandate of "think outside the box."

I support this idea, only because I really want to see the Supreme say "ALL DALEKS TO BATTLE STATIONS", watch the others preparing for a fight...and the Eternal running away screaming. Since he'd be specifically engineered for maximum cowardice, I expect some dialog like "RUN AWAY! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE! MOMMYYYY!". Tell me you wouldn't want to see that.

If that's the case, I bet the Stone Dalek was an Eternal. Hence why it begged for mommy.

The new Daleks are divided into five castes: the Strategist, the Scientist, the Drone, the Eternal and the Supreme. All the others seem relatively clear, but the Eternal's job description is rather vague. In fact, he is a living archive containing everything required to reconstruct the Dalek race from the scratch in a pinch. Whenever the Doctor makes appearance, the rest send the Eternal packing so that even if they get defeated, the Dalek Empire lives on. They showed some serious savviness in the Victory of the Daleks, so this kind of innovation would be very much in place.

The Doctor Who universe is a later version of the Eternal Sphere , and the Time Lords are 4-D beings who live there as admins.

This would also explain why he remains so insistent that there is no such thing as magic, despite occasionally encountering supernatural abilities and demonic beings- he knows that they're just using system code and from the "hell" Bonus Dungeon, respectively.

The Doctor felt that his colleagues were interfering too much in the history of the Eternal Sphere x.0, with the Time War being the last straw, and the lock on the Time War is basically keeping the other admins locked out of the program. For "The Big Bang", the Doctor knew from the original Eternal Sphere program that a system restore was possible, with the help of the minds of Eternal Sphere residents, but he had to go outside the lock he put to keep the other Time Lords/admins out and he wasn't sure if Amy's memories would give him the link he needed to get back into the universe.

The theme tune is currently missing the bass/beat because the master is gone

There may be something to this, considering the beat came back in Series 8-10, in which The Master returned.

It's obvious that part of the theme tune and the drumming in the Master's head is intentionally the same, so what if they actually ARE the same thing? during the intro (since the very beginning of the original show) we'd always see the time vortex. So it could of been the drumming was background noise in the Time Vortex simply being played along side the theme tune. It was stronger in the intro for the 9th and 10th Doctor as it was getting closer to that point in his timeline (after the Time War had ended and the Time Lords gone).

The Master will return in a new regeneration — played by David Tennant.

River probably has a picture ID for each of his reincarnations. It would make sense given how she's dating/married to the time traveler who also changes faces every so often. It's only good manners to give a full time history in case of accidental crossings. True, but River only met him once as Ten, but from the way she acted it seemed like she had seen him in that body before. She was surprised when he didn't recognize her. "The Husbands Of River Song" confirms that River has photographs of all the Doctors prior to Twelve, including the ones who never met her. Apparently she's kept tabs on all of them so she can secretly go joyriding in the TARDIS when he leaves it unattended.



The Master somehow finds a way to manipulate the DNA and/or physical appearance of his next regeneration, and takes on the appearance of The Doctor (pre-regeneration, because that's what The Master knows). He then masquerades as The Doctor, eventually meeting River Song in this form (explaining how she recognized him in The Library, even though that was the only time Ten had ever met her.)

A Time Lord will be forced to regenerate in order to evade capture.

Hmmm, you might have something there. It is often assumed that the reason River was imprisoned is that she killed the Doctor, right? Well, supposing he was about to be captured, but his persuers didn't know about the whole "regeneration" thing. So River shoots him in front of witnesses, and then somehow has the body moved before he can regenerate. Everyone assumes they just witnessed a murder, and she has to play along and plead guilty to protect him. This is jossed, it was actually faked using the Teselecta, a robot duplicate.



Because it would be cool!

Prisoner Zero will return.

He seems to know far too much about the Doctor, the Pandorica and the Arc Words for the next season (Silence will fall!). This suggests that their meeting in The Eleventh Hour was not the first from Prisoner Zero's point of view, not unlike River Song's backwards encounters with the Doctor.

It was never revealed why Prisoner Zero was imprisoned. Given Moffat's penchant for revisiting earlier stories (especially in The Pandorica Opens), this may end up being something very important. His designation of Zero suggests that he is the most dangerous prisoner the Atraxi have, and the fact that they were willing to destroy the Earth to kill him further suggests it.

