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The Great Doctor Who Conspiracy Of The Fifth Season

Published Wed, 14 Apr 2010 12:00:36 -0500

Last updated Wed, 14 Apr 2010 15:32:23 -0500

Okay, if you haven't seen the first episode of the new Doctor Who season/series, you may be a bit flummoxed. But stick with it.

Bleeding Cool believes that Steven Moffat may have been a bit of a clever fellow. Playing a game of blind man's bluff with the audience – especially the online audience known to analyse every frame. So get ready, and we'll see how right we were ina few months. Okay…

1. Exactly When Is The First Episode, The Eleventh Hour Set Anyway?

There are three periods. Amy Year Zero, a young girl on her own in a house with a crack in the wall. Amy Plus Twelve, when the Doctor comes running back to save the day. And Amy Plus Fourteen when the Doctor comes back yet again, whisking Amy off with him. The viewer may be led to believe that either of the latter two are set in the present day. After all in Amy Plus Twelve there are decent Myth-brand laptops with wi-fi, and a plethora of smartphones, include Blackberries…

2. But What's With That Hospital Badge?

When the Doctor takes his look around the village green we zoom in on Rory's hospital pass. Issued 1990. Rory is a young man, early twenties at the most, he won't have been issued with a hospital pass twenty years ago. Some have explained this as Rory's birthday (nope, it says Issued:) or as a production glitch… but really? On detail-obsessed Steven Moffat's first episode seen in close-up? No chance.

3. And What About The Cars?

Yes, a look around the green gives other clues. All the cars are nineties-or-older models, with nineties-and-older number plates. Nothing is newer. Now this may be an out of the way village, but that's very unlikely. And this will have been a deliberate production choice. Nope, without saying it out loud, Amy Plus Twelve is set in or around the year 1992. Amy Year Zero is around 1980. And Amy Plus Fourteen around 1994.

4. Hang On, So What About The Laptops And Smartphones?

Indeed, what about them. What could have caused technology to advance so quickly, in the realms of telecommunication at least? And look, they've got Facebook too. Possibly some kind of space/time crack in reality? The kind that might run through a wall in a child's bedroom, "two parts of space and time that should never have touched, pressed together", possibly Amy herself, as this scene may indicate.

5. Oh Yes, I Forgot About That Bit.

Thought you did. And remember that scene set in Amy Year Zero with young Amy in her coat sitting on her suitcase looking up and hearing the TARDIS return that we thought was just a dream? What if it wasn't a dream? What if the Doctor did come back.. and this is all some kind of time-travelling ultra-complicated structure, the kind that Steven Moffat is famed for? Amelia meeting Amy meeting other Amies… how many are out there?

6. What Else Can We Be Looking Out For To Support Your Thesis?

Next week's episode sees The Doctor and Amy meeting the Daleks in war-torn 1940's Britain. And Amy should recognise the Daleks if she's from the twenty-first century as we presumed. And not from the twentieth as is now becoming more and more likely. Oh look at this teaser from Digital Spy…