It is possible that the Doctor will meet him again (along with Amy), and he will commit whatever act or horrible crime he ends up locked away for.

Also, his number. He has a low number like he was the first to be imprisoned where he was. And as i recall, that was on the other side of the time cracks. Someone so powerful that a race capable of Ret-Gone considered him enough of a threat to imprison him outside the universe? Sounds like prime Big Bad material to me. He may be a key player in an alliance of Beasts Below. (see WMG: The War is not over.)



The Doctor gave Missy her brooch on her daughter's wedding

In "The Witch's Familiar" Missy mentions that she received the dark star alloy brooch "when my daughter..." before being cut off by an approaching dalek. Out of his children, the Doctor canonically had at least one son, Susan's father. So it's entirely possible that Missy's daughter and the Doctor's son got married and the brooch was given during the wedding as part of something akin to a parental gift exchange.

While this would also mean that Missy would be a grandparent of Susan too, that does actually make sense, as Susan did know them even as a child, well enough to know them as a "stickler for rules" and receive a toy from them.

The brooch being given by a then close friend on such a happy, important occasion as two of their children marrying, also helps explain why, despite haven gone though multiple regenerations, deaths and even a stint as the amnesiac human Yana for a while, it's so precious that she's still gone through the hassle of keeping it.

The War is not over.

This is a very interesting theory, but the only problem is that the star whale is good. So why would it join a group that wants to destroy the universe? Lets say it runs of Dark Willow Logic. It senses all the pain and suffering and wants to end it. Unlike Dark Willow, who sensed the Earth's pain and suffering, it feels the pain and suffering of the universe. Using DWL, it decides to destroy it.

Jossed, Series 6 went in a very different direction.

Rather, it is just beginning. The TARDIS explosion was caused by the TARDIS' heart overloading from lack of use. The War is between the forces of Order and Chaos. On one side of the War are visible monsters who go to ruthless lengths to enforce order in the universe, such as the Daleks, Cybermen, and Atraxi. On the other side of the War are invisible monsters who work to promote chaos in the universe, such as Prisoner Zero, Omega, and the Starwhale. The TARDIS exploded because the Eleventh Doctor is an infinite power source. Eleven is a massive power source because the TARDIS converts his artron energy into temporal energy and stores it in the TARDIS' heart. The monsters who like chaos (who I shall henceforth call the Beast Below Alliance) want to use the TARDIS' pent up temporal energy to destroy the universe. The Alliance promoting order (who I shall henceforth call the Borg Alliance) want to stop the TARDIS from exploding by stasis-locking Eleven by imprisoning him inside the Pandorica. The Borg Alliance succeeds in stasis-locking Eleven and the TARDIS, but does so too late, so the TARDIS ends up burning up in a star-like explosion instead of completely exploding, and destroying the universe entirely. Eleven was wrong when he said that the memory of the universe was contained within the Pandorica's "restoration field". That "restoration field" was actually designed to spread the memory of the universe rather than create it. Eleven has spent the entirety of Series 5 generating his own brat pack of Universe Clones (or gametes), so he decides to end the first battle of the war with a compromise: He shall destroy the current Whoniverse, and procreate a new one using the brat pack. He erases his own existence in the process, and it is uncertain whether or not Amy will be able to remember him back into existence. To Eleven, this is an acceptable risk to take, because he secretly wants to kill himself anyway. Luckily, Amy does remember him back into existence. This means that the Doctor's previous incarnations were erased from time, and Eleven is Amy's imaginary friend made real by Amy's ability to imagine people and things into existence. This means that Amy is now responsible for the existence of Eleven's infinite power source.

The Seasons of Doctor Who are equivalent to deranged Shakespeare plays

During 2010, the Eleventh Doctor played a Romeo and Juliet subplot while the Tenth Doctor decided whether or not to be born as Hamlet. During 2011, Romeo broke up with Juliet.

Doctors Eight through Fourteen serve complimentary functions

The Eighth Doctor and his ensemble suffer at 8PM daily, the Ninth Doctor considers the implications of the damage caused by the Doctor and the Master in the Last Great Time War, the Tenth Doctor does his best to maintain his sanity after remembering the heartbreak he has experienced in his last few incarnations, the Eleventh Doctor barfs Theories of Everything at at least one imaginitive denizen of Real Life, the Twelfth Doctor attempts to cure the Eleventh Doctor's mental imbalance, the Thirteenth Doctor suffers in silence, and the Fourteenth Doctor breaks up the Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors, which cures the Twelfth Doctor's mental imbalance.

The Eleventh Doctor wanted to be dreaded

Watching Series 5 may expose fans to the Time Vortex. Schizophrenia may be the real-life counterpart of the Time Vortex.

Every near-human species from the Whoniverse, is a spiritual ethnicity of Real Life

That means the Reapers are still here, but are no longer angry. Why? iPhones are now easier to use.

The Twelfth Doctor watched "A Christmas Carol"

Eleven and Twelve had a Battle Cursed with Awesomeness.

There will be an alien enemy called the Fnarg.

Perhaps the term "fnarg" refers to either a twist on the word "hark" (sort of like Pinky's proclamations in Pinky and the Brain, or a nonsense word to represent the Holy Grail the surface of the ocean, and cusps in general).

And their group/organization/tribe/whatever will be called the "Series Fnarg". Just to poke fun at the fans.

"How could a fellow Gallifreyean stoop so low?" refers to...

Any Bad Time-Lord This teaser could just be a red herring; it could simply be one of the Doctor's lines where he laments about something evil another Time-Lord did. (Top guesses being the Master or Rassilon.)

The Master It hasn't been so long since the Master's last appearence, but he may always come back and taunt the Doctor.

Susan Foreman One of the other teasers had the message "Susannah's still alive", giving a chance that maybe the Doctor's granddaughter will finally return. Susan was of course the name she went by; but Susannah may be her full name, or perhaps she's changed it over the years. She snorted Nine and died of a Trope Overdose...

Whoever built The Lodger!Tardis In 'The Lodger' we were introduced to a new TARDIS, one which has also been seen in the Season 6 teaser trailer. To build such a machine you'd need to have lots of knowledge of time-machines, and its plausible to think this person may have been a Gallifreyean whose own TARDIS was destroyed in the War.

Romana

The Rani Another old baddie. Whatever she did must have been pretty bad, since the bar is already pretty low (what they tried to do to win the Time War or pretty much anything an evil Time Lord has done in the past). It may be whatever she did to keep from fighting in the Time War (even The Master had the decency and courage to fight), followed by escaping the destruction of their race. The Rani is also an Evilutionary Biologist with a penchant for experimenting on species. Human Resources would be a good way to get The Doctor into shock of that sort.



In The Brilliant Book of Doctor Who there were a series of teasers, the above message being one of them. This could refer to:

River Song is a Troper

Spoilers! It had to be said.

The Silents will meet the Weeping Angels.

And it will be the best staring contest / peek-a-boo game in history!

If Omega shows up again, he will be played by Peter Davison

The Silents exist in Real Life

Earth is the second most invaded planet in the universe

Only the second-most invaded planet? What planet could possibly be invaded more? Um... the one that was specifically called the most invaded planet in The God Complex? Apart from the 456 and Cell 115, did Torchwood have that many invasions? Most of it was flotsam and jetsam.



Look at all of Doctor Who, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures ... I rest my case.

Frobisher the Penguin will appear at some point in the future

We've had a full on Canon Immigrant with Kate Stewart, and if anyone else from the expanded universe shows up, Frobisher would be a likely candidate due to his popularity, having featured in the comics, novels and Big Finish.

We haven't heard the last of the Shakri

Their motives were ill-explained, we only saw one of their propaganda AI's rather than the Shakri themselves, and it's almost certain that the actual Shakri responsible are still alive, probably not having been on the ship that exploded (so, they will likely try again, or try to take out the Doctor), and they have ties to Gallifrey. They are definitely going to appear again, either in the season finale or next season. Especially now their creator is the showrunner.

The Great Intelligence is possessing Shalka!Doctor

He accidentally teleported into this universe and being weakened by the trip, the Great Intelligence was able to control him. After getting unpossessed he'll go mad from the revelation of the extinction of the Time Lords, and his own inability to return to his own universe, and eventually become the crazy Doctor who eventually regenerates into the Valeyard. How would that be for Continuity Porn

The Doctor did not "save" River out of love, friendship or kindness.

He did it purely as a way to get around the prophecy of the Silence.

River claims that it took a long time, but she finally persuaded the Doctor to tell her his name. In fact, the Doctor intended to, but not until right before she went to the Library. Soon before then, he introduced her to the Paternoster Gang and showed them all how to have their temporal conference call. He then took River to Darillion, told her his name, and gave her a Sonic Screwdriver with the neural relay in it, deliberately leading her to her death and the storage of her data ghost. He used the Paternoster Gang as bait, knowing that when they realized they were being hunted they'd contact River, and that River would get her ghost to Trenzalore where the First Question could be answered without giving anyone else access to his real name - this is why he refused to answer even with his friends' lives at stake. This done, he admits that leaving River as a half-alive remnant was not a kind thing to do and allows her to pass on. At a much later date, he'll leave the River Song grave secret entrance for his earlier self to use.

None of this is a particularly heroic thing to do, but if the Doctor's real name can be used to access his greatest secret, one that he's determined shall never be revealed, he may just go to these great lengths and cruel acts for what he sees as a greater good. And it wouldn't be the first time that the Doctor has manipulated friends or companions in a cruel way.

Moffat's successor will bring Amy and Rory back causing a Temporal Paradox using a villain (possibly the Valeyard).

It's hard to see Chibnall pull this, honestly.

And as Moffat stated would happen if another Temporal Paradox happened: New York will

Not all Time Lords can change gender when they regenerate.

And every Time Lord/Lady wants the one who can change gender when they regenerate

There will eventually be a companion called Annie.

Because we've already had Sarah Jane, Clara and Martha , there's only one more descendant left.

Ashildr and Clara are the same person

And possibly the first, according to her timeline.

Ashildr/Aashild is a dithematic Germanic name, like Oswald and Oswin (although the latter two are usually male names). They both use the same first element Ass- which means Divine.

Same hair color.

Immortality would explain the odd way not-Clara pops up at various timeline points (eg in Victorian times, and in the distant future).

The main issue with this idea is it doesn't really explain why the different Claras are unaware of one another.

Clara and Me will eventually forget the meaning of Clara's tattoo.

The Time Lords come after her.

The Quantum Shade (whatever it is) comes after her... perhaps through the Time Lords.

Tricked Out Time means the chronolock is eventually defeated (but Clara becomes mortal again as a result).

And so they will never voluntarily return to the extraction chamber. This opens up lots of possibilities...

If/When Clara returns in a later series, she'll be saved from permanent death by a Mire medical kit similar to Ashildr.

She'll return to the moment of her death via quantum shade and still die (thus fulfilling the fixed event in time), but Ashildr/the Doctor/someone will give her an adjusted Mire medical kit so that she's brought back to life and becomes immortal. We've already seen this loophole happen with River killing the Eleventh Doctor/his Teselecta in series 6, so it wouldn't be a stretch to do it again.

The Doctor is a Shobogan

The Shobogans were explicitly namedropped in Hell Bent , an episode where Gallifreyan outsiders seemed to treat the Doctor as one of their own. One old woman among them was implied to be related to him. For one reason or another, a Shobogan was accepted into the Time Lord academy but went rogue and stole a TARDIS. The rest is here.

"Heather" will return for Bill.

This one's actually confirmed! Heather returns for Bill in the Series 10 finale.

Bill will be at the point of death, with nothing the Doctor or anyone else can do to save her. But Heather will come out of nowhere at the last minute to make the same offer she did before, only this time Bill won't back down. So she'll survive in a fashion as part of a living liquid entity, forever.

The Doctor is a child of time itself.

As we have learned, the Doctor is not, strictly speaking, a Time Lord (fun fact - this troper's head cannon up to now had been "Rassilon has been a Evilutionary Biologist who genetically engineered Time Lords" - funny how you can guess some things) but was found near some sort of spatial anomaly. How about they were found there because they were born there, from the crack in space-time? That would explain both the immortality and the wanderlust, wouldn't it?